Homily 15th Sunday Ordinary Time Year B - Summoned and Sent

Homily (Sermon) – Summoned and Sent

The Readings for Sunday 15th July 2012  or the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B:
First Amos 7:12-15
Psalm Psalm 84
New Ephesians 1:3-14
Gospel Mark 6:7-13
[These readings can be found at www.universalis.com for the next few weeks.] 

At the end of this Mass you will be sent into the world. You will be sent to announce the Gospel of the Lord, to glorify the Lord. As followers of Christ we come to this church to worship Him, to love Him, to receive Him into our lives. We listen and learn from His teaching in scripture, we fuel our bodies and souls from the Eucharist. We prepare ourself to do His work, to live our Christian lives. Then we are sent into the world as the twelve are summoned and sent in today's Gospel.

How prepared do you feel, right now, to go.

You should go in pairs, so you can support each other, protect each other, one working one praying. You should take very little, the clothes your wearing are fine, you don't need any more. Don't take money, leave your credit cards behind, you will be provided for, and if you are not then leave, move on. Tell people to correct their ways, fight evil when you find it, cure the sick. Are you ready to do this?

Think how the disciples felt, they had come to Christ to learn, and now after only a few months with Him, they are about to leave him for a short time to do the work He has been doing, they are being sent out by Christ with His authority. Fear and terror mixed with Christ's peace and grace. Divine gifts and human weaknesses.

We are told in only one small sentence about their successes, they cast out many devils and anointed and cured many. We can only assume we are missing out on many stories similar to those we hear of throughout the Gospels, Acts and the letters of the New testament.

It's difficult to compare ourselves to these men. To the men who walked with Christ, ate with Christ, who were chosen by Christ to build his Church and teach his message. But that is us! We are called to walk with Christ, to eat with Christ and to teach his message. As Paul tells the Ephesians and as Paul tells us today, each one of us, every one of us, have been chosen by God.

He choose you! He choose you to be set apart from the world but still very much in it. He choose you to be spotless, not through your actions but through his forgiveness. He choose you, to be His daughter or His Son. He choose you to live with Him in love.

You are part of Gods plan, you are to play a part in his Glory. You have heard the message of Christ, a message of love, repentance and redemption.  To believe in this message, is to accept Gods choice, to realise that you are special in the eyes of God, that you have been called to serve.

Our world is in need of our teaching, our love, our service. There are many out there who don't understand our Church, who have never heard in their hearts the call of Christ. There are many out there who are in need of healing, body and soul. There are many out there who need feeding, who need to be cared for, who need to be loved. Christ has built an eternal Church, towering throughout the ages, blazing with the lives of the saints, to continue His Work and His mission. Each generation passing His Church to the next. Today, you are that Church, how are you going to serve? What is Jesus asking you to do?

I am not asking you to walk from town to town preaching on street corners, unless you believe that's your calling. I am asking that you consider what your calling is, what Jesus is asking you to do. Being part of Christ's Church is about all of your life, everything you do, everything you say. He has summoned you, He is sending you, what is he asking you to do?

As we hear in the Psalm, “The Lord will make us prosper and our earth shall yield its fruit. Justice shall march before Him and peace shall follow in his steps.” Is it time to ask ourselves and ask our Lord in prayer, where will following those steps of peace lead us? Where should we march?

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About the Author - Deacon John Scanlon
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Screwtape, Acts, and our Church rooted in eternity

Last night at our journey in Faith group I was talking about the early Church and how the Apostles started to build the Church we are part of today. During the discussion I was reminded of one of my favourite books, CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. In this wonderful little book CS Lewis reveals to us a collection of demonic letters from a devil, Screwtape, to his nephew, Wormwood, who is just starting his demonic career. In one of the letters Screwtape describes the church as seen from hell and he describes it like this:

“I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners.”

We seldom see and often miss the greatness of our Church. It's all to easy so see the sinful nature of ourselves and see that as our Church. But that picture is just wrong, we should see the great work passed on to us by the Apostles, the early Christian’s, the shepherds who have over every generation built our Church into God's saving victory, Christ's Body, an eternal and wonderful movement. We are part of that, we should be proud.

I have two recommendations for your spiritual reading over the next couple of weeks. Neither is that long and both are wonderful insightful books. The first is the book of Acts, you can read it cover to cover in a few hours, it's the 5th book in your Bibles New Testament and is written by Luke as a second volume to his Gospel. It tells the story of the church in it's first days, months and years. We know many of the stories from Acts from our Sunday liturgy, but you lose the big picture sometime if you don't read the book as it was written. Please, pick it up and read it, you will, I promise, be amazed by the story of faith and love found in those pages.

My second recommendation is the book that prompted this post, The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. It's great fun, but really insightful. It was really helpful to me in my early days as a Christian. It helps us understand the Theology played out on a personal and eternal scale.

I am sure you can find it at most bookshop and I have seen it at quite a few second hand book shops. You can also get it of course on Amazon in paper or Kindle format Link to The Screwtape Letters on Amazon.co.uk

Please, if you do take me up on these recommendation let me know how you get on.