By The Rev. Canon Joanne Davies, Oblate, SSJD
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few … “
There are so many people out there needing Love, sustenance, home, and health. Let us hear Christ’s call…
What is God’s calling…to us. How are we chosen. How are we Jesus’ disciples?
At the heart of the mission Jesus shares for these first disciples, the apostles, were three simple practices. Firstly, they would draw their listeners into communities—small pockets of foundness within God’s wholeness. Secondly, they were to be generous (“You received without payment; give without payment”). And finally, they were to share hospitality, both by receiving it from their hosts in the villages in which they would stay, and by practicing it in their demonstration of God’s welcoming, inclusive, liberating, and restoring reign.
Jesus stressed that they were to begin with Israel. Even though we know Jesus later sends disciples to the everyone. The heart of Jesus life believed the people of his ancestors knew the divine covenant called them to belonging in the divine presence and community. Many would respond to the apostle’s words and presence, readying them to go and be a blessing to all people.
Essentially, then, the apostle’s task was to let lost people know that God had come to find them and that they could participate in their own being found and in the being found of others.
“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town”
This verse, part of Jesus instructions to the disciples just a few verses past today’s Gospel reading, is the verse my supervisor, during my education as a Chaplain, taught us to memorize. It’s not about disregard … it’s about perseverance and the understanding that our calling from God is to care with a certain amount of detachment, otherwise every visit would be about me and the pursuit of feeling good, …and I might just give up without any pondering or discernment… and my time with someone would certainly not be about the healing ministry. It would not be about drawing people to know home with God, home with Love. Shaking the dust off my feet meant I was learning, growing, contemplating and listening to God with me… and to keep going where God wants me.
And It meant I was learning what sharing my faith as “being with” someone really meant. Like Sarah…I hoped visit from my Joy:
“God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”
When you are a hospital Chaplain the subject of what to do if someone doesn’t want to see us, or if staff are wary of our visiting keeps arising. Along with the waves of low self-esteem and uncertainty that would pass through our spirits after a day on the unit came the memories of patients greeting us with silence or dismissal and staff, social workers in particular, acting as gatekeepers, suggesting we were not appropriate for visit. If this indeed is our vocation, if we are responding to God’s call to our place in the world, chosen to care, for prayer, for compassion, for the healing ministries we also have to detach from this sense of not being wanted and learn it’s about being with, not about feeling wanted. I even had a patient tell me, as I introduced myself, that her husband had already donated to the church. Thanks for coming by. We appreciate your work. I was dismissed! Though by that time I had learned how to respond. The moment was not about me working out my feelings, possibly my hurt feelings, that could come later with a spiritual director or trusted companions. It was about faith and perseverance to respond to my calling. And more so about the person before me. How is their spirit? Are they wrapped with love to help them cope? They also have every right to not want me there… and yet because the visit is about their spiritual grounding, not mine, I am responsible as a Chaplain to check in on them. In the clinical world the term is assessment, but being stubbornly not fond of this clinical view, as it did not seem to understand layers of personhood and revelation, and sharing joy, I always thought of it as a moment to listen and take note of what I can truly hear of the person right then and there. To respect their being as God’s own. And to briefly, gently share with them what I hear them tell me. To mirror for them. To help them see where they are and eventually, developing more over time, what they need to heal. The response, the persons own to my telling, shows me whether they agree with me or not, revealing more about them and sometimes even revealing a question they have about their healing journey. Something for them to ponder, to begin their journey. And along the way, a question I ask is, may I return? I honour their answer for the time. I eventually learned to sometimes to go back even when I’d been told they didn’t want to see me …if I heard something had changed and they were struggling with their healing journey.
My vocation is to return. I accept this as my instructions I follow after shaking off the dust. Everyone is always welcome to turn to God, to find home on their sacred journey. The healing ministry I am called to is about ensuring people of their invitation to foundness, to whole health and to their belovedness.
All we have heard in our readings speak in some way about God knowing God’s own. God chooses people to partner with, to know they are are God’s beloved, and to experience God’s promise, God’s presence, and God’s love. But, this choosing is not for the sake of those who are chosen. God’s choice of Abraham and Sarah, of the Israelites, of the disciples, and of all who follow the way of Jesus is for the sake of those who will come to know God’s grace and love through them. The call for us as Christians is to be someone who responds to God’s choosing by working with God to live as Christ and to see Christ, God’s own, in the other. Living well the reign of God. But, if we accept God’s invitation, God’s choosing of us, we have to know that this won’t always be easy. This is inevitable because following Jesus’ way means often being out of step with the politics, the leaders, even with some ordinary people around us. But it also means that whenever we find ourselves being misunderstood or questioned or challenged, we live and share and demonstrate God’s love and grace through our words and actions.
~with thanks to John van de Laar, his words and inspiration.