Richard Davenport
July 6, 2025 – Proper 9
Luke 10:1-10
It must have been a strange time for the disciples in those days. I mean, here’s Jesus. Here’s the guy you’ve been waiting for, the guy everyone’s been waiting for for thousands of years. He’s just right there. He’s a celebrity of sorts, but it’s a bit different. He isn’t like a rock star or movie star or something like that, who just breezes through town on some business or other. He does move around a lot, but he often stays a while in the places he visits. He meets the people. He lives among them for a while and helps out where he can.
The only thing really working against him is that he doesn’t live in the modern world. He doesn’t have the internet, TV, or even radio around. The only way anyone’s going to know he’s in town is when he shows up, or maybe if people are actually using their own two feet to run around and spread the word. Still, he’s a big enough deal that he often gets pretty big crowds even when he shows up unannounced.
That’s not even the best part though. The greatest celebrity in the world, the greatest celebrity ever, wants you to hang out with him, not just for an afternoon, but every day. Thankfully, your life is such that you can leave everything behind and walk around with him wherever he goes. You end up being something of a roadie. You aren’t the one everyone comes out to see, but you get to be a part of everything he does. You get to help out. If he sets up shop in town and people need healing or whatever, you can help them find their way to where he is. You can help pass out food when he feeds people. You can help direct and manage the crowds that flock to him. And then there are all of those in-between times, when there are no crowds. He shows you amazing things. He teaches you things you realize you probably ought to have known, but for some reason never really figured out. You aren’t really sure how he’s going to go about doing this “saving the world” thing, but that’s ok. He’s the boss. You don’t have to worry about those things.
Then he gets the idea that he wants to send you out to all of the towns in the area. You get to be the advance team. You get to be the one to tell everyone else about the greatest celebrity ever. That…great, right? That should be exciting, but it just…well…isn’t. It feels more like a chore than a privilege.
Maybe there’s a difference between the disciples in the Gospels and disciples today. I mean, look at what the disciples in the Gospels got to do. They got to cast out demons! They got to heal sick people! How cool is that? Confronting demons is probably not something people do for fun, but it might be a little different when you know with certainty you can drive them out and that you’re helping people when you do it. Healing sick people of all kinds of diseases and injuries, who wouldn’t want that?
These days you don’t see much of that kind of thing. I mean, there are the quack faith healers like Benny Hinn, but anyone who spends much time in the Scriptures or who watches them at work isn’t going to be fooled by them. That isn’t to say people can’t be healed through the grace of God, even miraculously, it just isn’t happening through folks like that.
Demons? Well, that’s a trickier subject. The Bible doesn’t say they’ve gone away and ceased tormenting people. Jesus just says here that Satan no longer can stand in God’s court. He no longer has the authority to accuse anyone in front of God. He’s been cast down, never to enter God’s presence again. There are those who say they’ve seen and dealt with demons. Pentecostals and those of that sort who hop around and yell about the gifts of the Spirit often talk about demons, but even the Catholic church, which doesn’t really go with the Pentecostal stuff at all, still has exorcists on staff.
Not many people can claim to do any of those things these days. That makes the prospect of going out and spreading the word of the coming celebrity a little more mundane. Though, to be fair, there are some other important differences as well. God doesn’t often ask disciples these days to go wandering from town to town, staying in strangers’ houses, eating whatever people give, carrying no cash or even spare clothes. A lot of people would balk at that. Still, the disciples in Jesus’ day who did, got to see God at work, not just on behalf of the sick or possessed, but for them directly. He sent them out and they were fed. He sent them out and they had places to sleep. He sent them out and they saw first hand how God worked both through them and for them.
Perhaps that’s the problem. Few people will have that same kind of experience. I can’t speak with divine authority in this particular matter, but I rather doubt anyone here will be casting out demons anytime soon. I doubt any of you will lay hands on someone and miraculously heal their wounds or cure an incurable disease. The people I know of who claim those kinds of abilities, assuming they actually even able to do what they claim, are more interested in their own reputation and fame than sharing the good news of Christ crucified.
It just isn’t quite as exciting. I mean, it’s nice that God doesn’t call us to leave everything behind and wander around with nothing but the clothes on our back, but that doesn’t motivate people to do what he asks either. Sent into the community, sent among your friends, your family, among the people hurting, the people who trust their own strength, the people who struggle to know what is right and what is wrong. But that doesn’t have quite the pizzazz that casting out demons does.
For a time the 72 are apostles. They are sent out into the surrounding communities to share the message that the savior of the world has come. They are sent to share the message that the long, long wait is finally over. After a while they return. They return to being disciples, to following Jesus and learning from him. They have quite a bit more to learn. They will be sent out again after he ascends, but they’ve gotten a feel for what it means to go out into the world. But they aren’t done learning. In truth, they never will be, but there are times when sharing the message is their primary duty.
The same is true for us. We hear the directive to go and share the gospel and it all feels rather mundane. It’s hard to muster the excitement for something like that. It’s just so ordinary and so we don’t bother.
The disciples share their experiences with Jesus when they return. They marvel at how demons are subject to them, but Jesus doesn’t consider this a huge accomplishment. This isn’t what they should really be excited about. Rather, the knowledge that their salvation is secure and their sins are covered by Christ is the greater prize, one they have already received. The healing they do, the exorcisms they perform, these are all good things, helpful things. These are things that will make peoples’ lives better and show that God cares about them, but none of those things will save them and grant them eternal life.
This is the great bait and switch that Satan has been using since the beginning. The things that sound good aren’t necessarily the best things. The Gospel message doesn’t have the flash and flair of an exorcism. It doesn’t have the immediate and obvious result that a miraculous healing does. From a human point of view, it’s just words. Yet, as Christians, we know these are words with power. They have power because they come from the source, from the Creator, from the one who brought the world into being using nothing but words. The same Creator who caused light to be, simply by saying, “Let there be light,” now says, “I forgive you. I love you,” and those words carry the very same power, the power to create and recreate.
The mission, the duty, the privilege, has come to us because others carried out before us. Others brought the Gospel to us, the message that God has paid the penalty for our sins and redeemed us. We, like the apostles who came before us, are able to rejoice that our names are written in the book of life.
You don’t need the ability to cast out demons or to heal people of sickness or injury to give them the one thing that will actually change their lives forever. Our reluctance to share the message and to carry out the duties given to us comes from our own failure to see what we have already received and to look to what God has done for us in rescuing us from eternal darkness and making us his own.
Rejoice that you have been forgiven. Rejoice that God loves so much that he gave the life of his Son to save you. Rejoice that eternal life is yours now, through Christ’s sacrifice. Rejoice that you have been given the duty and privilege of sharing the message that there is a God who loves his people. Rejoice that, though many will hear and reject, some will hear and believe. Rejoice that God sees fit to use you to bring this priceless gift to the world.
The Pentecost season shares with us what it means to live as the people of God here and now as we wait for Christ’s return. God has given us the message that the savior has come and has triumphed over sin and death. Those who are crushed down under the weight of their sins, those who shiver in terror at the coming end and the darkness that lies beyond it, are waiting for the message. They are waiting to hear that there is a God who loves them. They are waiting to hear that he forgives them and that he gives them new life.
You have been given a gift. It is not one that brings you fame and recognition and it is good that it doesn’t, because you cannot save. But you know the one who can, the God who loves you more than anything else in creation. Share the message of his love, and with you will share forgiveness and life.