Proper 9 – Series B 

 

Jesus sends me to be part of saving the world? Does this call into question His wisdom and omniscience? Did he really mean me? Doesn’t he know that not even my high school classmates thought I would succeed?  And these were my friends. He wants me to be an emissary to people I don’t know? He wants me to bring this message to people, all of them, any of them?

Now perhaps you are already finding inside my comments above a number of things to which you object. Jesus has not sent me to the whole world, perhaps the scope of my ministry needs to be scaled back a little bit, but in truth, if you shrink it down to one person, even a person I love, even my own child, it might get a little less bad, but it still doesn’t get to be good. I could no more instill faith in a single human being than I can make them taller, change the color of their eyes, or give them a beautiful voice. At best I could help them fake it, platform shoes, contact lenses, and let them lip sync to some real singer. But it would simply be fakery. Indeed, when I think about this and put a single face on my ministry, a child, a neighbor, a spouse, a friend, it almost gets to be more terrifying. Jesus you want me to make a difference in his or her life? I am not even sure that I can make a difference in my own life.