Robert Barron - The Earliest Moments of the Church
Peace be with you. Friends, it's the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, and our gospel is from the 6th chapter of Mark. Mark the first Gospel, this rather spare, understated Gospel. But gosh, every part of it, precisely for that reason, is worth paying attention to. The one for today is Jesus sending the 12 out on mission. And here's why I particularly love this. We are at, if you want, the very earliest moments of the Church. In a way it's the pre-Church because we're prior to the death and resurrection of the Lord and the sending of the Spirit. You might say, after that, after Pentecost, you have the Church in the full sense on display.
So we're like in a pre-Church, the earliest moments, but for that very reason, it's really important for us to pay attention to what the Lord tells them. I might've told this story before, but gosh, it haunts my mind. Cardinal George's last speech to the priests of Chicago when he said, "Remember, brothers, in the early Church, there was no Vatican, there were no dioceses, no chancery offices, no parishes, no Catholic schools, no Catholic hospitals". In other words, none of the institutional apparatus of the Church was around. "However," he said, "there were evangelists". And his point, which is, gosh, it's so well taken, so important. Can we forget sometimes what we are primarily about as we're preoccupied with the institutional structure of the Church?
Now, another reason I personally find this very compelling is Jesus summons the 12, so his 12 Apostles, and sends them out. Well, as a bishop, I'm a successor to the Apostles, however unworthy I am. Of course, they weren't all that worthy. Whatever we say, then we think, "Well, yeah, look at the Apostles in the scriptures". But the 12, the 12, well, these are the first bishops. What does Jesus tell them to do? He doesn't talk about chancery offices. When I think of my work, maybe what immediately comes to my mind is the chancery and administrative responsibilities and raising money and all those good and important things. But what does Jesus tell the first bishops, the first 12?
Well, let's notice a couple things. He began to send them out two by two. We are an apostolic religion, period. Yes, they had their kind of intimate time with the Lord where they listened to him and they were with him and they attended to him, but then he sends them. In fact, apostello in Greek means to send. So an apostle is someone sent out. It's a very basic dynamic now of the Church at its best. It doesn't hunker down. It doesn't settle for the status quo. The Church goes out, sent by the Lord. There's a sort of healthy restlessness about the Church at its best, never satisfied with what we have, always looking for more, going to get more people for Christ. I like that holy restlessness that should mark the Church.
Notice too, he sends them out two by two. Christian religion is never this sort of lone ranger business. It's a corporate identity. So even as they go out on mission, they go out two by two, they're connected to each other and they're connected through each other to Christ. It's never just a, "I'm the one guy, I'm the apostle". It's two by two corporately as a mystical body the Church is sent. But now listen, he sends them and what's the first thing we hear about their mission, what the Lord wants them to do? Listen. "He gave them authority over unclean spirits". Okay, you think of the work of the Church, you think of the work of a bishop. I bet for most of us, what does not leap to mind is expelling demons, but there it is.
The first thing he gives them is authority, mind you. So he's not sending them out with nothing, equipped with nothing. "Hey, guys, you're on your own. Do the best you can". No, no. He gives them a share in his own exousia. That's the lovely Greek word there, which means from the being of. See, Jesus speaks with authority because he speaks out of his own divinity. Well, we Christian ministers, do we believe this? We bishops and priests. We're sent out, clothed in that authority. To do what? Spiritual warfare, spiritual battle.
Now, I know, you're thinking right away of The Exorcist, and yes, there are those very dramatic instances of demonic possession, but let's face the devil, the dark powers, they manifest themselves in all kinds of more subtle ways. Wherever you find accusation, wherever you find division, wherever you find cruelty, wherever you find hatred, wherever you find temptation, that's the dark power, that's the devil. The Church's first job, its ministers are clothed with authority to deal with this demonic power. I just wonder, again, everyone, do we think of that naturally and immediately as the work of the Church? We should. Do we see ourselves engaging in spiritual warfare?
Look at every single story of the hero. There's always a battle with the dragon. That's an old name, by the way, for the devil, draco in Latin, the dragon. Yep, we've been given authority. We should use it. But then listen, "He instructed them to take nothing for the journey, but a walking stick. No food, no sack, no money in their belts". Now I think about this, I still travel a lot in my work to give talks and go to meetings and do various things. So I go to airports all the time. I couldn't imagine arriving at an airport without a suitcase and without a wallet. No money, no credit cards and no suitcase. I'm just going to go. I mean, would I have that kind of confidence? But that's how he sends the first bishops out.
You know who imitates this, see a lot of the saints up and down the ages, Francis of Assisi tried to live this way and his first followers lived this way. Thousands came to join Francis, and they didn't have dormitories or monasteries. He said, "Oh, there's the woods. Go live in the woods trusting in God's providence". Think of the stories of St. Brendan and those Irish monks that would just get in a boat and they'd drift out to sea. And wherever they happened to land, that's where they'd build their monastery. Trusting, trusting in God's providence. Well, how important it is, everybody, for the life of the Church. Do we have that confidence or do we rely way too much on our institutions to give us that kind of support and that confidence? Do we trust? Do we trust in the Lord as we do our work?
Just recently, in fact, this very room where I'm recording these words, this young man who's a Jesuit novice came and he was on his pilgrimage. The Jesuit Order, I think, is beautiful. They compel their novices to do this. Give them a little bit of money and maybe one bus ticket and they say, "I want you to get from point A to point B". And the idea is you don't have money in your belt. You don't have a credit card. You're relying upon the providence of God to lead you to people that will help you. Well, that does something to your soul, when that gets deep down inside of you, that kind of trust, that kind of risk. Well, that's how he sends the first bishops out on their journey. I love this. They were, however, to wear sandals, so no money but sandals. Why? Because you're going to be walking, because I'm sending you out.
I don't want you sitting around. I want you moving from place to place. That's very important. Sandals, yes, and also a walking stick. Now, think about this. First of all, practically, if you're walking, especially in the rough roads of the ancient world, this was a very valuable thing to have if you're going to be a walker. But there's something else here. Think of Moses with his staff. Think of Aaron with his staff. Think even in this mythic context, someone like Gandalf with the staff. The staff in the ancient world was a symbol of power and authority. Once again, the Lord is not sending them out unprepared. They don't have a bit of the power and authority and security of the world. That's true. That's stripped away.
But by God, they have the authority of the Gospel. They have the authority of Christ. I do wonder, friends, at times, if we leaders of the Church, forget this, forget the... and I don't mean authority in some oppressive, I'm going to tell you what to do sense. I mean the spiritual authority. I love Spielberg's movie about Lincoln, and of course Lincoln is famously humble figure, but there's a scene where he's being challenged at the end of the movie and because it's Lincoln, this humble man, it has so much more power. He rises from the table and he says, "I am the President of the United States of America, clothed in immense power," and he was making a particular point there. But that scene stays in my mind.
I wonder, do we leaders of the Church claim that same sort of power and again, not bossing other people around power. I mean spiritual power. That's what that staff symbolizes. Do we claim it and do we use it against the dark powers? That's how the Lord sent them out. Now listen, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet and testimony against them". Did the Lord know from the beginning that some people would reject the gospel? Yes. Does he want all to be saved? Yes. And he sends, "Go out to all, go to the end of the world, declare to everybody". But does he know, just as he was opposed, they would be opposed? We should not be surprised, we proclaimers of the gospel, that we will meet with opposition.
Now, if you doubt me on this, go anytime of the day or night on the internet and start talking about religion. You will see in very short order the opposition to the gospel. But I love how, I don't know, kind of insouciantly, he talks about this. "So when people reject you, shake the dust off your feet and on you go". In other words, don't obsess over that. "Why, why are they rejecting"? Jesus was rejected. You'll be rejected. It is par for the course. When the Church's preoccupation becomes everybody's got to like me, then we've lost our way. Period. End of argument. If our goal is, well, and let's make sure everybody gets along and no one finds us offensive, we've lost the theme. We are not the Church. Opposition will come, of course.
Now this is how it closes. So they went off with these instructions and what did they do? Preached repentance. The first word out of Jesus' mouth in Mark's Gospel is metanoiate, which means repent. Change your mind, change your life. Turn around. It certainly is not, "Hey, you're all doing great. I'm okay. You're okay. Everyone's good". That is not the Gospel. The first word out of Jesus' mouth is repent. The first thing he tells them to do is to preach repentance. Are we calling people, I mean we leaders of the Church, we bishops, are we calling people to repentance? That's our first task.
There's a great story about Dorothy Day. So toward the end of her life, she died 1980, and this is 1976, the year of the Bicentennial. And TIME Magazine had a feature where they asked famous people, "Do you have a message for America on its Bicentennial"? So people said all these nice encouraging, patriotic things. And they came to Dorothy Day and said, "Do you have a message for America on her Bicentennial"? And she said, "Yes. Repent". Well, maybe it didn't suit the readership of TIME Magazine, but by God it suited exactly what Jesus told his disciples to do. So then finally, "So the 12 drove out many demons. They anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them".
Okay, we're a healing ministry. The Church is about healing, at the spiritual level, at the physical level. Christ is Salvatore, we say in Latin. Our word savior comes from that. Salvatore means healer. Is the Church bringing healing power? Remember, we're clothed with immense power. We're clothed with authority from the Holy Spirit to drive out the dark powers and to bring healing at all levels, spiritually, psychologically, physically. Well, there it is, everybody. Mark 6: 7-13 if you want to check it. There's the program. What's the Church? Well, at the beginning there weren't any of those things Cardinal George mentioned. This is what Jesus saw from the beginning, and this still ought to inform everything we do today. And God bless you.