“He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.” (Matthew 10:1–4 NIV)
Introduction
Churches are not mentioned often in the news. When they are, it is either because there is a controversy or the church is doing something very good. Those that are doing something really well and catch the media’s eye are often what are called mega churches. These are churches with thousands of people, multiple services, multiple sites and often more pastors and staff than we have people in our church. Sometimes people have simply accepted that is what church is supposed be like. If you are going to do anything for God, you better have a multi-million dollar budget and thousands of people. I would never deny that these churches are doing something great for God, but I would like to look at this from another angle. As we try to understand what it means for us to be the church, we may find that beginning of Christianity looks somewhat different from what we think of today. When did the church start? It is generally agreed that the church started on the day of Pentecost. Yet there is value in going back somewhat to what Jesus was doing. In many ways, the twelve apostles are a picture of what the church could be. What we have in this passage is the calling of the disciples. There were more disciples than this and these twelve were disciples before this moment. What we have here is the calling of twelve to a particular task, in some ways similar to the way we belong to the larger Christian church but are called to minister in this specific congregation. Let us see what we can learn from these twelve.
Small
Jesus calls twelve. He could have called more and at another time, he sent out seventy disciples. But Jesus calls twelve for an ongoing mission. Would it not make sense to have more? God’s habit is to use small groups. In the story of Gideon, we find that God kept decreasing Gideon’s army until it got small enough for God to be truly glorified. When it comes to God, size does not matter. God plus one is always a majority. But there was more to this than just breaking the rules of logic. Jesus was looking for more than breadth, he was looking for depth. There was a place for the larger groups but with these twelve, he could really pour himself into them. Jesus could take the time to go much deeper with twelve. The group was based not on an organizational structure or a constitution but on a family structure that emphasized relationships. This is where we as a small church have an advantage. I once attended a church of close to a thousand. For the first year, I never sat beside the same person twice. I could walk in and walk out without ever talking to anyone. It was not until I joined a small group within the church that I could grow. We have an opportunity as a small church to go deeper, deeper in our relationship with Jesus and deeper in our relationships with each other.
Continuity
Have you ever wondered why twelve? We have already established that it had to be small, but why not eleven or thirteen? There is a very good reason for this. The history of God’s people revolved very much around the twelve tribes of Israel. There were differences in which twelve were included, but it had to be twelve. Eventually Israel divided and later, ten of the tribes were exiled, never to reappear. Many held out hope that somehow, God would reconstitute the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus did this with the twelve disciples, he symbolically demonstrated that the promises to Israel were coming true. This was not just a new thing, this was a part of what God had done in the past. We experience this as well. Here we are as a group of Baptists in the twenty-first century. But we are connected. We are connected to the people who started this church over a century ago. We are connected with the Baptists who began the movement four hundred years ago. We are connected with the Reformers before them and the Catholics before them. We are connected with the earliest church and with the disciples. We are part of something much bigger than ourselves.
Normal
Jesus need to pick twelve disciples. But once you get past the number, it is hard to pin down why he picked who he did. If you have ever been in the position of hiring someone, you know you look for the best of the best. However, there is not much about these twelve that stand out. In fact we do not know much about each. Of the top three, this is what we know: Peter almost always said the wrong thing and even denied Jesus, James and John were so compassionate that they offered to bring down fire to consume an unbelieving village. But here is something else, there is so much we do not know about these individuals. Even Andrew, the brother of Peter, is not given much space to tell his story. Than we have Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus to his death. This is the way I describe them: the famous, the infamous and anonymous. What is the church supposed be like? Hopefully we will not have the infamous. But we will have a lot of people working behind the scenes who will not make the headlines. Scholar Leon Morris has said: “When Jesus chose his Twelve he did not choose supermen; God does not need outstanding people to do his work, and it seems that, while some of the Twelve were very able men, others were very ordinary.” That is what we are.
Power
It is true that the church is made up of a bunch of normal people. But the church is not normal. Notice that even before Jesus names the twelve, we are told that he gave them authority and power. This is not political power where we can dictate public policy. This is spiritual power. In the case of the disciples, it was the power to cast out demons. We may not be comfortable with that, but the principle remains. We have been given power to confront the forces of darkness. This is the darkness that corrupts, that destroys hope, that weakens. By the power of the Holy Spirit we can fight against that darkness and bring light. Jesus, quoting Isaiah said this: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18–19 NIV) By sharing the Holy Spirit with us, Jesus invites us to join with him in this task.
Conclusion
We are unlikely to ever be a mega church in the common sense of the term. But we are a small church that can have deep relationships with Jesus and each other. We, like the twelve, are connected with those who have gone before us. We, like the twelve, are just a bunch of normal people who will remain anonymous in church history. But we too, have been given power and authority. This is not for our glory but to bring light to a dark world. In terms of spiritual power, perhaps we are a mega church in a spiritual sense.
