Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church

John 17:18

There is so much to enjoy this time of year. Many of us have new Christmas memories to cherish, some of us are working on New Year’s goals and resolutions, and some of us are soaking in as much football as we can get. As a football fan, I enjoy sitting down with Anne, catching a few college bowl games, and following the end of the NFL season with the start of the playoffs.

But there is one thing I miss from football games these days. It used to be every time you would see an extra point or a field goal, there would be that guy in the end zone, holding the “John 3:16” sign. Where did that guy go?

John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

What a great verse to end the year. It ties in nicely with Christmas, remembering what we just we celebrated, and it inspires us to believe in Jesus for this coming year. I must confess, I do have one tiny problem with the “John 3:16” guy. I don’t think that one verse is supposed to stand alone. John 3:17 is a direct continuation of that thought. It says, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” God sent his Son to save the world.

There is one key word in John 3:17 I want to focus on. Sent. The word John uses is the same word from which we get “apostle.” “Apostles” are “sent ones.” Among other places, the same word is used in John 17:18. John 17, the whole chapter, is one prayer that Jesus prays for his disciples. In the midst of the prayer, Jesus prays to God, “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” Then, in John 20, one of Jesus’ appearances to the disciples after the resurrection, he says, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

The central person of our faith, Jesus, was sent to us. God in the flesh, born as a baby, the Savior of the world, sent here. What does it mean for us, the church, to then be sent by him?

A few weeks before Christmas, a group of us were meeting to talk about the Christmas Eve worship gatherings. We were “helping” Bruce think of the best way to communicate his message. By “helping” I mean we were suggesting one idea might not be working, specifically that another illustration might not be very strong.

One point we were working on was trying to think of examples, or illustrations, that capture all that is happening with the Incarnation. Bruce had this story about a farmer on a cold, blizzarding winter night who looks outside his window and sees a gaggle of geese landed in his yard. Out of concern for the geese, worried for their lives, he goes out to his barn and opens the barn door, hoping to get the geese inside, giving them shelter for the night.

But the poor farmer, as hard as he tries, can’t get the geese in the barn. Eventually, in his frustration, he says, “If only I could be come one of you, I could lead you into the barn and save you!”

One version of this Christmas story ends with the farmer running back to his house, to get his domesticated goose, and that goose follows the farmer into the barn, and the wild geese all follow into the safety and shelter of the barn. Awww! What a nice story, too bad is sounds like one of the 800 or so Christmas email forwards that are continuously circulating the internet.

Bruce agreed, the story sounded too much like an email story that almost everyone probably got this year, or at least once since the beginning of the internet. And although the farmer wanting to become like a goose to save the others is somewhat parallel to Jesus becoming a baby, there were a couple other problems with the story. One was the small issue that people in North County San Diego don’t really relate to winter blizzards and farms were wild geese land. Another issue was that I kept thinking “Aflac!” instead of Jesus.

The team quickly began brainstorming other options for Bruce. One idea, how about the story of a tame horse, brought into the presence of a wild horse, will tame the wild horse. Ummm, not really. Another idea, how about the story of a bunch of wild, alley cats, in trouble, led to safety by a tame house cat. So maybe we were not being very helpful after all.

Besides being stuck on weird animal stories, there was something else that was not sitting right with me. I kept it in my head the rest of the day, and into the night, and finally it struck me. We kept trying to think about how wild animals could be “saved” and made tame and safe. I asked myself the question, “Is this what the modern church, of which we are all a part, has done?” Is that why the Father “sent” his one and only Son, to make us feel safe and secure? Is the church really about domesticating us and keeping us safe, or is there a sending into the world that we are to be part of?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the church. I believe it is God’s chosen instrument of the ongoing work of His Kingdom. Most of my life, all of my adult life, I have been connected to a local church body. But I wondered if we had become overly focused on getting the wild geese into our barn? What is “the church” supposed to be? This little baby Jesus, I wonder what he had in mind for the church?

There is a passage from Luke 10 that I am becoming more convinced is at the heart of what Jesus might have in mind for the church. Luke 10:1-3 says “After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.” The passage continues with some powerful instructions about how those appointed, sent ones are to act. But first, we have to embrace, or re-embrace, our own “sent-ness.”

Jesus had this great ability to take something negative, flip it on its head, and make it a positive example of the Kingdom. For example, in one parable he describes the Kingdom of God like yeast that works through a whole batch of dough. Yeast was a negative thing for a first century Jew. He also describes the Kingdom of God like a man who plants a mustard seed in his garden. Mustard is an invasive plant, difficult to control, and Jewish law from the first century prohibited people from planting it in their home gardens. Here is my attempt at using this technique.

My story is about wolves. Now, I know wolves are seen as a negative thing in the pages of the Bible. But I believe the Kingdom of God is like a current day story of wolves. This story captured my imagination about what Jesus many have meant by sending us. This story is the exact opposite of bringing us into the barn and domesticating us. It is the true story of the reintroduction of wolves into the Northern Rockies.

Wolves, interestingly, are the second most adaptable animal to climate on the planet; we humans are first. Different species of wolf once ranged between Alaska and Central America. As our nation became less wild frontier and more settled communities, wolves were systematically killed and ended up on the Endangered Species list. The only place North American wolves still survived in the wild were in remote places of the Canadian Rockies. In 1995, 14 wolves were captured in Canada and transported to Yellowstone National Park. In 1996, another 17 wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone.

By the end of 2007, the wolf population in Yellowstone had stabilized at an estimated 171 wolves in 11 different packs, active throughout the bounds of the park. Most of those packs have a breeding pair and successful litters of pups. Simply put, the wolves have thrived. But it’s not just the wolves that have thrived.

At one point, a swelling elk population approaching 20,000 was threatening the balance of bio-diversity in the park. Experts were beginning to consider human intervention to control the population. Now, the elk population is smaller, and healthier, than it has been in years. Other animal populations including coyotes, deer, ground squirrels, hawks, ravens, owls, and eagles, which have increased five-fold, have benefited from the reintroduction of the wolves. Even trees have benefited, because the elk are not trampling and rubbing the young trees to death.

The wolves were sent into the park; they have thrived; and the rest of the park is benefiting from it, too. And I think that is what Jesus imagines us doing!

Maybe we’ve pictured the church as safe gathering of tame lambs. It’s easy to embrace and accept Jesus sent to us. But it is much harder to embrace Jesus sending us into the world; it is difficult to picture the church as wolves reintroduced to the wild. I am not saying we are supposed to be predators. I am saying we are the ones who are supposed to thrive, make the world healthier, bring peace, justice, love, and compassion. We, as followers of Jesus, are His sent-ones.

Send me? Really, what could Jesus do with me? I am a domesticated lamb in a wolf’s world. Yes, you and me, as sent ones of God.

Think of it this way, in a totally dark room, even one tiny candle drives away the darkness. A large candle in the bright day light is not very impressive. But a candle of any size shining in the darkness changes the whole scene. Being a light in the darkness is not all wonderful. Sometimes the light attracts bugs. But light, even little light, changes things.

Or another way to think of your sent-ness in the world, anyone ever watch one of those forensic science TV shows? CSI, Cold Case, Bones, Law & Order, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Silent Witness, Dexter, Monk, just to name a few. The first rule of forensic science is every point of contact leaves a trace.

Follow me in this: you are created in the image of God; at some chapter in your life, you accept grace and come to faith in Jesus; that spark of God’s image is ignited as the Holy Spirit enters your life; now, everywhere that you go, every point of contact you have, that trace of God’s Spirit is left. So it makes sense then, that the more of God’s Spirit in us, the stronger that point of contact will be.

The God that we worship, that we know through the pages of Scripture, is the Sent and Sending One. We are now sent, by God, to bring a little light, a point of contact, into the common places of our lives.

I am thinking a lot about what it means to be sent. It is something that I need to continue to wrestle with. I really like when Jesus invites me to “follow him”, be a disciple. But I am still figuring out what it means when Jesus invites me to follow him, he is also sending me to the world.

Am I thriving in the world, not just within the church buildings? Am I bringing balance, order, justice, or peace to my daily world? Am I making this world any better for those I live near every day?

And we, as the church, what does it mean for us to be sent? Indeed, we are not sent into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Christ. We were on Jesus’ heart when he prayed for his followers and sent them into the world.

This is our challenge today, in this age. We must discover how God wants us to live as his sent-ones.