How has Jesus sent you?

     Our gospel lesson for Sunday comes from Luke 10.  It is the first mission trip coordinated by Jesus and is actually two parts of the chapter - the sending and the return.  This is a text with which I am very familiar.  In seminary I took a class on 'missional church' my senior year and we had the privilege of starting EVERY class time by reading this scripture and spending the first 10-15 minutes in discussion around what the Spirit revealed to us.
     The interesting thing was that over the 16 week semester, while there were certainly themes that trended, there was always something new, some insight or some new understanding that made this scripture come alive in a new way for me.  Have you ever spent that long on a single text?  What would you think if your pastor preached the same text for a whole year?  (That might be a fun experiment!)  So when I come to this text again, three years later, it comes as an old friend with its familiar lines, sounds, and flavors.  Yet even old friends can surprise - and this old friend does not disappoint. 
     Since I have been thinking back to my seminary course, the missional church part of this text really stands out.  However, missional church might not be in your vocabulary, so here is a short, succinct video that does a good job of describing missional church:

Ok, now that you have an idea of what missional church is, here is where our gospel text comes in.  In our gospel text, which is all about the work of the church before 'church' existed, I see a mirror of what we are called (and only by the grace of God succeed) to do. 
     Jesus names and claims us in the waters of baptism, we are each given a mission in the world, with our 'hand to the plow' as we heard last week, and then we are sent into the world to proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near.
     How we do this depends on who we are, what we are doing, and where we are doing it.  Young people are called to be Christ's presence at school, on the bus, at their place of child care.  Older youth are called to be Christ's presence in the weight room, locker room, and on the sports field; on stage, in speech/drama club, and online playing COD.  Even older of us are called to be Christ's presence at work, at the unemployment office, out with friends at the local restaurant (Odie's in my town),  at our children's sporting events, in line at the grocery store, etc.
     Even though we gather in our church building once or more a week for worship, fellowship, and learning, we are church every moment of every day.  And, as it says in the gospel lesson, we often make way for the work of Jesus, "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."
     Just as John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus' coming into the world, just as these seventy others prepared the way for Jesus coming after them, we too prepare the way for Jesus to work in the hearts and lives of those we meet.  I myself have benefited from someone coming to me ahead of Jesus.  One of those times was in the months prior to a mission trip to Guatemala in 2005.  I met Pastor Katherine in the fall of that year, and then in January attended a retreat on baptism.  Five months later I found myself in Guatemala and it was in that time I discerned my call to ministry.  Now, 8 years later, I have been a pastor for almost 3 years, and all because Pastor Katherine came to me and proclaimed Jesus.  This prepared my own heart and life for the work the Spirit would do in Guatemala and in the months and years after that.
     This is just one story, and while there are many others, I still ponder how Jesus sends people ahead of him and the Holy Spirit so that people are ready to hear a word of good news, or a call to ministry, or receive much needed peace and forgiveness.   An even greater mystery is how Jesus sends me ahead of him - for whom am I preparing the way?