Sunday Sermon
Being Sent
18th October 2026
Luke 10: 1-9
‘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.’
You are given a secret, something wonderful, and you are sent out to share it. It’s a secret so no-one obviously knows about it. Now, being sent is a dangerous thing. You are told this divine secret, which you are appointed to share, is from ‘The Lord of the harvest.’ So, you have received this new way of living, this vision, from a higher, or deeper, level of reality. And this vision is apparently transformative, revolutionary which is why it’s so dangerous.
The danger has to do with arrogance and imposition. If you are in the world and you are carrying a divine secret, nothing is more intolerable than some sort of human arrogance. You are in the midst of suffering and confusion, because this is the world, and is there anything worse than being with people when you have some sort of special agenda, a special mission, to impart? Think of all the cults, all the churches, which engage in manipulation and propaganda in the name of some sort of mission. Isn’t it the worst kind of conversation in the world when you are talking to somebody and the person you are talking to has a way of looking at things which they are hell-bent on sharing, or imposing, on you?
So, when we are holding a divine secret, something so beautiful and counter-to-the-world, perhaps we need to remember to not speak of it. We should bury it deep down into our soul soil and be with people, and situations, with the secret buried and unsaid because it is only that which is buried deep down in us and blessedly unspoken which speaks without force or coercion. What is present in us, but unsaid, does not need the saleswoman’s special patter or presentation. When we share the kingdom much better to be it than speak it. It’s more polite, after all.
‘See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals;’
To share the reality of God you cannot impose God on others, and you have to live vulnerably in the world, which is a wolfish world. Christ is the high priest of ultimate vulnerability. There is nothing between him and the world. You carry nothing and you walk the world barefoot. Which means you touch the world as directly and simply as you can, without artifice, without defences, like sandals. It is a very difficult thing to be a lamb in the midst of wolves. What might it mean? First of all, the most dangerous wolves are the wolves inside you. If you are sharing God, or living out of God, you need to understand the many wolves in yourself. There might be a wolf in you which likes to talk and impose its vision on other people. There might be a wolf in you full of hatred and anger and resentment, a wolf which feels it has never been properly seen or appreciated. There might be a wolf in you which wants to use people for its own interests and ends. A part of being sent to share the secret of God is to learn about the many wolves which live inside you because if you don’t learn about the wolf inside you you will end up pretending to be a lamb, indeed believing you are a lamb, while actually being a wolf.
The outer world is also full of wolves. It might be that one of the secrets of Christ is being able to be with people who are suffering from many different wolves. There is something about sharing the way of Christ which is about suffering people in their full human dysfunction, developing in yourself (or allowing in yourself) a capacious power of love which can be with people in the full variety and complexity of their humanity. You are not called to solve these people. But you are called to love them with some of Christ’s ever-renewing generosity and tolerance. And you love them, remember, with this love buried down deep in you, just like the secret of the kingdom. Buried down in you so it can really be part of who you are and not an exercise in love as manipulation or virtue-signalling.
‘Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’
I think what is so difficult is we are a world which is obsessed with communication and signalling and saying stuff. It is the quality and depth of who we are which communicates, not the salesman, not the worthy and good things you might want to share or say. If something inside you has harmony in it, you will bring some of that harmony into places which lack it. Again, bury the peace of God deep down inside you. Just think what one person with secret harmony in them at a meeting full of discord can do.
‘Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
There is something here about being all things to all people. Being subtle and responsive to the reality and difficulty of things. It is being in the heart of things with the heart open secretly to God, without fanfare or agenda. Eating whatever is put before you. In other words, dealing with the reality as you find it. Just a last thought on curing the sick. Today is the feast of Luke the Evangelist who was a physician, a physician of the soul. How do we cure others? Perhaps we cure others not by laying on of hands and praying but by understanding our own infirmities and diseases. This has a link with knowing our own wolves. If we know about grief and hatred and jealousy and loneliness and confusion, if we know about being lost, we can then offer others something real, something born out of our own self-knowledge and understanding. A person who knows about grief from their own experience can be with someone suffering grief and understand what words or actions cure or touch the suffering. Know Yourself. This was inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. If we know and understand our own suffering, we can bring illumination to others.
Do not speak the kingdom of God. We are then just a voice in the marketplace. Bury it deep inside you and let it fill you. Know the wolves inside you and learn to be with the wolves of others. Be vulnerable with people and love them at their most confused and contradictory. Know your own complexity in the light of God and your silence and your words will speak into the complexity of others. The kingdom of God has come near, and no-one can see it or say what it is but it changes everything.
The Reverend Ben Brown 2026
