The hostess - what was her name?

Well - good morning! How lovely to be back amongst you. It has been a very enjoyable, but very strange time being apart from you for these last two months.

And, rather remarkably, I managed to disengage from the everyday pressures and concerns and jobs that are part of normal life in parish ministry, even to the extent that I began forgetting some people’s names. Alison popped to the shops the week before last and when she came back she mentioned that she’d seen a member of the parish, who she named, and I had to work quite hard with my memory to put a face and a life-story to the name. A bit like saying The hostess - what was her name?

Today’s gospel, of course, is, at least in part, rather dependent on names. Jesus sends out The Twelve, and they are properly, formally named in a list: These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as 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 Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him. This is, clearly, something of a turning point in the gospel - up to this point in Matthew, he’s had some encounters with these people. He’s called some of them away from their fishing business, and just last week, the gospel recounted how Matthew was called away from his tax booth. But this is the first time in the gospel that we get a proper, formal sense of that idea of The Twelve - that chosen, special body of remarkable men, remarkable friends of Jesus who are to be his closest and most important companions for his subsequent ministry, and for the founding, the very founding of the Christian Church. Oh, and the hostess - what was her name?

There is no doubt that The Twelve are important - very, very important. They are important to Jesus, personally, and they are important to his understanding of the fulfilment of all that has gone before (for he tells them, at one point, that they will sit on twelve thrones, to judge the twelves tribes of Israel). Indeed, the idea of The Twelve is so important that one of this first things to happen after the resurrection is that the apostles feel the need to replace Judas Iscariot, who by this time has hanged himself, to bring the number back up to Twelve once again. Hence they draw lots in the first chapter of Acts, and Matthias is duly added to their number.

But this morning, I want us to see beyond that great list of names - that roll call of saintly giants who knew Jesus personally, who were taught by him for three wonderful years as they wandered hither and thither in the Galilee, and who went on, in the power of the resurrection, to spread the gospel courageously in the face of all sorts of trials and adversaries. This morning, I want us to reflect, just for a moment, on why Jesus calls together the twelve, and what it is he expects them to do.

For Jesus has just been on a mission. He’s been, so Matthew tells us, in all the cities and villages of the region, teaching, curing, and proclaiming the Good News - which, today, we might call evangelizing. But Jesus has realized the job is just too enormous - he sees the crowds, and he realizes that they are helpless - like sheep without a shepherd. He is at once both optimistic - the harvest is plentiful - and pessimistic - but the labourers are few. The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. And he can’t bear it - for he wants people to be taught about the Kingdom of God; he wants people to be cured of the sicknesses, both physical and mental, which hold them back from that Kingdom; and he wants the Good News to be proclaimed. And he knows that he can’t do it on his own. And that’s the motivation - that is why the Lord of the Harvest sends out his labourers. That is the point when he summons this raggle taggle of folk he’s called to follow him, and he gives them authority, and he gives them identity, and he gives them the job of mission: As you go, proclaim the good news, "The kingdom of heaven has come near". Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment, give without payment. Oh, and The hostess - what was her name?

And, if you like, that’s it - that’s the beginning of the Church and her mission. Founded on that bedrock of saints - The Twelve Apostles. And the hostess - what was her name? But let’s just have a little exercise now. Have a look at your service sheet - fold it back to page 23. And don’t worry about the notice about the rescheduling of the PCC - concentrate on the fact that the rest of that page is blank. And just, for a few seconds, half a minute, have a word with the person sitting next to you, and see if you can list out the names of The Twelve. After all, they’ve only just been read out. See if you can remember them, without looking at the words of the reading elsewhere in the service sheet...

I don’t know how you got on, but it’s not, in fact, all that easy. Some of the Twelve are obvious names, like Simon Peter, but others are, in fact, remarkably obscure - such as the poor man who now bears the label ‘James the less’. And then, of course, there are other great figures from the New Testament age who are not, actually, part of the band of The Twelve, but whose names we sometimes confuse. I’ve known plenty of people put down St Paul’s name as one of the Twelve, or if not him, someone like Barnabas, whose feast day fell this last week, or St Stephen. So if you couldn’t, immediately, recall that that awe-inspiring figure Thaddeus had been on the list, or that saint of the meat and leather industries, Bartholomew, had a place there, please don’t worry. And the hostess - what was her name?

The important thing about the Twelve is that they were called by Jesus to do a job. And the incredible thing is that it was a job that made them just like Jesus himself. He’s just come back from teaching, preaching and healing - he’s just come back from mission - and he sends them off to do just that - to proclaim the Good News, cure the sick, cleanse the lepers and even raise the dead. And, of course, he empowers them - he promises them the gift of the Holy Spirit, and, at Pentecost, that is exactly what happens.

And the really remarkable thing is that it doesn’t stop there. Look around you where you sit. Look at those in the same row as you, those sitting a bit further away. If you can bear it, look at me, or Robert, or John, or anyone hear this morning. Are we anything like Jesus? Well, in this way we are - we, all of us, are called to just the same mission as him. The mission that, in this morning’s gospel, he shares with The Twelve. We are called to that ministry of preaching the Good News and raising the dead. And we, too, are empowered. Paul reminded us of that in that brilliant excerpt from Romans - for he tells us, so powerfully, that God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

That’s you and me - that’s all of us here. God is pouring his love - pouring it into our hearts. Wow. And with that love, surely we can get of our backsides and proclaim Good News, and even try our hand at raising the dead. After all, in this unspiritual age in which we live, there are plenty of walking dead who need resurrection and Good News, just out there.

And it doesn’t matter that we are not famous saints like The Twelve... for as I hope we are realizing, most of The Twelve weren’t actually very famous, either. Most of The Twelve were ultimately rather forgettable, but it didn’t stop them getting on with Mission wherever they were called. If our names are not remembered in the ages to come, or even by an asbent-minded vicar on sabbatical, it really doesn’t matter - what matters is that we remain faithful to our calling to be people of mission, proclaiming God’s Good News in all that we do. And the hostess - what was her name?

Well, of course, like any important reference in a sermon these days, I’ve been alluding to Doctor Who. Some of our younger members, and perhaps some of our not quite so young members, were probably watching last nights’ riveting episode, where the Doctor finds himself stranded on a futuristic equivalent of Easyjet with a handful of eccentric passengers, one of whom becomes, shall we say, possessed by a demon, and is trying to take over the Doctor’s mind and kill him. And this demon-possessed figure in the midst of this small, frightened group of people produces some rather ugly behaviour. In their selfish fright, there’s not much Good News being proclaimed - just the violence of the mob, against which the Doctor finds himself preaching more and more desperately. And, of course, a showdown beckons, as the Doctor finds himself about to be thrown out of this stranded plane-cum-spaceship to his certain death by the angry mob - and then the air hostess, in a remarkable act of heroism sacrifices her life to take out the real monster, and the rest of them are saved.

And in the stunned silence that follows the end of this frightening adventure, as folk are coming to their senses, the Doctor asks - the hostess - what was her name? This heroine, whose selfless death has saved the rest of them. And to their shame and their surprise, none of them can remember. But it didn’t matter - for they would remember what she did...

Our journey together as priest and people is, mercifully, rather less dramatic than Doctor Who, but it is no less profound. We are called, collectively, to become more and more fully a community of people who know that God’s love has been poured into our hearts, and that that demands of us a loving response of mission to the world - a response which is utterly and totally selfless, whether or not it thanks us for it, and whether or not it remembers us for it. For, as the Confirmation service reminds us, God has called us by name and made us his own, and as long as he knows our name, it doesn’t matter if the world forgets it. For he has named us, as he named the Twelve, for love and for service - for Jesus looks at us all hard in the eye, and he says to each one of us, As you go, proclaim the good news - the kingdom of heaven has come near. Amen.