An Elevenish Meeting
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus
had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven
and on earth has been given to me. Matthew 28:16-18
People have in all of recorded history, had a fascination with numbers.
The ancients understood Pi-- 3.141 etc.
The same is true for prime numbers-- 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and so on. A prime
number is a whole number with no divisor.
In my chemistry studies we studied Avogadro's number and the mole--which
is related to Avogadro's number, which as I recall is 6 decimal something
to the power of something or other.
Those are all scientific uses of numbers.
There has also been a fascination with numbers in a spiritual context.
1 is the loneliest number that you'll ever do.
But 1 also represents God, one way.
3 of course represents the Trinity and for some is a the number of completion.
Its also the next prime beyond 1.
Have you noticed jokes always come in 3's? At least they do in the
English language.
The number 7 is the number of perfection.
And of course there is the really bad number- 666.
I used to have a celphone number that ended with 666.
And in the history of Israel, the number 12 was the number for the complete
community.
12 tribes of Israel.
12 disciples.
Revelation uses 12 times 12 or 144 as the complete number of the saints.
In a symbolic way of course.
So when Judas exits the stage by his own hand, the group is incomplete--broken.
It is with an elevenish group that Jesus meets before He leaves them.
Someone might say, yes but they quickly rectified that by electing a twelfth
again in the person of Matthias.
But then Jesus appoints a thirteenth in the person of Saul of Tarsus, or
the apostle Paul.
I mean, this is enough to put a person all at sixes and sevens!
Matthew points out that the eleven of them were there.
It is the group minus one. The evidence of loss and failure and imperfection
and incompleteness is there.
I don't know about you, but when I see movies filmed in New York, I always
look to see if it was before or after 9/11.
Easy to tell. Before, the twin towers do tower over the landscape.
Afterward is just a hole where they should be.
That's what the eleven were in some ways--getting on with it, but there is
something missing that tells an enormous story.
The eleven of them were there that day.
Not twelve as it should have been. Just eleven.
And Jesus does not do anything to fill that hole.
He takes the eleven and gives them the whole commission...go into the world--all
of it.
In some ways its fitting too.
For anyone who cared to look, Jesus hands had real scars on them--ugly nasty
wounds. They would have healed, but the evidence is there to see.
And God bless him, Matthew throws in this phrase-- "but some doubted".
How human of them. How like me.
But Jesus took that broken number-- that imperfect group--those eleven. Some
of them still not sure and gave them the whole world.
That's what he did, really.
He said, "look, God has given all power and authority over everything into
my hands. And I am giving it to you, you eleven. And what I want you to do
is go into the world--all of it and make disciples."
Some doubted.
"Sure", they probably thought to themselves, "why not the whole world?" If
he had said, "Jerusalem", and stopped there, they could get their heads around
that.
But Judea, Samaria and the ends of the world was a bit much.
But that's just what God does, isn't it?
He takes you and me, "elevenish" people if there ever were any.
And he says to us, "Go ahead. All the authority on earth is mine." Take it
all. Start at home, but just keep spreading outward.
There is a song that The Priory Minstrels sing. Oh that's the name I just
made up for the bunch of us who sing for seniors at The Priory once a month.
We sing the oldies, and some not so old, but mostly the oldies.
There is a song we sing called "Will the circle be unbroken"
"Will the circle be unbroken, in the sky Lord, in the sky?"
The answer is yes, it will be unbroken in the by and by. In the sky.
But certainly not here on earth.
The circle of life gets broken regularly.
Imperfect people in an imperfect world cannot help but experience brokeness--goes
with the territory.
It's elevenish stuff.
And elevenish people are still given the whole unbroken authority of God
to get about the task of repairing it.
Wherever we are. Start here, or start there. God is with you anywhere.
His authority is valid on earth or heaven.
Here is an idea!
Start with yourself.
Give God the elevenish stuff of your life.
You know, all the stuff that is sort of ok, but not really completely ok.
The bad memories. The guilty memories. The unhealed sorrows. The things that
someone else has done to you.
The elevens.
There was nothing particularly wrong with the eleven. They just were not
twelve.
That defines a lot of our lives. Nothing particularly wrong, but we know
its not completely right either.
Give God your elevens.
So what on earth does that mean?
It means getting someplace quiet and alone for half an hour or so, uninterrupted.
Then go through the inventory of life. The memories. The good and the
bad.
The things you wish you had done different as well as the things you would
not have missed for the world.
The whole package and then offer it in faith.
Faith in what?
Faith that when you are honest with God about who you are and who you are
not, God mends the broken stuff.
He has all authority.
Over you and over me.
He knows it all anyway. But when you get honest with God about it, He heals
the broken stuff.
Try it.
Preached May 18, 2008
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian
Church
Victoria, British Columbia
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