WEATHER ALERT:

Due to weather conditions, all in-person daytime and evening programs have been canceled across the church’s locations for Wednesday, except for the Recovery programs and Food Pantry at Overland Park. Decisions for Thursday daytime programs will correspond with local school district decisions and will be posted on the church’s website.

IMPORTANT:

Scheduled programming has resumed for Thursday, February 13 at all Resurrection locations.

Jesus’ Command: Heal Even Society's Outcasts

January 23, 2025
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Daily Scripture

Luke 9:1-6, Matthew 10:8

Luke 9
1 Jesus called the Twelve together and he gave them power and authority over all demons and to heal sicknesses. 2 He sent them out to proclaim God’s kingdom and to heal the sick. 3 He told them, “Take nothing for the journey—no walking stick, no bag, no bread, no money, not even an extra shirt. 4 Whatever house you enter, remain there until you leave that place. 5 Wherever they don’t welcome you, as you leave that city, shake the dust off your feet as a witness against them.” 6 They departed and went through the villages proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.

Matthew 10
8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with skin diseases, and throw out demons. You received without having to pay. Therefore, give without demanding payment.

Daily Reflection & Prayer

Jesus sent his disciples out with specific instructions: heal the sick, cast out demons, and proclaim God’s kingdom. Matthew’s account emphasized that this healing ministry must include people with skin diseases (“lepers”)—society’s most feared outcasts. Jesus wanted his followers to freely share the same healing power and compassion they had freely received. This mission showed how radically inclusive God’s love is, reaching beyond social barriers to touch and heal those whom others avoided.

  • The disciples received clear instructions to extend healing to everyone—even those their society rejected. They couldn’t pick and choose who deserved help. Jesus expected them to cross even established social boundaries just as he did. What social or cultural barriers make it challenging for you to show Christ’s love to others?
  • “The healings the disciples were to perform, important as they were for the people concerned, were signs of something more important still: God’s new life breaking into the life of Israel, beginning the new day that was dawning with Jesus.” * God wants to feed and heal people’s physical, spiritual and emotional needs. That’s why Resurrection emphasizes linking the “social gospel” with the “evangelical gospel.” How does this follow Jesus’ ministry model?
Prayer

Lord Jesus, you cared about people, about me, as whole beings. Guide me to care for others in that same holistic way. Amen.

GPS Insights

Picture of Mikiala Tennie

Mikiala Tennie

Mikiala Tennie, who serves as the Student Discipleship Program Director with Resurrection Students, wrote today’s Insight. She has nearly 20 years of ministry experience and loves encouraging others in their spiritual journey. Mikiala is blessed to be an adoptive aunt and godmother to many kiddos and lives with her 10-pound Yorkie, KiKi Okoye Tennie.

 

I was fresh out of college. The church where I had been interning needed to cut the budget–interns were the first to go. I look back at that summer as the first time I started to realize the gravity of the mental health epidemic in students.

I spent the better part of the summer I graduated pretending I had purpose and going through life’s motions. I went to summer camp with the church’s student ministry as I had done every year for the past decade, initially as a camper and more recently as an adult mentor for teenagers I led weekly in small group. This trip was probably the only thing that summer that cut through the fog of sadness that things were not going how I’d hoped they would post graduation. I was jobless and purposeless and had lost the drive to pursue broadcast journalism which is what my shiny new degree read in fancy calligraphy.

So, there I was walking through the woods while singing camp songs with students, leading them in small group discussion, and watching them have shaving cream fights from the sidelines…fully ignoring the nagging anxiety of my ambiguous future. I had been watching one of the students who seemed to be keeping to himself. Occasionally he would engage with the rest of the group but for the most part he remained stoic. I knew that his family had experienced unimaginable tragedy and each of the family members were grieving in their own way. I was also keeping an eye on a different student—she was in my regular small group but had started showing signs of an eating disorder at a retreat a few months prior. She acted as though everything was fine, but trouble was brewing under the surface.

In my small group of campers alone I learned that the students were grappling with immense grief, body dysmorphia, anxiety, depression, and poverty. There were at least 20 other groups of students there that I’m sure were battling similar issues. I look back and see that I was also dealing with the unspoken stressors of mental health struggles as I wrestled with the gravity of life’s next steps.

In Luke chapter nine, Jesus sent his disciples out into the community with instructions to heal sickness and bring the goodness of God’s Kingdom to the people they met. Sitting there with those students was one of the first times I realized that as Christ’s disciples, healing didn’t always look like healing the visibly ill and caring for the physical needs of those we see suffering. Following Jesus’ command also looks like caring for those with silent struggles, who remove themselves from community because they think what they’re carrying is too much for others, those who can’t see through the fog, quiet the never-ending worries, or who think they aren’t good enough to receive the love and care we have to give.

As followers of Christ, we know our marching orders include keeping our eyes peeled in order to help meet each other’s physical needs. 15 years ago, I was confronted with the invisible illnesses young people in our communities face on a regular basis. The passion for the mental health of the next generation that God ignited in me back then has only grown knowing that the secret struggles student encounter have only gotten more prevalent over time.

I’m grateful that the students in my group at summer camp that year have grown up, contributed beautifully to society, gotten married, and have had kids of their own—our church community rallied around them. But the sickness and sadness that young people encounter under the surface is an issue that is not going away anytime soon. As we all follow Christ’s call to heal the sick, let’s remember those who need emotional healing as well as those who need physical healing. If you or someone you know is struggling silently, please reach out. The ongoing journey of mental health is not one you must walk alone. It’s one we walk together as Christ instructed His disciples to do all those years ago.

To learn about resources Resurrection offers to help with any of these issues, click here.

© 2024 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References

* Wright, N. T., Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-15 (The New Testament for Everyone) (p. 113). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.