"Jesus Around the World"
Matthew 10:1-15
Rev. Emily Labrecque, Westmoreland UCC
June 14, 2026
[Pray.]
Our 90+ degree weekend has surely reminded us that Summer is upon us. Today we will celebrate the graduates in our families, kids will finish up school this week, if they haven’t already, and vacations will begin. I have been privileged, as I know many of you have as well, to take vacations in various places far and wide. Tell me, what do you typically do on vacation? This is not rhetorical, shout it out.
... [will likely say, swim, eat, meet people, etc]
Yea, of course. And we love all of those things. But today, we’re going to look at our vacations and travels through a different lens.
As we heard in our scripture from Matthew, the disciples were being sent out, but it certainly was not going to be a vacation. Jesus said to them, don’t pack your bags, no clothes, money, or food. Can you imagine? I mean, by this point the disciples had to know Jesus had some ideas that were ... out there ... but now he’s sending them packing, but without anything packed ...
The mission wasn’t so simple either. “Go to the lost, confused people [out there]. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You’ve been treated generously, so live generously.”[1]
A daunting mission with no supplies. If it were me, I would have needed a really compelling reason to go on that mission; because In the extended version of this passage, known as the Missionary Discourse, we hear Jesus warn the disciples: people are going to be inhospitable, they’re going to persecute you, they will hand you over to the authorities. Go anyway. There is need, there is great suffering among the people. Women and children, the sick and elderly are being harassed and taken advantage of. Go and be compassionate. There are people out beyond our city who are looking for healing and wholeness, connection and kindness. Go and give of yourselves.
Throughout the gospels we are reminded of how deep the human needs are. Their troubles are made explicit and the reader waits to see what Jesus’ response will be to those needs. Think about In our context, people are waiting to see what the Church's response will be to those modern, but very similar, needs. Does the church care? Or could they care less?
In our modern, multicultural world, we are resistant to wearing our faith on our sleeve. We don’t want to be perceived as “those” kinds of Christians. We don’t want to be automatically lumped in with Christian Nationalists or Evangelicals. We don’t want to seem pushy about our faith because we’ve seen what harm that has done to people and communities around the world. But we claim to be progressive Christians. And one of the tenets of progressive Christianity is the affirmation that we “strive for peace and justice among all people, knowing that behaving with compassion and selfless love toward one another is the fullest expression of what we believe.”[2]
At Westmoreland, we are involved in various efforts to advance peace and justice and serve with compassion. There’s no doubt about that. But what happens when we leave Bethesda? What happens when we are halfway around the world? Are we paying attention to the people around us? Do we see the needs? Just as the disciples were sent out to those towns in ancient Israel, we continue to be challenged to treat others with compassion and selfless love. We are challenged to see our vacation through Jesus’ eyes.
Now, I’m not asking you to turn your vacation into a mission trip. That would be downright colonialist. BUT what I am suggesting, is that we reimagine our travels as our own version of “being sent.” You’re already going to a new, distant, different place. What might it look like to notice – the hotel bellhop, the vendors, the TSA agents… what might it look like to notice them the way Jesus noticed?
When I was in seminary, I served a church in Tiburon, CA. Tiburon is north of San Francisco and looks over the Bay Area. What you need to know about this church is that it was filled primarily with retired folks who were active-it is Northern California, after all. They are artists and writers and hippies and naturalists. We often referred to this church as “The Church of Mary Oliver” because more often than not they connected to poetry and the natural world much more than they connected to Jesus and the gospels. When I served there with my now friend Curran, who will be preaching at my installation this afternoon, we had a time during the service for Joys and Concerns. But they had a different way of doing Joys and Concerns than we do, here at Westmoreland. Without fail, every week, when we invited the congregation to lift up their joys and concerns, we would hear about a beautiful hawk someone saw; a moving film they watched at a film festival; a sumptuous tomato they picked up at the farmers market. And every week, Curran and I would shake our heads and wonder, what in the world are we to do with this. This is the time for joys and concerns… I mean do they bring joy, yes, but that’s not quite what we’re going for. So we decided to start calling that time Holy Noticings. Holy Noticings. We tried to help give the congregation language for what they were bringing up. Rather than shoehorning them into a theological framework that didn’t quite make sense to them, we met them where they were. We helped frame it in a way that made sense of the way they understood God. Then, when someone lifted up the deer that nuzzled antlers in their backyard, we weren’t disheartened, we were delighted.
Holy Noticings became a really important part of my life after that. This lens opened up a new way of viewing the world for me. As I continued into ministry and life, I started to look through the lens of Holy Noticings wherever I went – to find God in the flowers and the laugh of children and my neighbors. Now, it hasn’t always been easy to hold that lens up in front of me. When life gets hard or complicated, it’s easy to see everything through a lens of frustration. When we are betrayed, it’s easy to see the world through the lens of anger. And, when I go on vacation it’s easy to check out and see everything around me through a lense of consumption.
As followers of the Way, however, we are not called to simply be consumers on vacation. We are everywhere and at all times being sent out. Sent to be compassionate and loving people in the world; sent out to notice the lost and the lonely; sent to bring the love of Jesus into the world.
This summer, many of us will go somewhere. Some of us will travel on airplanes. Some will drive to the beach. Some will visit grandchildren. And some will simply sit on a porch and watch the world go by. Wherever we find ourselves this summer, perhaps Jesus’ invitation to us is simple: notice. Notice who is being overlooked. Notice who seems weary. Notice beauty where you least expect it. Notice moments of kindness. Notice the people whose names most travelers never learn. Notice the places where healing is needed and the places where God’s love is already breaking through.
The disciples were sent out with very little, but they carried something the world so desperately needed: the love of God made visible through ordinary acts of compassion. That call continues through to us too.
We don’t have all the answers, we aren’t responsible for saving the world. But wherever we go, Jesus goes too.
So I pray your summer is filled with good food, deep rest, time spent in beautiful places. And while you’re there, see what you can notice. On September 6 we will share our Holy Noticings in worship; so use your packets, collect your stories, and take lots of pictures.
And finally, in the words of Mary Oliver:
Pay Attention.
Be Astonished.
Tell about it.
Amen.
