Today I’m going to be using the “f” word a lot in my message. I’m warning you in advance because it’s a word we don’t hear a lot in church. I don’t know why, but it could be because there’s a lot of stigma attached to it? Anyway, it comes up as our theme for the day. I am of course referring to the word “failure”, surely you knew that? I’ve had my fair share of successes and failures in ministry and I’ve learned that where it bears fruit, then it’s God’s will. If it fails, then it’s due to some fault of mine. But what if failure is simply a part of mission; what if it is a part of the process? Thomas Edison said he had not failed to make a lightbulb a hundred times, he’d just discovered a hundred ways not to make one.
Failure is the subject we are looking at today in our gospel reading. Firstly, Jesus is rejected by His own people. He’s returned home to the place He grew up in and they cannot accept that the Jesus they knew could be capable of being the Messiah. He’s just the local tradesman to them, who does He think He is? As a result of their wilful blindness to see what He is doing, they do not accept Him. Then Jesus specifically prepares His disciples for failure when He sends them out on mission. He warns then that if they are not welcomed or accepted in a place, they are to shake the dust from their feet and move on elsewhere. Jesus Himself experiences failure and prepares His disciples for failure. Clearly therefore failure is going to be part and parcel of ministry and mission in the world.
We can think that if we are engaged in God’s mission then we cannot fail, so if we fail we begin to question things. Yet how could God not want those in Jesus’ hometown and surrounding area to be reached? I think Jesus recognises that there will be some who simply close their minds, their hearts, their eyes, or ears to what God is doing in the world. Our time is finite, as are our resources. Jesus doesn’t want us wasting time with those who will not accept us, there are plenty of others who need to experience God’s love. For me, it’s acceptable to shake the dust from our feet and move on to other missions. We cannot use fear of failing as an excuse for not going on out mission to the world. The only real failure in mission is not to go in the first place. We are called to be faithful, that means leaving our comfort zones and going out into the world as Jesus did, even if it leads to being rejected. We may lose the odd battle, but we will win the war. Failure isn’t falling down, it’s staying down.