A Sales Job Worth Pursuing

Before working in the Church, I had a career in sales. Sales is gritty work full of a series of highs and lows in which you experience constant rejection while chasing after that elusive big win. As the rejection accumulates in sales, it allows one to develop thick skin and bounce back from the constant “no” in hopes of finding that “yes.” The adage is sales is that after ten "no's" you will receive one "yes." My measly career in selling risk management services is one thing, selling God’s message to flawed sinners about their need to repent and change their lives is another thing - talk about a hard sell.

This Sunday's Gospel reading portrays the disciples' total dependency on God while they go out to do the grueling work of evangelization. Here, we notice a transition of Jesus’s followers from His students to now His workers. Whereas the word “disciple” means a committed follower, the word “apostle” translates to “one who is sent off” with the master’s mission. To go from student of the master to doing the master’s work expresses a higher level of trust in the master.

First, Jesus instructs the disciples to take very little with them. These directives underscore the importance of total dependence on God. By taking minimal provisions, the apostles are forced to rely on God’s providence and the hospitality of others. This radical trust challenges us to examine our own lives. Do we trust in God’s provision, or are we overly reliant on our own resources and security? In the spiritual life the motto is always less is more. That is because the more things you cling to, the more these things will serve as a distraction or obstacle to doing God's work. Here, one's thoughts wonder into fixating about their possessions (my car, my house, my job) rather than their divine mandate to go out and evangelize. At your particular judgement, Christ won't be concerned with your particular judgement. He'll want to talk to you about how much you evangelized others.

Next, the apostles are told how to respond to different receptions of the Gospel. Here, is where the young apostles learn that God’s message will, at times, result in rejection. The response to this rejection is striking – “dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” When a Jewish student became a committed follower of a teacher, he would follow the teacher everywhere. Often, the teacher would give lectures while walking the dusty paths across the land. Therefore, a committed disciple would be so close to the teacher that the teacher’s dust from his path would track on the student’s sandal. Symbolically, the dust on the student’s feet signified his commitment to his master’s teaching. Therefore, in following the master, the student wore the master’s “teaching” (i.e. dust) on his feet. By dusting off their feet, the apostles are showing they reject whatever master that town had been following. This gesture also served as a testimony against them as if to indicate, “You’ve been warned, whatever happens next is not on us but on you.” In this, the “dusting off” showcases the missionaries have done their job and are washing their hands of further responsibility of that person’s soul (Ezek. 3:21; 33:1-9). In this, the missionary experiences a bit of relief in that they've done their job and now they are moving on to the next one.

Here, we come to the obvious point that God's message will be rejected by the vast majority. In Jesus's first sermon, the crowd spurned His message so much so they wanted to throw Him off a cliff (Luke 4:28-30). In fact, the totality of the Gospel is summed up as the majority of people scorned Jesus's teaching so much so they ended up killing Him. Jesus went further to warn His apostles, "If they persecute me, they will persecute you too" (John 15:20). Therefore, this sales job of God's message will be met with many "no's" and require a willingness to welcome attacks against you much like Christ did when they eventually put Him to death. Rather than view the "no's" as personal onslaughts against you, try to view the "no's" as heaven smiling down to you with their emphatic "yes." As a priest told me, when you switch your audience from people here on earth, to saints and angels in heaven, your perspective dramitically changes.

While the disciple's sales efforts in spreading the Gospel does not seem glamourous, their calling allowed them to become saints. So too when we spread the faith we are entering the mode of the apostle. Yes, it’s incredibly challenging communicating our faith to others as we’ll be perceived as an annoyance and God's message will be met with a yawn of indifference or, in some cases, an emotional outburst that you're "being too judgemental." But, as Mother Teresa once said, “God is not looking for success. He is looking for faithfulness.” In this, God is telling us not to worry so much about people’s reactions. Rather, focus more on your divine mandate to go out and spread God’s word wherever you can.