For People with Bishop Rob Wright
For People with Bishop Rob Wright
An Uncommon Success: Bishop Wright's Sermon at the 119th Annual Council
Bishop Wright's sermon "An Uncommon Success" given at the 119th Annual Council of the Diocese of Atlanta.
Welcome to Four People with Bishop Rob Wright. I'm your producer, Easton Davis. Today's episode is Bishop Wright's sermon titled An Uncommon Success, given on November 7th, 2025 at the 119th Annual Council of the Diocese of Atlanta.
SPEAKER_01:After this, the Lord appointed seven the others and sent them in pairs to every town where he himself intended to go. Did you hear the first two words? Translated after that. Jesus' words are a response to the events in the previous chapter. So let me tell you what the after that is referring to so that we can all be up to speed. Amen? After Jesus appoints and gives the twelve power and authority. After the political violence, Herod murdered Jesus' cousin John. After the reluctant participation of the disciples and the feeding of the five thousand. After Jesus' prayer-prompted transfiguration, after the executive committee of the disciples choosing tiny home construction over vocation in the valley. Are y'all reading the Bible? After the disciples, dispute over succession planning and greatness. After Jesus provides health care to a child, a family without means. After Jesus laments his own homelessness. After all these events, or you could say, at the close of a tumultuous year, we have a response, this just in, from Jesus. His response is to appoint and send 70 more people to the cities he himself intends to go. That said, another way, the more complicated the world gets, the more disappointing life gets, the lonelier life gets, the more unsure things become, the more resolute Jesus gets about his purpose. Jesus' purpose is to embody and proclaim a counter narrative that swallows up the world's bad news, scarcity, contempt for neighbor narratives. Jesus' purpose is to proclaim the kingdom of God here and now. El propisito, the Jesus es proclamar que el reino de Dios esta aquí. Jesus's purpose is to practice an alternative way to live that reveals the heart of God, exposes contradictions, and welcomes the errant home. It is his purpose that keeps him from being broken by breaking news or distracted by disappointments and divisions. His proclamation is a timeless invitation to transformation, not a temporal tirade. Jesus is not indifferent or reactive, Jesus is responsive. Today's gospel finds Jesus commissioning a future, not paralyzed by the past. He's not in denial about past hardships and failures. No, he's not. He has recycled them into a faithful response for the future. Jesus' response to a tough year is to increase the scale of the movement and welcome new people to this beautiful struggle. He's engaging the willing and mobilizing the faithful. At the beginning of chapter 9, Jesus appoints and empowers just 12 disciples, but now, just one chapter later, he appoints and sends 70 more. That's a 483.33% increase. We're all the math nerds in the room. But we shouldn't sit here in amazement. No, not just that, looking back at Jesus' resolve and clarity. What we must do is allow his words to become our flesh. What we can do at this annual council and every day ahead of us is to dedicate ourselves individually and organizationally to Jesus' purposes. That, my friends, is the only future the church has. Gospel message must become gospel method. El mensaje, the evangelio da bi convercirte in metodo del evangelio. Jesus appointed and sent them. Notice here that they're not sent to worship. Worship is a pre-existing condition for the living, for the sent life. Notice also that Jesus uses two separate phrases here: appointed and sent. I wonder if Jesus uses two words, recognizing that some folks get stuck in appointment and never quite make it to sent. The sent life is a countercultural challenge. Sentness is the cure for self-centeredness. And funny enough, it's also the cure for ecclesiastical anxiety. Sentness is the medicine for the world. But when the church is inward facing, it is highly likely we will just bump into each other. You ever been to one of those meetings? Say amen. This is all so terribly critical for us to understand today because to paraphrase our friend Will Woolemon, people who are actively being, people are actively being seduced by and daily indoctrinated into a godless ideology. That ideology is this, that our lives and our possessions, our lives are just our possessions to do with as we please, and that our lives are just the sum of our astute choices. But the good news of the gospel flips all of that on its head. The gospel says God is the center of life abundant, and that my life is gift, and so is yours. The gospel says all we have is gift. The gospel goes even further than that. The gospel says that my blindness, my sinfulness, when offered to God, will round out my humanity, and a surprising new sensitivity will be born in me for the world, which my astute choices could never deliver. What we must remind one another of this week and every week hereafter is the most adventuresome way to live, is by letting Jesus commandeer your life. That's what makes us church, folks. That's what makes us church, not the endowment, not the steeple, not the stained glass, as much as I love all those things. Jesus sends his friends to the city, Las Ciudades, the polis is what Aristotle called it. Polis, as you know, is where we get the word political from. The polis is where the people are. It's the place where all can have a good and virtuous life where justice is present, where we can do better than just survival, where we can flourish. It's to the polis that Jesus sends his friends to be harvest laborers, peace bringers, moral examples, adaptive leaders, community healers, and if I'm reading my Bible correctly, free meal moochers. But that's another sermon. So from the beginning, Jesus' friends are expected to skillfully intervene in the affairs of the city. So then, to be a follower of Jesus is to be political, but not partisan. The truth is to be sent is the most political thing that can happen to you. But friends, let's be crystal clear, given the present climate, Jesus' politics are not left or right. They are not red or blue. Jesus' politics are vertical and horizontal. Vertical into love of God and horizontal into love of neighbor. Jesus' politics are neither progressive nor conservative. Jesus' politics are cruciform. With Jesus, the cross always higher than the flag. Jesus' politics are inside out and bottom up. Jesus's politics create a circle so wide until there are no outcasts. Jesus's politics are redemption. Redemption, not retribution. In Jesus' politics, this is the part I like. Every sinner has a future. And every saint has a past. I like that part. Jesus's politics are sharing. In Jesus' politics, every child deserves a quality education. And every senior, no matter their net worth, deserves high quality health care. In Jesus' politics, you don't withhold food to make a political point. In Jesus' politics, the poor are not blamed for their poverty. And those who labor to pick and put food on our tables are not scapegoated. They are paid the wages that we would want for our own children. In Jesus' politics, the pronouns are we and ours. En la politica de Jesús los pronombres son nosotros y nuestra. Nuestro. This is the city Jesus imagines and then dispatches people like us from places like this. Comb through this morning's nine verses, and you'll see that there are a lot of howls from Jesus. HOW. Howl. How shall we go in pairs? How shall we show up? Like lambs among wolves. How shall we pack for the journey? Light. It's not until the last sentence of his soliloquy that Jesus gives us the why that powers all the hows. Tell them, Jesus says, that the kingdom of God has come near. Victor Frankel, Holocaust survivor and author of the book Man's Search for Meaning, said this: those who have a why to live can bear almost any how. Los que tienen un porquier, vivir, pueden, soportar, casei, calquear forma. Frankel's insight helps us understand what success means for people who are sent. When the church gets together like this, we love it. I love it. I love it. But there are always big questions in the room, right? Questions like, what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus right now? Questions like, what does this gospel offer that secular humanism can't? And my favorite question, I've heard this in many forms over the last 14 years, Bishop, exactly what are we fighting for anyway? Hard questions? Fair questions. And each question, at least to my mind, is longing, if you get down to the bottom of it, is longing for the answer. What does success look like for the followers of Jesus? Jesus never promises conventional notions of success. You know that. He doesn't promise wealth or promotions or prominence. He promises a life of meaning. He promises that if you have a harvest heart and a harvest hands, there's plenty of good work to do. He promises to place you in an outrageously sized global family. He promises that he can be relied on if we join him in his adventure. He offers on this journey a new depth of integrity. Mine and behind, in line, and all the peace that comes with that. Success for us in every season and in all situations is staying connected to Jesus' purpose, Jesus' why. So then the definition of success for those who are sent by Jesus is measured in reliance. Reliance. Just that. Reliance on his ways and on his words. Jesus sends the 70 saints to live lives joyfully at odds with self-interest. The good news of living a sin life is actually learning to depend on God for direction, for protection, for correction, for provision, for healing, for forgiveness, for a new capacity to forgive. The great climax of this unusual reliance is for us to be able to say to anyone, anywhere, with an absolute straight face. God is trustworthy. God is trustworthy. God is trustworthy. Here's a question for you. Do you trust him now more than yesterday? But not as much as tomorrow. And that definition of success, if that definition of success doesn't compel you, that's okay. Let me phone a friend. Henry David Throw said this if one advances confidently in the direction of their dreams and lives the life one imagines, they will meet with an uncommon success. They will pass an invisible boundary. New universal laws will establish around them and within them. Solitude won't be solitude anymore, neither will weakness be weakness. That beloved is just a fancy way, just another way to say what Jesus has already said today. That the kingdom is right here. Right here. And the kingdom is right now. And it's available to all of us. And maybe better than that, it's available through us. It is a good time to be the church. Nothing is too hard for God.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening to four people. Keep up with us on social media at Bishop Robright. Please subscribe, leave a review, and we'll be back with you next week.