The Rev. Joseph P. Peters-Mathews
Proper 9, C
Lk. 10.1-11, 16-20
7 July 2013
St. Paul’s, Oakland
In the name of God in whose name we
are baptized: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I have a secret for you, church,
but it really shouldn’t be a secret, and it’s about who these passages are
about. Yes, the lesson from the Hebrew scriptures is about Naaman and the
lesson from Luke is about the 70. But with every passage of scripture proclaimed
on a Sunday morning I like to use one of my step-dad’s tests when people come
knocking on his door to try to recruit him: the so what test.
We’re hearing these texts on a
Sunday — so what? Why? This season after Pentecost is used to strengthen disciples
in ministries we learned about during Eastertide. So these passages are
about…us. Every biblical text is about the story itself, and if there weren’t
some timeless truth in it for us today the Church wouldn’t have made it a part
of our timeless canon centuries ago.
Or Gospel lesson picks up where
last week’s left off. Last week Jesus says that if you want to follow him, you
have to leave your family, the dead have to bury the dead, you have to set your
face to Jerusalem with him — prepared to die to yourself — and put your hand to the plow and not look
back.
Today Jesus appoints 70 and gives him a simple message. These are the
people who have left their families, have promised to try to die, and who are
working to be like him. These 70 are us, the us who have waded in the troubled
waters, been healed, and been gifted with the Spirit to do this simple, simple
task — go to towns, say “the kingdom of God has come near!”, show that it is, and
come back to report what happened.
Do you notice what Jesus doesn’t
do? He doesn’t just take whoever shows up and expect them to be able to follow
him, and he doesn’t send them out on their own willy-nilly. Jesus here knows
what he’s doing — treating these new disciples like the youngsters, in
following him, that they are. Jesus gives very clear directions: take this, not
that; enter here, not there; when things don’t go well, move on — not in anger,
but because it’s time to.
Jesus is sending out evangelists to
tell the Good News, but he’s been teaching them what the Kingdom of God looks
like for a while now. He’s made the difficulty of the journey clear by saying
that it’s hard to follow him and forewarning them that it means dying to
yourself. Even in the midst of admonition and direction about what they are to
do, Jesus reassures them: “Know this! The kingdom of God has come near.”
The 70 go away for some period of
time and come back among a changed and changing world. “Jesus! Even the demons
submit to us!”
Jesus says, “Yeah, they do, but
don’t get too excited about it. I’ve given you authority to do that, but be
happier not that you can work wonders, but that you have done the work I have
given you to do.”
All of that is exciting and
wonderful…but so what? What does that have to do with us? Well, I told you that
we’re the seventy, right? So…we’re supposed to be going out, proclaiming that
the Kingdom of God has come near, showing that it has, and then coming back to
report it. How well do we do that, both as a congregation and as individuals?
Have you seen that the kingdom of God has come near in the last few weeks? Have
you told any of your friends about it? Any of your church people about it?
Maybe you have, but our American
Mainline Protestant institutions don’t really prepare us to be evangelists. For
so long we’ve assumed that everyone around us is Christian, that they’ve heard
the Good News so we don’t need to be telling it.
That’s just not true anymore.
We may not be trained to be
evangelists, but we have been trained to be witty and make signs. I saw a flyer
on the Episcopal Church Memes Facebook page on Friday that made me cringe. Let
me paint you a mental picture. The background is grey, but it’s got a white
boarder. It opens with, “Think you already know enough about a Christian to not
want to be one? THNK AGAIN!” Below this
opener is a picture of Rodin’s Thinker.
Below that the flier says, “Think about a church…where God’s inclusive love is
available to all; where the focus is on justice, not judgment; where the family
values we preach value ALL families. Think about The Episcopal Church!”
There is then an Episcopal shield
and our tag, “The Episcopal Church welcomes you,” with tiny copy, “Whoever you
are, and wherever your find yourself on the journey of faith there is a place
for you in The Episcopal Church. Come and see, and join us as we work together
to make God’s love tangible to absolutely everybody.”
Those are a lot of good words, but
yes, it made me cringe. For one, I’m a communicator and it had way too much
text on it. No one has time to read this much on a bulletin board. The graphics
weren’t the best arranged, and the shield and welcome didn’t follow style or
font guides established by The Episcopal Church for use of the logo. Those are
pedantic critiques, though and barely what made me cringe.
There is no mention of the Kingdom
of God drawing near. There’s no mention of Jesus. The focus of what we’re doing
today deals with justice, but we’re here to worship and be sent to work. Lots
of words for people who already aren’t here — and probably aren’t going to be
persuaded to reject their atheism, their agnosticism, or their suspicion of
religious institutions because of a flier an anonymous person put up in a
coffee shop.
With not just a Church, The
Episcopal Church, but a whole faith tradition, Christianity on decline,
commentator Taylor Burton-Edwards says, “The institutional solutions all
presume we are primarily those who COME to worship and other activities, and
that those activities (worship, education programs, and outreach or mission
projects we create) are what makes for faithful Christian disciples.
Jesus’s
approach is to SEND disciples in ministry in his name, with no programs, no
‘big show worship,’ and little more than an unwavering faith that the gospel is
true: God’s kingdom has drawn near, and we can see that happening and
participate in it everywhere.”
Here at St. Paul’s you are a people
who are working to make the Kingdom
of God’s nearness clearer through your participation in SAVE Oakland stand-ins
and your advocacy for LGBT people. I’ve seen the kingdom of God come a little
closer in the last two weeks with the overturning of Prop 8 and DOMA — and I’ve
seen it going a little farther away with the overturning of the Voting Rights
Act and a possible end to affirmative action in educational admission. I saw it
at the press conference about religious affirmation of marriage equality when
women and people of color were shown supporting marriage equality and calling the church to keep working
to eradicate the sins of racism and gender discrimination.
You might say, “But Fr. Joseph,
those are all just bureaucracy, what does that have to do with the Kingdom of
God?” If we let “bureaucracy” mean “working through systems” then the Jesus who
we follow engaged it completely from the process of maturing in the womb and
being birthed to working his way through a fallen, failing “justice” system
before his crucifixion. Jesus the incarnate God lived in our bureaucracy and
told us to know that the kingdom of God has come near.
Jesus didn’t send out the 70 to
post fliers hoping new people would come back to him. He sent them, like our
deacon will do in a few minutes, to proclaim good news to real, live, people
they encountered. To share their testimony of how God was changing the world,
and to come back to strengthen others with what they saw. This season after
Pentecost is about strengthening disciples to proclaim the Good News of the
Resurrection, and I’m with you for six more weeks or so of them.
I was just coming into The Episcopal
Church when Gerald Ford died; this prompted my Southern Baptist mother to ask
me in a joking form, “What’s the one thing an Episcopalian won’t share with
you?” I said I didn’t know. Her punch line was “His faith.” I was incensed then
but now wonder if this might not be too true.
The kingdom of God has drawn near!
Where have you seen it? Who are you telling? Are you sharing everything you have with others except your faith?
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