Receiving What’s Provided – sermon on July 3, 2016
Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20 Jesus selected seventy and sent them ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he intended to go. He gave them this charge: “What a huge harvest! And how few the harvest hands. So on your knees; ask the God of the Harvest to send harvest hands. On your way! But be careful – this is hazardous work. You’re like lambs in a wolf pack. Travel light. Comb and toothbrush and no extra luggage. Don’t loiter and make small talk with everyone you meet along the way.
“When you enter a home, greet the family, ‘Peace.’ If your greeting is received, then it’s a good place to stay. But if it’s not received, take it back and get out. Don’t impose yourself. Stay at one home, eating and drinking what they provide. Don’t hesitate to accept hospitality, for a worker deserves three square meals. Don’t move from house to house, looking for the best cook in town.
“When you enter a town and are received, eat what they set before you, heal anyone who is sick, and tell them, ‘God’s kingdom is right on your doorstep!’ When you enter a town and are not received, go out in the street and say, ‘The only thing we got from you is the dirt on our feet, and we’re giving it back. Did you have any idea that God’s kingdom was right on your doorstep?’ The one who rejects you, rejects me. And rejecting me is the same as rejecting God, who sent me.”
The seventy came back triumphant. “Master, even the demons danced to your tune!” Jesus said, “I know. I saw Satan fall, a bolt of lightning out of the sky. See what I’ve given you? Safe passage as you walk on snakes and scorpions, and protection from every assault of the Enemy. No one can put a hand on you. All the same, the great triumph is not in your authority over evil, but in God’s authority over you and presence with you. Not what you do for God but what God does for you—that’s the agenda for rejoicing.”
Sermon: Receiving What’s Provided by Rev. Doreen Oughton
So here we have them, some of the very first missionaries, and the kind that make many of us mainline Protestants squirm a bit. Because when we talk about missions here, we are usually talking about reaching out to the community to serve them – to provide blankets and money during disasters or lunch to the homeless, or pay for the education of a young African man. We are not talking about going door to door to proclaim that the kingdom is right on your doorstep. We are not talking about calling sinners to repent and accept Jesus into their hearts. Like I said, such things usually make us pretty uncomfortable.
But here it is in the gospel of Luke – the story of the sending of the seventy. Two by two, these disciples become apostles – those who have been following and learning are now sent out ahead to begin the harvest of God’s kingdom. They are told it is a big job, and they ought to pray for other workers to enter the harvest. Jesus says it is dangerous work. They are going like sheep among wolves. I wonder what he means by that – like sheep among wolves. Is it that the disciples are sent out defenseless, without the aid of backup (no extra purse or bag), to be easy pickin’s for anyone who would take advantage? If so, it is surprising that by the end of the passage the disciples came back filled with rejoicing: “Even the demons dance to your tune” – in other translations “obey us when we use your name.” They hardly seem like they were the vulnerable little lambs, right? After their return Jesus tells them they weren’t in danger after all, that he had given them protections, safe passage, authority over evil.
Perhaps I should be rejoicing with the apostles over their successful mission, but I can’t help but think of the damage done to cultures around the world in the “mission work” of Christians, the price paid by people who preferred to keep their own native religious practices. The Christian missionaries may have felt vulnerable, going among those they considered wild and dangerous, but history tells us who the “winners” were. The message that God’s kingdom is right on your doorstep became all mixed in with greed for land and resources, and driven at least in part by a sense of white supremacy. Different ways of life and worship were demonized. Languages and cultures were lost, children were taken from their families.
And so I was pleased in my research to come across a wonderful essay by Paul Palumbo, a pastor of a Lutheran Church in the state of Washington. He writes in 2001 about a “reverse mission trip” he took with a youth group to Nicaragua. The plan was not to build something or teach something – not even to bring the Word of God. Rev. Palumbo says his experience in Nicaragua was that “Jesus was alive and well, hanging out among the people of this impoverished, beautiful land. The hope of the trip was to bring young people, who have all but given up finding something life-giving and worthwhile in the religion of their parents, to bring them to a place where the Spirit of God is so obviously active. There, perhaps they could practice seeing Jesus so that upon their return their eyesight might be improved. Never mind doing something. The plan was to accompany people living in difficult times: to observe the devastation of poverty and the inspiration of the poor in the midst of that poverty. They visited a country that is living Good Friday, where hope is constantly and systematically laid to waste by powers and principalities. Yet the hope of the resurrection continues to be found, over and over again, among the people who work when they can, who pray, organize, and maintain their dignity and faith.”
And he talks about his former parish, which was very close to a low-income housing development, a place where, he says, “the violence of poverty was concentrated in a two-block area: shootings, stabbings, turf wars over drug sales, and more. The gunfire was so frequent that [his] wife, who felt compelled to report all shots that she heard, was on a first-name basis with the 911 operators. If you want wolves, [they] had wolves.” He goes on, “So you can imagine my hesitation to enter that neighborhood as a ‘missionary.’ For a year, I drove by the road into the development without turning in. For a year, I stood looking out my back window at that area and told God that I was not ready to go there. Finally, God decided I was ready and went to work on me. My own kids had been attending school with the children of the projects, and in that first summer after the school year, our backyard became the playground of choice for dozens of kids from that development. By the end of July, I had been invited by almost every child to come and meet their mom or dad or grandmother. So, I finally conceded and went, not two by two, but in the middle of an entourage of little children. As I walked through the neighborhood that first time, I noticed the young men, hanging out, scowling, suspicious of this new face in the neighborhood. “Gangsters,” I called them to myself, but the little ones with whom I walked called them “my uncle,” “my brother,” “my cousin.” I entered people’s homes, met their surprised, sometimes suspicious families, heard stories, was invited back by a few warm souls. These were the first to accept the peace I extended. It was there that I learned that I might look like “a lamb among wolves,” but you can’t be a lamb among wolves when the wolves don’t act like wolves but welcome you warmly into their homes and lives. Nor can you be a missionary to a people who know Jesus better than you do and who depend upon God’s grace every single hour of the day in the midst of desperate surroundings.
Rev. Palumbo considers Jesus’ words in this passage about demons dancing to Jesus’ tune, about Satan falling like a bolt of lightning. His understanding, based on his experiences, was that it was his own demons that were subjected to Christ’s authority – the demons of fear, self-consciousness, racial and economic prejudice. And he suggests that we can read this passage from Luke 10 a little differently than what a surface reading might indicate. He suggests that instead of seeing our authority as bearers of the good news as having a right to go tell people what’s what, we can ground ourselves authentically in Christ in the midst of anyone God leads us to. We can be centered and grounded in Christ without demonizing anyone, without turning the “other” into wolves. He finds support for this interpretation in the repeated command from Jesus to his apostles to eat and drink what is provided for them. He wonders, “What is so important about receiving table hospitality that the charge is made twice?” The trip to Nicaragua provided tremendous insight.
The leaders of the trip encouraged the travelers to eat what was set before them, to push past their fears that the food and water would make them sick. He said that by doing so, by eating what was offered, they acknowledged the gift given by the host family. To be served rice and beans prepared over a stone oven fueled by wood in dirt-floor houses on the only little table in the house was an honor. To be told the stories of the host families’ lives over the meal was an honor. To have the tiny house in which they were guests rearranged so that they might have a bedroom to them-selves was an honor.
He considered Jesus’ words about the workers deserving their three square meals as he was offered coffee one morning, and an egg with the rice and beans, which no one else in the family would get. He said it was truly humbling, and he wondered if the true meal the worker deserved was this humility. What would it look like if, before we think of our mission to proclaim or heal or build anything, we mind Jesus’ words to let ourselves be served by the folk we are intending to serve? Now we’re not going knocking on doors, we are not planning any building trips to far of lands or close to home. But we do seek to serve, don’t we? We do understand that as part of our call as Christians, right? It’s not just about trying to get people to come join us at church. Our call, as indicated by this passage, is to go out in the world both to serve and be served. To center ourselves in Christ and eat what is set before us, to submit our own demons of fear and prejudice to the ways of Jesus. We can rejoice in our part in building the kingdom, and we can rejoice in the ways God is working in and for us. May it be so.
