A Sermon Preached By

Rev. Peter W. Shidemantle

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 8, 2007

PEBBLE HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

5299 Jamesville Rd., DeWitt, NY  13214

Phone:  315-446-0960     FAX:  446-0672

phillchu@twcny.rr.com     http://pebblehill.presbychurch.org

           One of the things you discover pretty early on in ministry is just how unprepared you are for lots of things you come up against.  I actually discovered this during my second year in seminary, when I had a field work assignment as a student assistant in an African American Baptist church in New Haven.  It was a last minute assignment, so there wasn’t much time for preparation or orientation; it wasn’t even clear what I’d be doing there.  The pastor was pretty overwhelmed with things, so he wasn’t much help even though he was very grateful that I was there.  After a few weeks I worked my way into being a kind of social worker with the elderly members of the church, helping them to get the kinds of medical and social services that they needed.  This was an unanticipated role for me, though I was eager to do it, but in a lot of ways I was like a fish out of water.  The cultural gaps were pretty wide between this young, somewhat naive, white divinity student, and these older black folks, many of whom had grown up in the south working on tenant farms.

            One of the ladies I worked with was over 100 years old, and she was having trouble with her false teeth - and more trouble getting a dentist to take her on as a patient.  I was trying to intervene and advocate on her behalf.  We had been together for a while before I realized I hadn’t really introduced myself.  I said, “My name is Peter, by the way.”  She said, “Peter By-the-way,” that’s a nice name.”  I had a hunch I was being put on, but I wasn’t sure if she simply had misunderstood, so I let it go.

            I’ve re-learned it many times since, of course, that much of what we are asked to do, much of what we are called to do - indeed, much of what we are commanded to do as Christian disciples - finds us vulnerable, un-prepared or under-prepared to carry out.  The 70 whom Jesus sent out as a sort of “trial run” to the places he would later go were given a minimum of preparation and instruction.  In fact he said he was sending them out “like lambs into the midst of wolves.”  Talk about being vulnerable!  Don’t expect, in other words, to necessarily be warmly received for your good efforts.  But yet they were to put themselves at the mercy and hospitality of others who might help them along the way.  They were to carry no purse, no bag, not even sandals on their feet.  They weren’t even to greet others on the road - but with an intense single-mindedness make their way to the villages spread over the Palestinian countryside. 

            There a couple of things that commend to us this un-prepared or under-prepared approach to doing the Lord’s work which Jesus endorses with the 70.  Life really is, as Forest Gump learned from his mama, “like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get.”  We can never be fully prepared for what life brings.  Jesus extends that sense of vulnerability outward - and instead of trying to protect ourselves against it, rather to embrace it and to lead with it.  For one thing, it teaches us a trusting reliance on the Spirit of God to uphold us and to spiritually sustain us.  We cannot know what trust in God is if we are not moving beyond our own comfort zones in doing God’s work in the world.  Servants of the Lord should do their homework, but ultimately we have to trust in the abilities God has given us to live out the calling God places on our hearts.  We’ve all know very gifted people who lead with their gifts, but there is little of God that follows in them.  I read Jesus’ method of sending out the 70, two by two, with nothing but themselves (and each other - he didn’t send them alone), as saying that we carry with us an emptiness that can only be filled by God - and that emptiness will be visible to those to whom we minister through the presence of humility and grace and humor in us.

              The other thing that this approach commends to us is that it leaves us open to change.  Our Christian discipleship, our ministry, living out our faith - however we would phrase it - is as much about being changed ourselves as it is about changing the lives or conditions of others.  We all know this is true.  The most transforming experiences for me have come through giving myself, despite my fears and misgivings, to what I have clearly felt at the time to be the work of God’s kingdom.  There is something about the Christian faith that simply has to be lived to be understood - some gospel truths that only make sense in the homeless shelter, or the steps of the capitol, or at a hospital bed.  If faith is to truly come alive for us, if we are to experience the kind of change within ourselves that we have a hunch God wants for us, that we have the sense will mean deeper joy for us, then we will decide to live for God and God’s kingdom that draws near.  As we go out to do the work of the kingdom, along the way we will find ourselves fed, healed and renewed.

            You may have seen the report in yesterday’s newspaper that American’s trust in organized religion has fallen to an all-time low.  I haven’t seen the poll itself, nor the questions that were asked that led to this finding - and we can probably assume cover-ups of clergy sexual abuse and the like have contributed to the decline in trust.  We can all bemoan this fact, and in ways, where there once was trust, such as trust of clergy that has been violated, radical reforms and establishing strict accountability is called for.  On the other hand, where the church is truly about its mission in the world there will be a kind of mistrust that comes from people simply not wanting to change.  Change, after all, is a major thrust of the Christian message, is it not?  Change within ourselves, change in our world toward realities that cannot be seen.  Sometimes people will do anything in order to keep from changing their lives.  They will ignore you, ridicule or simply dismiss you.  Jesus knew that, for he had experienced it, and much more.

            The mission of the 70 can be seen as the precursor, the forerunner of the mission of the church - and there is a clarity about their mission from Christ that needs to be part of our mission today.  Perhaps as never before in the modern period the church today needs to be clear about who we are and what we are about.  I’m not speaking about denominational positions on the issues of the day, with which we may or may not agree.  Look at the mission of the 70:

            First, in each of the places they went they were to eat what was provided to them.  We need to realize that this had far greater implications than simply being polite - like we might tell our children when we’ve been invited to dinner by our friends.  You’ll recall that Jesus was frequently at odds with the religious officials of his day over who he ate with.  And of course with Jews it was equally as important what you ate.  Jesus instructed his disciples to eat whatever was put in front of them.  The important thing in the kingdom of God, and those who would live toward it, is who is around the table with you, not determined by human or societal standards but by God’s standards.  It is to include all - Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female - all to have equal voice and equal participation in the life of the community.  The church, remember, does not exist for itself, but to demonstrate to the world what God intends for the world.  If the church is not clear on that, does not live in that way, does not preach and proclaim that kind of radical inclusion - then we will not be trustworthy in any gospel sense.

            The second aspect of the mission of the 70 was to cure the sick who were there - to care for the physical hurts and needs of the people.  There is no simpler or purer form of ministry than this.  What made Mother Theresa so beloved and her example so inspiring was the simple act of getting on her knees beside the sickest of the sick in the gutters of Calcutta and helping them into an austere clinic where they could die knowing that God loved and cared for them.  That simple act of compassion, and acts like it, repeated thousands and missions of times over, by women and men and children who bear the name of Christ, is proof, for anyone who is looking, that the kingdom of God has drawn near.

            Ministry that is simple and direct, yet thoughtful and engaging of the powers and forces that victimize the weak and powerless of this world, this remains the calling of the church in our day.  A cup of cold water offered to someone who is parched with thirst still goes a lot further than the most articulate or spirit-filled sermon in demonstrating who the church is and what we are about..

            And third, the 70 were to declare wherever they went that the kingdom of God has come near to you.  Whether they receive you or not, whether you are welcomed or not, deliver this same message, that the Kingdom of God is near.  Don’t try to convince them of your opinions about things.  Don’t beat them over the head with your message - simply say, announce, declare, proclaim that the kingdom of God is close at hand.  This was the central message of Jesus, and it is to be ours as well. 

            Now, so often we hear that message as an argumentative one - so that it sounds more like bad news than good news.  But the point is that there is a message to proclaim.  We may not do it by going two by two from village to village to declare it, but it remains essential to our mission, and it is not just for preachers to proclaim it.  For many these days the kingdom of God and its appearance in the world seems to be a matter of timing.  It is associated with end times - and despite Jesus’ precaution to those in his day who wanted to know when this would be that it was not for them to know, that only God knows, it hasn’t prevented many from predicting it or dramatizing it in books and movies.

            But Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God and its nearness not in terms of “when” but in terms of “where.”  It isn’t as if the kingdom of God is near to us in time, but in space - not in the next age, but in the next room.  And sometimes the door to that next room opens, either because we’ve knocked loud and long enough, or maybe because the wind of God’s spirit has blown it open - when, as N.T. Wright describes it (book study starting today), heaven and earth intersect.  When that door does open, when the realms of heaven and earth intersect, faith sees surprising and wonderful things: those who are crippled in spirit find life that is whole and new; those who were blind in their sinfulness find the grace of forgiveness; those who are oppressed by evil or enslaved by distress are released.  Healing is found for wounds we thought could never heal.  Life is made more holy than we dared to believe.  These are the realities of the Kingdom of God that we pray for when we pray, “Thy kingdom come . . . on earth as it is in heaven.”

            This is news too good not to share.  It is news that inspires trust and that opens life to fullness and joy.  It is our news to proclaim - not to convince anyone, but to witness to the truth we’ve found in Jesus and his love.  The rest is up to God.

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