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July 4, 2010, MLC, Ocean View, NJ, H. Fege, D.Min.

Lectionary 14, Pentecost 6. Is. 66.19-14, Gal.6.1-6ff. Lk.10. 1-11ff.

 

Since Easter we have read Luke’s travel journal as Jesus and his disciples move from village to village… sometimes being received with enthusiasm and sometimes not so.

Along the road we encounter those who come to Jesus with petitions for help, like a Centurion whose servant is gravely ill and sends for Jesus, others like the widow who is on the way to the cemetery to bury her only son.

Last Sunday we heard how James and John had been sent on ahead for some PR work. Their report indicated that the Samaritans were in no mood to welcome Jesus. James and John also known as the “Zebedee boys” the sons of thunder, wanted Jesus to rain down fire and brimstone… we are told that Jesus rebuked them.

 It was also in last week's lesson that we read about three would-be followers of Jesus. The first said I will follow you wherever you go.

All is well until Jesus tells him that unlike the NJ Synod Assembly, they will not be staying at the Hilton. We never hear from him again.

While the first volunteered, the second is recruited. He agrees to come along, but tells Jesus he first has to take care of some family matters. Jesus tells him that there is no time for that.

The third potential Kingdom candidate, like the first two, is willing but he too has a condition that involves family matters.

Jesus tells him it’s now or never…

The message is that Kingdom Life, following Jesus, walking with Jesus, is not about us, is not on our terms but God’s terms.

In today's Bible reading Jesus continues the journey among the Samaritans…

The three dropouts are replaced by 70 others… some manuscripts have 72 … since they are sent out two by two making 36 pairs, someone did the math and came up with 72.

Before sending them out, Jesus like General Petraeus, gives them a briefing. He does not romanticize their mission. 

He tells them they are like lambs among wolves. 

He tells him or her not to take any money, no backpack or sleeping bag or hiking boots. Stay focused, don’t go looking for the best place to hang your hat, eat what they put in front of you, cure the sick and most important of all proclaim that “Kingdom Time” kyros time, God’s time, is now! …

For you Bible scholars out there, the great New Testament scholar Joachim Jeremiahs called it “Realized Eschatology”.

Then Jesus has some harsh words for those towns that choose not to listen.

Choose to stay in bed on a Sunday morning… those who go through life asleep.

10. But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you go out into the streets and say 11. Even the dust of your town, we wipe off in protest against you… yet know this the Kingdom of God has come near. 

He names names: vs. 13.  Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum… the towns ironically in which Jesus during his 3 years of ministry spent most of his time… not Samaritan towns but Israelite towns.

Jesus seems to be saying that opposition to the “Good News” comes not only from those who may not be in the know…

Like the Samaritans, but also and maybe especially those,  those who have the Bible, from the locals from those who have been doing Wednesday night Bible Study all their life… the ones who should know –

When the 72 report back – wow!! 10.14 Lord, even the demons submit to us. Jesus sees Satan fall like a flash of lightning.

 Jesus and the disciples celebrate and rejoice. The Greek word for rejoice is agalliao.

 It is a dancing, cartwheel kind of rejoicing, and of all places it happened in Samaritan towns…  

Jesus cautions them not to get too worked up about all this but rather that their names are written in heaven.

In other words it is not what they have done but what God has done; not what we do but who we are that anchors our joy!

The second lesson for some weeks now… also known as the Epistle to the Galatians,  Paul does his best to convince the recipients of the letters and I would suggest those of us who still read them, that participation in God’s grace, or in what Jesus calls Kingdom Life is not about our goodness but about God’s goodness…

For in Christ Jesus neither “circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love” 5.2. and in vs. 5.14. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

As to who is my neighbor? Next Sunday Jesus answers that in the parable of the Good Samaritan. 

So to summarize: We heard about three would-be followers of Jesus who all turned away from Kingdom Life…. when they learned that they could not continue in the old way of going through life asleep…

To be awake is to be aware.

Birds have nests and foxes have dens… but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head… Jesus is saying that Kingdom Life entails a new way of seeing the world in which we live.

It means we should not invest too much of ourselves and our money into permanency… We are People of the Way.

The other two would-be followers also had conditions… each involved putting the family first and Kingdom-Life second.  Jesus said… it won’t work. Your family can only have meaning if you can see them through the lenses of the Kingdom, which is another way of saying that you need to wake up.

So as we celebrate America’s birthday it might be worth remembering where true security lies. 

It might be worth recalling that real security lies in insecurity… not in weapons of mass destruction or drones or pension funds … or flag-waving!

Using the metaphor of the Kingdom Work, Jesus is telling us that instead of diminishing the risks we are challenged to take them on… All of them, and they are many.

The economy… as we continue to do battle with Corporate Greed and Banking Monopolies and we are told some banks are “too big to fail.”

It seems that too many of our brothers and sisters were invested in the illusion that home values could never go down…

Like all illusions, when reality hits people get hurt.

To wake up, means that we celebrate with Jesus when the Good News is received, but even that celebration comes with a word of caution “rejoice not that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” 10.20 and heaven is not some far-away place it is in the here and now… it is for those who are awake.

It is for those who pray “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…” And the words are more than pretty words, are more than wishful thinking, but are the wake-up call that indeed the lightning flash that ignites the world with the love of God is for not just a chosen few but for all of our sisters and brothers everywhere. Amen.