Flying Coach, No Luggage
Luke 10:1-16
July 8, 2007
(Sometimes my sermon title comes too far ahead of the sermon and after I struggle with the text for awhile I realize that the sermon will have no relationship to the title. This is happening today.)
During the last week of June Mayflower moves the pastors of the Minnesota Annual Conference. I’ve moved often enough that I know some of the movers – we had the same crew leader this last time as we did four years ago. Now the Conference will pay to move 14,000 pounds for a longer move (it was 13,000 last time.) Last time we were overweight at 14,700 pounds. We’ve added one person to the family since then, so Kelly and I worked hard to get under the new limit. We donated an antique safe to Hope, we filled two dumpsters, took two carloads to Goodwill, and donated things to a neighborhood garage sale. When the moving truck showed up at our new house I ran out and asked, “How much did the truck weigh?”
“15,700 pounds.”
You can see why this text might make me nervous.
This story is part of a long section in Luke where Jesus is teaching about discipleship – what it means to follow him. He is sending out his followers – 70 of them – to the villages nearby where he is planning to go soon. He sends them in pairs with very specific instructions on what to carry, what to do, how to behave, and how to leave. “No purse (which means no money), no bag (which means nothing extra) and no sandals (extra sandals, I think.)”
The directions for what to take seem harsh – why take nothing with you?
Is Jesus encouraging everyone to be an ascetic, with a begging bowl, enjoy nothing, deny yourself?
This doesn’t fit for a guy who was always at dinner parties, eating and drinking, called a glutton by his enemies.
Is Jesus trying to teach his followers that they need to depend upon God and not feel secure with their wordly goods?
Perhaps – there is plenty of that sort of teaching in the Bible.
But Jesus is trying to do something else here, too. The clue is in what he keeps telling his followers to say, if they leave or if they stay: the kingdom of God has come near.
We need to know something about the world these people lived in to understand what is happening. The Israelites were under Roman occupation and living under constant threat of death, violence, and poverty. The people were very poor and had little freedom. So to protect themselves they pulled inward, built walls between themselves and others, and tried to protect what they had.
Jesus sends out his followers with a very specific purpose in mind, one designed to offer a different way to live. The seventy were sent out to develop community with those they encountered, to not only announce the kingdom of God but to make it real among the people, real in the breaking down of walls. So they don’t carry an extra cloak because then they need to ask someone for a bed. They don’t carry food because then they have to find a family who will feed them. They don’t have anything extra because then they have to depend upon someone else. That binds them to those they visit, which is different than being a salesman or a guru with big bucks staying in the big hotel with something fancy to say and sell.
They are to choose a house to enter, offer peace, and, if they are accepted, stay put there. That means that the family that welcomed them, a hospitable family most likely, will become leaders in the movement. They are not to search out the best bed, or the best food, but to stay put until their work is done.
Then, now that they have this relationship, they are to do three things: eat what is set before them, cure the sick, and announce that the kingdom of God has come near.
If they are not welcome, they are not supposed to curse anyone, but to shake the dust off of their feet in the middle of the street and then announce, “The kingdom of God has come near.”
Eating together is first. It is the first thing that happens. Jesus is all about eating. He knows that when you eat together, things can change.
Peter Storey was a Methodist bishop in South Africa who tells a story about one of his pastors who was arrested during apartheid. The man was arrested in the middle of the night and the Bishop went to the prison to visit him. He was not allowed to speak with him about very much, but he made arrangements to serve communion. He invited the guard, the Afrikaner guard, to join them, and he did.
So the Bishop put out a hunk of bread and the cup. He said it is traditional to serve the least of these, so he first served the pastor prisoner. The man ate the bread and drank from the cup. Then, the Bishop said, one serves the stranger, so he then served the guard. He gave him a piece of bread, and then handed him the cup.
Now they didn’t use intinction, and they didn’t have the separate little cups. The guard was in a quandary – if he took the cup he was breaking a lot of taboos. But, the Bishop said, something deep in him responded, and he took the cup and drank.
The prisoner was not set free right away, and the guard was still the guard, but something changed in that encounter. The kingdom of God had come near.
The Kingdom of God is not a place in the future, it is now. It is not somewhere we can’t get to – it is right here. It happens when we see each other for who we really are, when we take down the barriers between us, between us and the world, between us and God.
We eat together, we offer healing, we announce the kingdom of God. We do that in this community, certainly, we eat together, we offer healing to one another in many ways, and we know God is near. How then, does this happen for the world around us? How is the kingdom of God known because we are here, at this address, at this time?
Amen.
July 8, 2007
(Sometimes my sermon title comes too far ahead of the sermon and after I struggle with the text for awhile I realize that the sermon will have no relationship to the title. This is happening today.)
During the last week of June Mayflower moves the pastors of the Minnesota Annual Conference. I’ve moved often enough that I know some of the movers – we had the same crew leader this last time as we did four years ago. Now the Conference will pay to move 14,000 pounds for a longer move (it was 13,000 last time.) Last time we were overweight at 14,700 pounds. We’ve added one person to the family since then, so Kelly and I worked hard to get under the new limit. We donated an antique safe to Hope, we filled two dumpsters, took two carloads to Goodwill, and donated things to a neighborhood garage sale. When the moving truck showed up at our new house I ran out and asked, “How much did the truck weigh?”
“15,700 pounds.”
You can see why this text might make me nervous.
This story is part of a long section in Luke where Jesus is teaching about discipleship – what it means to follow him. He is sending out his followers – 70 of them – to the villages nearby where he is planning to go soon. He sends them in pairs with very specific instructions on what to carry, what to do, how to behave, and how to leave. “No purse (which means no money), no bag (which means nothing extra) and no sandals (extra sandals, I think.)”
The directions for what to take seem harsh – why take nothing with you?
Is Jesus encouraging everyone to be an ascetic, with a begging bowl, enjoy nothing, deny yourself?
This doesn’t fit for a guy who was always at dinner parties, eating and drinking, called a glutton by his enemies.
Is Jesus trying to teach his followers that they need to depend upon God and not feel secure with their wordly goods?
Perhaps – there is plenty of that sort of teaching in the Bible.
But Jesus is trying to do something else here, too. The clue is in what he keeps telling his followers to say, if they leave or if they stay: the kingdom of God has come near.
We need to know something about the world these people lived in to understand what is happening. The Israelites were under Roman occupation and living under constant threat of death, violence, and poverty. The people were very poor and had little freedom. So to protect themselves they pulled inward, built walls between themselves and others, and tried to protect what they had.
Jesus sends out his followers with a very specific purpose in mind, one designed to offer a different way to live. The seventy were sent out to develop community with those they encountered, to not only announce the kingdom of God but to make it real among the people, real in the breaking down of walls. So they don’t carry an extra cloak because then they need to ask someone for a bed. They don’t carry food because then they have to find a family who will feed them. They don’t have anything extra because then they have to depend upon someone else. That binds them to those they visit, which is different than being a salesman or a guru with big bucks staying in the big hotel with something fancy to say and sell.
They are to choose a house to enter, offer peace, and, if they are accepted, stay put there. That means that the family that welcomed them, a hospitable family most likely, will become leaders in the movement. They are not to search out the best bed, or the best food, but to stay put until their work is done.
Then, now that they have this relationship, they are to do three things: eat what is set before them, cure the sick, and announce that the kingdom of God has come near.
If they are not welcome, they are not supposed to curse anyone, but to shake the dust off of their feet in the middle of the street and then announce, “The kingdom of God has come near.”
Eating together is first. It is the first thing that happens. Jesus is all about eating. He knows that when you eat together, things can change.
Peter Storey was a Methodist bishop in South Africa who tells a story about one of his pastors who was arrested during apartheid. The man was arrested in the middle of the night and the Bishop went to the prison to visit him. He was not allowed to speak with him about very much, but he made arrangements to serve communion. He invited the guard, the Afrikaner guard, to join them, and he did.
So the Bishop put out a hunk of bread and the cup. He said it is traditional to serve the least of these, so he first served the pastor prisoner. The man ate the bread and drank from the cup. Then, the Bishop said, one serves the stranger, so he then served the guard. He gave him a piece of bread, and then handed him the cup.
Now they didn’t use intinction, and they didn’t have the separate little cups. The guard was in a quandary – if he took the cup he was breaking a lot of taboos. But, the Bishop said, something deep in him responded, and he took the cup and drank.
The prisoner was not set free right away, and the guard was still the guard, but something changed in that encounter. The kingdom of God had come near.
The Kingdom of God is not a place in the future, it is now. It is not somewhere we can’t get to – it is right here. It happens when we see each other for who we really are, when we take down the barriers between us, between us and the world, between us and God.
We eat together, we offer healing, we announce the kingdom of God. We do that in this community, certainly, we eat together, we offer healing to one another in many ways, and we know God is near. How then, does this happen for the world around us? How is the kingdom of God known because we are here, at this address, at this time?
Amen.
posted by Michelle at 8:45 AM
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