A Sermon preached on July 7, 2019, Proper 9 at
St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden
We can say two things about the Jesus of today’s Gospel reading: he is in
a hurry and he wants help! Let’s look at the urgency first. There appears to be
no time to spare, and so the 70 others that Jesus appoints and sends out in his
name are given no time to get ready or even to pack: “Carry no purse, no bag,
no sandals.” (Luke 10:4) Not only that, nothing should be allowed to stop them
on their way: “Greet no one on the road,” he says, and go into the first house
you see. Why the urgency? Jesus wants his
message to be spread far and wide and to reach as many people as quickly as
possible.
This urgent message is both an invitation – to help realize Jesus’s
vision of God’s kingdom – and a warning for those who refuse to listen. The core
of the message and of the Kingdom is peace, God’s peace. “Peace to this house” (10:5)
are the first words that Jesus’s messengers are supposed to say. And when they
say house, they don’t mean the building, but everyone who lives in it. They
will all share in the harmony, wholeness, and blessing that is God’s peace.
We also know that the mission of the 70 is about peace from how they
are commissioned. “I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves,” (10:3)
Jesus says. Now this could be a warning about how dangerous their mission is. But
I believe it is also be a reference to the coming kingdom of peace that the
Prophet Isaiah promises (11:6) in a passage we often hear at Christmas: “The
wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the
calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”
The kingdom Jesus came to inaugurate is characterized by peace, harmony, justice,
and love. This come directly from his knowledge and experience of God who is a
God of grace, justice, and infinite, saving, healing love.
Unfortunately, peace was not what most of Jesus’ contemporaries wanted.
They wanted to get rid of the Romans once and for all and so were hoping for a warrior
Messiah who would bring them a military victory. This explains the urgency of Jesus’
charge to the 70 and the warning part of the message. To quote Tom Wright, Professor
of New Testament at the University of St Andrews and former Bishop of Durham, “They
(the 70) were not offering people a new religious option which might have a
gentle effect on their lives. They were holding out a last chance for people to
turn away from Israel’s flight into ruin and to accept God’s way of peace.”[1]
Jesus’ teaching is never just spiritual or only concerned with our afterlife in
heaven. It is also always about how we live in the here and now, how we react
to God’s gift of life and love, how we live lives of love, how we follow the
divine imperative to love God and our neighbor.
Change, a change of mind and heart and behavior, was urgent then as it
is urgent today. In fact, change is always urgent as long as we are not living
as God has intended. There are many things that cannot wait today either. The
refugees in a sinking boat can’t wait. Carola Rackete the captain of Sea Watch
3, could not wait to get those she and her crew had rescued to safety. Saving the
world that God has given us to use and care for also cannot wait, as the
Fridays for Future demonstrators thankfully remind us. The kingdom of God and
all it stands for just cannot wait.
So why does Jesus need help? In the OT Book of Numbers (11:15-16), Moses
was given 70 helpers because his task was getting too much for him: “I am not
able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me,” Moses complains
to God. “So, the Lord said to Moses, ‘Gather for me seventy of the elders of
Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them.’” But
Jesus is God, surely this can’t be too much for him? For Jesus the human it is,
for a self-restricting God incarnated as a human being and emptying himself it is,
for a God who gives us and respects our free will, it is. The human Jesus knew
his limits, and the divine Jesus was always willing to limit himself. Instead
Jesus looks for partners who will help in spreading the word and bringing the message
and reality of God’s kingdom to the people.
The first partners in mission were the 12 disciples: “Then Jesus called
the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to
cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.”
(Luke 9:1-2) Then – as we heard this morning – seventy others were needed because
“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” (10:2) To all of them Jesus
delegates power and authority to speak and heal in his name: ‘Cure the sock who
are there,’ (10:9) ‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects
you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’ (10:16)
But there is another reason why Jesus involves and engages other in his
mission. Because being involved and engaged is in itself transformative! Look
how the seventy react when they come back! “The seventy returned with joy, “Lord, in
your name even the demons submit to us!” (10:17) How I wish the demons of this
world would submit to me! But clearly, they have been changed by the very
experience of being sent. Being a Christian, a follower of Christ, is never
passive. Faith is not just something to be consumed, it must be lived.
That is why one of our four Vestry priorities for 2019-20 is to reach
and engage and involve more people in our activities, in formation, and in
leadership roles. Not just because those doing this work today need help, though
they do ….. in many of our ministries and activities, “the laborers are too few.”
No, we chose this priority because all the different ministries and opportunities
this and the wider church offers – in worship, in fellowship, in helping one another,
in helping others, in studying, in sharing God’s Peace and God’s Word and many
more – all of them will help to change us,
and the world we serve, for the better.
The kingdom of God is here, we just have to welcome it. God has given
us power and the authority to heal this world and to overcome evil, we just have
to use it. God has work for us all, it is the work of love and salvation, and it
cannot wait.
Amen.
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