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St. Charles Episcopal Church - Saint Charles, IL
The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 9 RCL – Year C
Sunday, July 4, 2010
2 Kings 5:1-14 – Psalm 30 – Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16 – Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Rev. William R. Nesbit, Jr.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
This week our lessons follow on the theme from last week; the cost of discipleship. Last week we heard a little about what discipleship is not. We had James and John, the two “Sons of thunder,” asking permission to call in an air strike on a Samaritan town that had rejected Jesus. Jesus rebukes them and reminds them that the message he brings is not about punishment and zealous condemnation.
In the next part of the story, Jesus warns his disciples of the folly of conditional or qualified following.
This week we learn a little more about discipleship. Jesus has appointed seventy scouts to go ahead on his route and prepare the towns for his arrival. What an interesting metaphor for discipleship and evangelism. Scouting out ahead. We do not bring other people to Jesus, we merely prepare for His arrival. It takes a lot of the stress out of evangelism. We don’t have to do the hard work of conversion, that’s God’s work; the work of the Spirit. It shifts the focus of the whole enterprise of evangelism away from ourselves and puts it where it rightfully should be, toward God.
In Jesus’ instructions to the seventy He tells them to travel light; to be ready to run at a moments notice. To take nothing that might encumber them. This is good advice for us to remember even now, for the wolves lived not only in ages past, they are outside our doors today. There is much in modern society that runs counter to the Gospel message; that would seek to devour us. And it comes in many guises. I remember when I was a child and I would say the pledge of allegiance, with the line about “one nation under God,” I always figured that America was some how under God’s special protection. We had American flags in our church, and “In God We Trust” on our money and being a Christian, the dominant faith in the country at the time, it just seemed like we were God’s country. Today is Independence Day, the fourth of July, the holiday when we celebrate the birth of our great nation, and the promise that it has given, and I pray still gives to the world.
Now, I am as patriotic as the next guy, maybe even more than most, but I wonder if we aren’t living into the promise of our beginning; if Miss Liberty isn’t slouching a bit with the torch, of late. It may just be that the blindness of youth is rubbing off, but I keep thinking it was better “back then.” (This is beginning to scare me, because “old folks” talk this way, and I still think I’m too young to be an “old folk,” so let’s just say I have a better lens of history!) But then it hits me. We are the seventy. We started with such exuberance and accomplished so much at the beginning that we forgot who it was that gave us the power. We missed the message.
Now before this illustration gets out of hand I want to tell you that I always get very nervous whenever religion gets too involved in politics; or more correctly when religious institutions get too involved in pushing their private agendas by political means. I know now, and we all need to remember, that America is not the new Jerusalem, that we are not the new chosen people. To profess that would be a horrible misreading of scripture.
That being said, it is obvious that God has, for some reason, “blessed us with a goodly heritage.” It is surely not because we are better than any other country, even a cursory reading of the Bible shows us that God doesn’t work that way. That being said, if we are going to be the self proclaimed champions of freedom and justice in the world, I do believe that we should keep in closer touch with the source of true freedom and true justice. It is important. We, the People, the true source of the power behind our government need the guidance and even more importantly the new life and hope that comes with a life lived in faith. It’s not that churches should be more involved in politics; churches are prone to the same failings of all hierarchical organizations, the seduction of power. Still, our faith life should play a very important role in how we make our political decisions.This was a strong and clear assumption that undergirded the writing of the great early documents of the country, both the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. You can see it in how they are written. Our founding fathers relied on “divine providence” for protection and guidance. They appealed to the “supreme Judge” to shape the morality of their intentions.
I’m not so sure we can make those assumptions any more. Statisticians tell us that Americans go to church more often than the people of any other country in the world. I just wish we acted more like it. I wish Americans were known more for the power of their love, than for their love of power. Maybe after all, the story of the founding of America is just another story like the sending out of the seventy. Maybe when it gets right down to it, we are all the seventy, maybe the story of the sending out of the seventy is the story of all human endeavor. Whether it’s a country, or a church, or any group activity. We start off with high ideals. We always start off with high ideals, but it’s hard to keep them. Even after all the careful planning that Jesus goes through, the seventy come back celebrating what they think is their great victory. Isn’t it amusing to note that the seventy missed their own message and need to be reminded of it by their master. They return in joy saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” Amazed by their own power, they forget the power isn’t really theirs. Notice how Jesus gently refocuses their joy from earthly power to heavenly reward, or as Paul would say, from the flesh to the Spirit.
It isn’t that they shouldn’t rejoice, it’s just that they should rejoice in the power of the Spirit. Are we all that different? In America we have much to rejoice in. And though we all had a hand in it, to be sure, we must never forget that the victory is God’s, and the grace isn’t guaranteed.We have been blessed by God for a purpose, but the purpose isn’t ours, it is God’s. Did you happen to notice that the message was the same for both the village that accepts and the village that rejects “The kingdom of God has come near to you”. As we remember the founding of the United States of America this day and all the glory of its history, we too have received a message. The kingdom of God has indeed come very near to us. The question yet to be answered, and the question we must constantly remember to ask ourselves, is do we accept that message, or do we reject it? Well?