Entrusted
Homily delivered the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 9; Year C RCL)
3 July 2022; 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Said Mass
Parish Church of St. Mark the Evangelist, Medford, Oregon
Isaiah 66:10-14;
Psalm 66:1-8; Galatians 6: 7-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
God, take away our hearts of stone
and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.
Christians have always been a diverse lot, sects, denominations, national and linguistic split-offs. We always have loved to hurl anathemas at each other. “Oh, that this were not so!” we say to ourselves with whimsy, thinking that Jesus wants us all united and in agreement. “Be one as I and my father are one,” he said, after all. But the fact is that Jesus set up his ministry so that it would be diverse and inclusive of a broad range of views.
Today’s Gospel tells the origins of Christian ministry. Luke is the only Gospel that tells about Jesus calling and sending forth 70 apostles in addition to the Twelve. Where the Twelve represent the re-creation of Israel as a people with its ancient tribes; the Seventy stand for those in Israel who enjoy the spirit of communication with God. Remember that when Moses received the Law, he was commanded to have “seventy of the elders of Israel” accompany him (Exodus 24:1-9; Numbers 11:16-30). Two of the 70 miss the meeting, and when the spirit descends on the group, the wayward 2 run through the camp overcome by the Spirit too. When some complain about these outliers, Moses says, “Oh that all the Lord’s people might be prophets!” In some manuscripts of Luke, Jesus sends 72 rather than 70. I think those scribes got it wrong, thinking about the extra 2 running in the camp.
John Dominic Crossan rightly observes that stories of Jesus sending the twelve and the seventy represent an intentional organizational strategy on the part of the historical Jesus. A single decapitating sword-stroke by one of Herod’s henchmen had pretty much ended John the Baptist’s movement. By sending out many people with his happy announcement all around, Jesus decentralized his movement. The rulers would thus have a much harder time of killing it by simply killing its leader. By the time Jesus was crucified, dozens of such ministers were spread throughout Judea and Galilee. When stories of his death and the events following finally reached them, their experience of Jesus, both before and after his death, led them to say, like the Seventy in today’s reading, “The blind see, the lame walk, the spirit is with us… Christ is alive!”
Despite almost continual efforts to impose order, hierarchy, and unity, from the beginning Christ’s followers have remained a wildly fractious bunch, driven by the investment that comes from having made the faith our own.
We have tried to resist this centrifugal force, this tendency toward sectarianism, by grounding our faith in the scripture and writings of the apostolic age. But we found that such a canon—the Bible—is itself diverse and varied enough that alone it isn’t really sufficient to serve as a unifying guide to the faith. We tried to center our belief in the tradition of the bishops who succeeded the apostles in their oversight of the local churches. But bishops of different regions started disagreeing with each other.
We sought a system of belief that we could all agree on. That’s what the great early Councils of the Church were about. A faith comprehensive both in time and space, throughout the eras and transcending localities—this is what the Greek word katholikos, means: according to —kat— the whole– holicos. That’s why when we recite the Creed from these Councils to this day, we talk of believing in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. But we have been only partly successful in achieving what the canon of St. Vincent of Lerins said was truly comprehensive faith: that which was believed by the faithful of all times and all places. So we use our reason to try to make it all cohere. Thus the tripod of our faith: scripture, tradition, and reason informed by data and experience. And still we tend toward sect.
Given the schisms, divisions, and accusations of heresy that have always been a part of the big, baggy, and chaotic thing that historically is called Christianity, we might say that Jesus, in sending out missioners two by two into diverse settings, had anticipated a key idea of modern organizational behavior theory: lose control in order to gain influence. He guaranteed the Church’s survival by entrusting it to believers, thus building into it the very centrifugal force that produces such diversity.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus counsels those he sends out to herald the Happy Announcement, or Good News. Note: Happy, not grim; Good, not terrifying or threatening. Jesus’ counsel then to the 70 and the 12 is also counsel to us, a guide to the spiritual life necessary to keep us faithful to him, despite our differences. They apply to clergy and laity alike, since we all are sent out as heralds of the Gospel, The have particular importance to this congregation at this time, as you are in the search process for a new rector.
“Go two by two” that is, don’t trust your own individual belief and internal guidance, but always work and serve in larger community. Use the self-correction that comes from being part of a larger team of believers. Thomas Merton famously said that the most dangerous and spiritually deadly person is the mystic who lives in isolation, without the spiritual direction and guidance of another. Since you are going into a dangerous world, lambs among wolves, Jesus implies, know you will be discouraged and lose faith at times, and need your comrades in faith to get you through the rough spots. And then when they are in rough spots, it will your turn to get them through. We need each other. That is why we baptize enfants—this calling is not a calling to individual monads, but to people in families, in communities. “Go two by two.”
“Don’t waste time with polite pleasantries on the road. Find a household of people with whom you can establish a real relationship, and greet them first of all with a blessing of God’s abundance, God’s peace.” Don’t confuse politeness and niceness in fleeting social settings with heralding God’s grace. Politeness and niceness can all too readily be used to manipulate others, and can become a major distraction.
“Carry no money bag, no sack, no extra shoes. Stay with whoever will give you a place to stay, and together with them, eat and drink whatever they put in front of you.” Serving Jesus and proclaiming joyful news is not about self-sufficiency and independence. It is about interdependence, relying on each other. So simplify your tastes and standards. Don’t depart on this journey with everything prepared just so in extensive luggage, with your favorite foods and small comforts.
Barbara Tuchman, in her majestic A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century, quotes a French chronicler about the dangers of too much pickiness and the baggage this entails: the Battle of Agincourt, where English rag-tag peasants armed with long bows destroyed almost the entire French military class, was won largely because of the impediments to French military movement to escape the long-bows, impediments presented by their miles long baggage train—the chronicler notes that the “flower of French chivalry and nobility” was destroyed because “they just could not bear to go without their little pastries.”
No extensive baggage for us. We may just have to eat non-gourmet, or non-vegan, non-kosher, or even barely edible, stuff if that is what those we serve have to offer. This is about sharing and accepting things shared with you, not about meeting your standards or demands. Simplicity is the mother of humility. Humility is the mother of listening. And listening is the mother of community.
We have medical needs, to be sure, but even here we must remember the spiritual principle of opening ourselves to dependence and being served. It may mean learning new ways of eating, drinking, communicating, and, yes, even worshiping, even when we are old. I thank God that one of my mentors told me as I preparing for ordination that if at all possible, I had to simply love the people served, and with them their dogs and cats, no matter how allergic I was to them. Love Jesus, love his people. Love his people, love their dogs. “Take no money bag or sack, and eat what they put in front of you.”
Stay in one place. Don’t be ashamed of receiving support. Laborers earn their keep. This marks a big difference between the Buddhist’s itinerant begging bowl and lack of attachment, with Christian ministry supported by those ministered to. The whole point of ministry is attachment, relationship. So don’t be shy in simply accepting the support offered—you’ve as much right to it as laborers have to their wages.
“Don’t go from house to house, but stay where you are received. Cure their illness, declare the joy of God’s reign there, and let your peace rest with them.” Grow where you are planted. You are no longer a religious consumer, wandering from one potential ally in faith to another. You should no more pick and chose those whom you will grace with relationship than you should pick and choose what is put on the plate before you. “Stay where you are received.”
But even open-hearted sent ones might not be received with openness. Jesus here tells us here how to respond to rejection of us and the joyful news: don’t dispute, resent, curse, or worry. Just move on quickly, and go to meet the others who surely will receive you with joy. Dust off your shoes and don’t look back. But even as you depart, tell them one last what they’re going to miss-the joy of God’s Reign.
In all of these sayings, Jesus is calling us to follow his own example. He wants us to lose control to gain influence. In our labor in God’s harvest, we need to follow his guidance here. Let’s be open-hearted, open minded, and open handed, willing to accept who and what God sends us. Establish deep and loving relationships and keep on the path where Jesus leads.
In the name of God, Amen.
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