There is a story about one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson. After years and years of trying to get sober on his own and failing, he had some kind spiritual awakening that allowed him to stay sober, barely… and he was so excited, he wanted to share it with every other drunk, so they could all be cured. He went to hospitals and found lost-cause drunks and preached his cure to them. After some months, he had not one success. He despaired of this mission to his long-suffering wife Lois. “This isn’t working. Not a single one of the guys I’m trying to help has stayed sober.” Lois replied, “It is working. One of them is sober. You.”
Being successful is not the point. The point is speaking and living your truth, your hope, from God and for God. If someone else gets it, more power to you. You may never even know that someone got it. You’ll get it, if you keep seeking to live the message of God’s presence and love and power in our world. May you preach the Good News in your own unique way. And sometimes, use words.
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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
July 7, 2019
What Message?
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ 6And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But when you enter a town and you are not made welcome, go out into its streets and say, 11 “The very dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off to your shame. Only take note of this: the kingdom of God has come.”
16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”
17 The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” 18 He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19 See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
There is an old argument in Christian circles about preaching the Gospel versus living the Gospel. Both are important, and both are challenging. So I have my eye on how Jesus instructed these first preachers out on the road: how were they supposed to live the message they brought?
See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals… No personal firearms. No pepper spray. Be vulnerable. On purpose. Take risks to share the Good News.
and greet no one on the road. Don’t get distracted. You’re on a mission.
Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.That’s different. As if peace was an active force that could be given or taken away. Maybe it is.
Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide. Do work on behalf of your host. Be humble. Accept your room and board.
Do not move about from house to house. Your host will get to know you, warts and all. Build relationships; make them work, don’t run away when things get hard.
Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; He’s talking about Jewish Kosher food laws: don’t be fussy. Don’t argue about details of religious observances.
Care for the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ So that’s what the message is: “the Kingdom of God is near you.” And that message is lived by caring for sick people, valuing them, bringing them hope and love.
In the synoptic Gospels, the message is not, “Believe and be saved.” It is “The Kingdom of God is near.” Time to live our lives as if God is real, and making a difference in our world. What kind of God? That’san important question. If it’s a God who only comforts you and never challenges you… you obviously haven’t read the Gospels. If it’s a God that burns people in hell forever… no thanks. If it’s a God that always agrees with you? Or sides with the people in power against the powerless…call me skeptical.
Humility is in order when we start talking about the gospel and the God who invites us to share it. We need to tread carefully. And some things we can affirm. Our God is not interested in defending borders; our holy book keeps demanding that we treat strangers, foreigners and immigrants like citizens and as neighbors. Our God cares for all children, perhaps especially when their skin is brown and they walk fifteen hundred miles to find safety. Our God demands of us peace when violence seems the only answer. Our God judges us for how we love, not who we love.
So what kind of God does your life preach? At this church I hear your actions preaching that God cares for the earth, and the creatures on it. I hear your actions preaching that God cares for all people, especially those excluded by other churches, and those excluded by our white culture and our society’s worship of money. We preach it on the street sign and I preach it on Sunday morning. And then we try to live it.
If you grieve that you don’t live the gospel as well as you’d like, you’re in good company. If your heart is breaking for how far we are right now from the Kingdom of God, mine too. We don’t have to know how to fix things. We can speak up about how we should treat people, all people, and then try to live into that. We have a voice, thanks to our Constitution. We can ease suffering, offer dignity. We can tell people that we do what we do because of our love of God. Jesus never asked us to bring about the Kingdom of God, just to allow it to start working in us and through us. To live the message, in the midst of a real and broken world, and to share the message.
Francis of Assisi was a lover of animals, a rebuilder of churches and a powerful lay preacher. Francis founded a renewal movement in Christianity that emphasized equality, whole-heartedness, and love of nature. He was reported to have said, “Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” It turns out that’s not exactly what he said, but you get the idea. Francis himself preached often, but his actions made real the gospel he preached, showed people the kind of God he wanted them to know.
Francis loved to rebuild churches, because in a vision he heard God say to him, “rebuild my church.” God was probably speaking metaphorically about the church’s integrity and sense of purpose rather than the actual brick and mortar, but Francis attended to both. He had been a spoiled rich kid, but as a preacher, he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty for God.
Francis made all the members of his order take a vow of poverty, because he grew up in a household and a culture where money was power and he know how money distracted and corrupted and alienated people, especially those most in need of Good News.
Despite his penchant for repairing churches, Francis loved preaching out-of-doors, in nature, where passers-by could gather and listen. People who might never go to church. People too poor, or too wounded, or too cynical to ever willingly step inside a sanctuary: Francis brought the message to them. And in his open-hearted words, many of them they found God.
Francis was a preacher, and most of you are not. I know you try to live the message, and you’ve hired me to preach it. But in your own way, you too need to speak a word now and then, to say how you do what you do, and why you do it. We can be grateful that we are free to use our voices to speak about our faith, and to speak as witness for those who have no voice. You don’t have to be eloquent. Just let people know that you have a message inside you that you are trying to live.
Someone who was formative in my upbringing mentioned a few months back that she prayed about something. “Oh, do you pray much?” I asked. “Oh yes, all the time,” she said. I never knew. The whole time I was growing up, I heard her say grace at meals, rote prayers on Sunday, nothing more. I wonder if I would have grown up differently if I had known that she was praying all the time. I wonder what I preached (or didn’t preach) to my own son.
When I go to a rally I wear my minister’s collar with the revealing white tab. People know I am there because of my faith. I preach without words. You will have to use words. They can be simple words. “What would Jesus do?” Or clever words. “Jesus, save me from your followers.” If you’re doing what you’re called to do and you say why, your words will be profound.
What happens when you preach and live your message? Not usually the fabulous success that we hear in this reading. The disciples return and they’re high-fiving each other, and Jesus is using a little exaggeration when he talks about seeing Satan fall from heaven. Maybe he saw a shooting star…. Such a successful message! I wish Luke had omitted that part, because it puts the emphasis on the success, instead of the message.
There is a story about one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson. After years and years of trying to get sober on his own and failing, he had some kind spiritual awakening that allowed him to stay sober, barely… and he was so excited, he wanted to share it with every other drunk, so they could all be cured. He went to hospitals and found lost-cause drunks and preached his cure to them. After some months, he had not one success. He despaired of this mission to his long-suffering wife Lois. “This isn’t working. Not a single one of the guys I’m trying to help has stayed sober.” Lois replied, “It is working. One of them is sober. You.”
Being successful is not the point. The point is speaking and living your truth, your hope, from God and for God. If someone else gets it, more power to you. You may never even know that someone got it. You’ll get it, if you keep seeking to live the message of God’s presence and love and power in our world. May you preach the Good News in your own unique way. And sometimes, use words. Amen.
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