"He said to them, 'I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightening.'"
(Luke 10:18)
Hello, my friends. If you're planning on being away from home this Fourth of July weekend and you don't have the chance to attend worship, perhaps you'll enjoy these few thoughts on this Sunday's gospel lesson from the Revised Common Lectionary.
The text is Luke 10: 1-11 and 16-20. Note that the folks who cooked up the Lectionary have nicely redacted Jesus' more ill-tempered comments on what will happen to places which don't accept the message of God's kingdom (verses 12-15). Why Lutherans are squeamish about this hell-fire-and-brimstone stuff is a little beyond me, however. The sad truth is, if we're not open to love, healing, and forgiveness, then the stuff we are open to is going to lead us to an awful lot of misery. Sometimes we just have to say that openly. But, hey! It's a holiday weekend, so I guess we should smile and stay positive. Burgers, anyone?
This gospel story is usually identified as "The Sending of the Seventy" which pretty much sums up the plot. Why seventy missionaries? My theory is that Jesus had lots of faithful disciples besides the twelve mentioned by name in the gospels. So many, in fact, that later writers probably couldn't remember which ones were part of the twelve and which ones weren't. That accounts for the different names given to the twelve in the various gospels. Seventy is a pretty special number in Biblical numerology. Seven is the sum of three--the number of God's completeness and perfection in Hebrew thinking--and four--the number of earthly completeness. If you've got seven guys, you're saying you have enough. If you want to intensify the number, just add a zero. Now you have more than enough traveling preachers to do the job. The number seventy was probably not intended to be taken as literal history. It just means that God had provided enough faithful disciples to get the Word spread. God is good like that.
(Can I apologize for that last paragraph? It's pure trivia, but we religious guys are into that kind of stuff. I promise I won't do it again.)
Here's what I find really striking about this story: Jesus sends these guys (And maybe they weren't all guys per se. Who knows? Many of Jesus' disciples were women according to Luke's gospel.) out to be healers and proclaimers of God's active presence within the community. Because God is so present and so good, Jesus instructs the seventy not to pack a lot of gear for this journey (see verse 4). They are to rely on God and strangers to see to their needs. This whole enterprise is to be one colossal exercise in faith.
Think about this. If you rely only on your own resources for what you can accomplish, you'll never venture anything. Sometimes we have to leap into the darkness without our parachutes. Additionally, the seventy are instructed to be content with the people who shelter them (not looking around for something better) and to eat what's put in front of them. This mission is not only a lesson in faith but in gratitude.
Jesus also instructs these ambassadors to be bringers of peace. Their job is healing and bringing God's presence. They're not supposed to be condemning folks. That's God's job. They are to wish peace on the places they visit. Jesus tells them, "...if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you (verse 6)." That's as much as saying, if they receive you, great. If they don't, don't sweat it. It's not about you, anyway. Let 'em be jerks if they want to be. Nobody can take God's peace from you unless you willingly surrender it.
Jesus then tells the seventy to shake off the dust of the towns which don't receive them (verse11). Why carry unpleasant experiences with you? Yet even those places are given one final, parting warning. Jesus never stops trying to reach people, and always leaves the door open for repentance and forgiveness.
I really dig the image of the seventy returning with joy (verse 17) after having cast out demons. They sound pretty amazed. Heck, these old boys (and girls) had no freaking idea that they were capable of doing so much! Sometimes I think that the entire Christian Church suffers from an excess of powerlessness. We say dumb things like, "We don't have the money." "We don't have enough people for the job." "People won't like it." "It's never worked in the past." "What if we fail?" or "We've never done it that way before." In our churches and in our lives, we won't know what we can do in faith until we try.
(OMG! I think I just sounded like Joel Osteen!)
In my time in my little blue-collar, Lutheran parish I've seen my membership embrace contemporary music, invite teenagers onto the church council, welcome inter-racial families and gay couples into fellowship, and let homeless people live in our basement. We have power to change and be agents of change if we will only believe it.
And so this gospel lesson ends with Jesus greeting the returning missionaries like a proud Little League daddy who has just watched his son hit a home run. He gives them a big, "Attaboy! I knew you could do it!" The powers of darkness--bigotry, fear, indifference, suspicion, regret, resentment, self-pity, and all the rest--have no power when pitted against the joy of God's love. Satan is a punk and we can kick his butt as long as we don't believe our own lies. The kingdom of God has come near to us, and we can do miraculous things. Nevertheless, our true joy is always in the knowledge that we are all of us beloved children. At the end of all our courageous exploits is the love which has been ours from the beginning of time. And that's pretty good news.
I hope you enjoy your holiday, my dears. Thanks again for dropping by.
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