Missionaries (4th after Pentecost, 7th July 2019)

 4th after Pentecost, July 7, 2019 : Missionaries
© Wolf Kirchmeir

2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; Isaiah 66:10-14; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

O Holy Spirit, assist us we contemplate your word, that we may be enlightened by your truth. Amen.

Dear Friends in Christ,
     Jesus sends out 72 disciples, two-by-two, to tell the people that the Kingdom of God is at hand. He also gives them advice. Reading this passage, I thought, Aha, this is about messages! So I fired up my trusty search engine and looked for a story about messaging. Here’s one that I found:
     A priest and pastor from the local parishes are standing by the side of the road holding up a sign that reads, "The End is Near! Turn yourself around now before it's too late!"
     "Leave us alone, you religious nuts!" yelled the first driver as he sped by. From around the corner they heard screeching tires and a big splash.
     "Do you think," said one clergyman to the other, "we should just put up a sign that says, 'Collapsed Bridge'?"
     Messages. You’ve got to make sure you get them right. That applies both to the one sending the message and the one receiving it. Jesus sent a couple of busloads of disciples into the country to spread the message of the Kingdom. They were to go to the towns and villages ahead of him to tell them that Kingdom was near. Before they left, he gave them advice and instructions. Some may sound a bit odd to us, and some may be a puzzle.

     Let’s look at one of the odd ones first: “When you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say,`Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you.” What’s with this wiping the dust off one’s feet? It’s clearly some kind of reprimand, but why?
     Dirt on the feet has always been a problem, even before most people had shoes. Every tribe and nation has rules about feet and shoes and dirt. We here in Canada take off our shoes at the door so we don’t track dirt into the house.
     I think that from the beginning one of the primary purposes of footwear was to protect you from dirt. You wiped your feet or took off your sandals so you wouldn’t carry dirt into the house. And that’s why wiping the dust off your feet can be a reprimand. When you wipe the dust of the street off your feet, you show that town is so unworthy that you don’t want to carry even its dust on your feet as you go along the road.
     What does this have to do with messages? It’s all about context. The meaning of a message depends on the situation in which it’s sent. That’s why the driver in the joke misunderstood the sign: he thought it was a religious message because two clergymen were holding the sign. Our customs around dirt on the feet are different, so we need to know what the rules were 2,000 years ago in Judah.
     The other advice for the travellers makes sense when you recall that back then they didn’t have motels and restaurants and other such conveniences for travellers. Sure, major towns on the major trade routes had inns, but in other places you basically relied on the kindness of strangers. In fact, the custom was and is that people took in strangers. A guest was treated as family while they stayed in the house. So it makes sense to remind the disciples act like family. Greet the householder with a blessing before entering. Eat what’s offered, in other words, don’t cause extra work or trouble for the host. And so on.

     Then we come to main instructions: Heal the sick who are there and tell them, `The kingdom of God is near you.’

     Jesus sent the 72 disciples out as missionaries.  He gave them instructions and advice. These instructions and advice have guided missionaries ever since.
     Well, they are supposed to guide missionaries, but that hasn’t always happened.
     Missionaries. They’ve been a mixed bag, as they say. These first ones did exactly what Jesus asked them to do. When they returned, they were very pleased: “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name,” they said. “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven,” Jesus said.

     The mission of the church, of every Christian, is to heal the sick and to announce that the Kingdom is near. Simple instructions, and a simple message. Shouldn’t be too hard to get it right, right? Yet too often, we Christians have got it wrong.
     We’ve got it wrong because we think we know better. We think it’s not enough to heal the sick, we have to fix their life styles and customs to bring them into line with ours.
     We think it’s not enough to tell the unsaved that the Kingdom is near, we have to impose our liturgy and theology on them, and warn them against other Christians who do these things differently. Jesus said to his disciples, “Do not take a purse or bag or sandals”. Not only have we brought along our purses and bags and sandals, so to speak, we have also brought along the powers of empire and conquest.
     Instead of saying "Peace to this house", we’ve said “We claim this land in the name of our King”.
     We’ve insisted on doing things our way instead of learning and respecting the laws and customs of the country.
     And in Canada, we’ve collaborated with the government in destroying a way of life. Why? Because the residential school system was seen as a kind of missionary work. The children would not only be turned into good little Canadians, they would be turned into good little Anglicans, and Catholics, and Presbyterians.
     We have too often ignored Jesus’s instructions. “Spreading the Word” is good, it’s what we are supposed to do. So criticising what missionaries have done and still do is often seen as refusing Jesus’s command to spread the word. But if we stick to his instructions, we can’t go wrong. They can be summarised as follows:
     1. Heal the sick wherever you find them.
     2. Announce the coming of the Kingdom.
     3. Don’t pick fights, but leave places where you’re not wanted.
     4. Behave yourself by observing the customs of the country (such as eating what’s put in front of you).

     That last instruction may deserve a little more explanation. Remember that much of the Law recorded in the Old Testament is about food, about what and when and how to prepare and eat the food that God has given us. For observant Jews, keeping kosher is important. So when Jesus tells the 72 disciples to eat what they were given, he’s saying “Your customs and rules about food don’t apply everywhere.” But what’s true of food is also true of all other aspects of a way of life.
     So, Behave Yourself.

     Simple instructions, really. So why is following them so difficult?

     It’s difficult because of two temptations that we find almost irresistible. First, we love to complicate things. Secondly, we interpret advice to suit our egos.

     We have often complicated the simple instructions of Jesus. “Tell them the Kingdom is near”, he said. Well, it can’t possibly be as simple as that, right? After all, we have different notions of what the Kingdom is, so we have to make sure that the heathen get the correct ideas! And what does “Tell them” mean? Is that all? Shouldn’t we explain it all to them? And shouldn’t we persuade them? They will be damned if they don’t listen and understand, so we really ought to make sure they do listen and understand. Even if we have to use strong measures to get the job done.
     And so on. And so forth. It really can get quite complicated, and the more complicated it gets, the harder we try to justify what we’re doing. It’s the human thing to do.
     And that’s where our ego comes in. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. If only a few people have come to be baptised, we’ve failed to reap the harvest. Failure is something we can’t accept. So we try harder to spread the word, and measure success by the number of souls saved, by the number baptised, by the number who have made a decision for Christ.

     So what’s to be done? Let’s start with the proposition that we also have been sent, like the 72 disciples. We also are to heal the sick and tell of the Kingdom. How do we do that? We aren’t all cut out for travel to foreign lands, or work in the inner city, or even to teach Sunday School. We can support those who do these things by giving money and other support so they can do their work. But I’m sure you sometimes may have the same uneasy feeling I have when I’m writing a cheque, or donating food and clothing, or buying a box of art supplies, that doing these things isn’t quite enough. Good as these actions are, they may be a way of avoiding the hard work ourselves.

     Well, there’s lots of good advice out there. Some commentators have said: Just live the Christian life wherever you are, and that witness will testify to the power of God’s love in your life, and the meaning of Jesus’s death and resurrection.

     When you think about your daily life, you know that there are plenty of occasions to talk about what God means to you. You don’t have to say much. Sometimes a phrase of blessing is enough. At other times, you may be able to say that your faith is like solid ground under your feet. We Anglicans tend to be shy about expressing our deepest feelings. We don’t want to be thought of as religious nuts, because that means we’ve put people off. But really, it’s OK to be up front about what you believe, and why.

     There’s also much occasion for serving our neighbour. It could be a donation to some charity that does the kind of work you want done. It could be helping a neighbour get their groceries home. It could be visiting a sick or grieving friend or acquaintance. It could be a friendly word or chat with someone at the post office or the store. It could be yielding the right of way to a car when you arrive at the stop sign at the same time.
     In fact, serving your neighbour starts with common courtesy and good manners. It builds from there to the kind of help that someone wouldn’t get any other way.

     So where are we now in our meandering around the story of the 72 disciples and the instructions Jesus gave them?

     We’ve arrived once again at the Summary of the Law and the Prophets. Healing the sick and telling of the Good News applies the summary of the Law and the Prophets. You love God, so talk about him as occasion offers. You love your neighbour, so serve all people that you meet, as occasion offers.

     Let us pray.

Lord God, grant us the grace to know when to speak and when to act, that your love may be shown in our lives. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen