Monday, July 8, 2013

One of the Seventy

It was a mud hut in the poorest section of a village I’d never visited before. About halfway through my year as a Fulbright teacher at Baring Christian College in northwest India I had gone to this village with several Indian Christian teachers from the college to visit the Christians there and distribute clothing and books. As in most north Indian villages, the Christians were formerly Untouchables, i.e., people at the bottom of the caste system who traditionally did the dirtiest jobs. My roommate, another American woman, and I were taken to the tiny mud hut. Heaven only knows where the chairs on which we were invited to sit had come from. Of course, the honored American guests could not sit on the rope-strung bed, the only other seating, with everyone else! Then a wizened woman, who looked sixty but was probably at most thirty-five, gingerly placed a hard-boiled egg and a mug of tea in front of each of us. I looked quizzically at one of the teachers who had brought us. How could I eat and drink what had probably cost this family several days’ wages? And was the egg safe? The teacher nodded imperceptibly, “yes.” I ate the egg and drank the tea.

The seventy disciples whom Jesus had sent out to prepare for his coming, as he walked to Jerusalem, may not have had to face eating eggs or drinking tea. However, as observant Jews travelling through Samaritan country, they may well have had to eat things they would never otherwise have considered eating. Who were these seventy? While Matthew, Mark, and Luke all mention Jesus’ sending of the twelve, only Luke mentions this second sending of the seventy (or seventy-two, as some manuscripts have it). An underlying motif in the gospel of Luke is the proclamation of the good news to all people, regardless of class or ethnicity. So the number of these disciples is no doubt symbolic, referring to the Table of the Nations in Genesis 10, i.e., to the entire world. What were their names, and where did they come from? Were they some of those people who had heard Jesus’ call and gladly fell in behind him? Were some of them the wealthy women who were bankrolling Jesus’ ministry? Luke tells us nothing about them. The Western Church has largely ignored them. However, the Eastern Church continues to venerate them. Today there are several different lists of their names. Orthodox churches regularly commemorate their ministry on January 4th, the feast of the Seventy Apostles.

Whoever they were, the seventy were clearly commissioned and sent by Jesus – and with some urgency. The seventy were to serve as an advance party in the countryside between Samaria and Jerusalem, preparing people for Jesus’ coming and proclaiming the peace and salvation that come with reign of God. Bearing Jesus’ authority, they were to do everything that he had done: they were to preach, teach, heal, and proclaim that God’s reign had begun. In commissioning them, Jesus had clearly warned them of the risks and rewards of signing on to his program. They were to travel in pairs. They were to travel light and not stop to socialize along the way. They were to be prepared for hostility and rejection. They were to accept whatever hospitality was offered them. Once settled, they were not to cast around looking for better digs. They were to stay focused on proclaiming the good news. Knowing that the work was more than even they could manage, they were to stay connected with God and continue to ask God to add to their number.

My friends, you and I are here because the seventy disciples did their job very well. As we learn from reading the book of Acts, Luke’s companion volume to the gospel, the seventy, the twelve, and others went out from Jerusalem to Asia Minor and Europe. They created new communities of disciples, and the Way, the Christian faith, went “viral.” In later centuries, they went to China, Japan, India, and the Americas. They proclaimed the good news and, with the authority of Jesus, they preached, taught, and healed. They invited those whom they met, those whose eggs they ate and whose tea they drank, to join Jesus’ fellowship of love. They created communities united not by ties of family, ethnicity, class, color, or even place of birth, but by shared allegiance to Jesus and his mission.

And now we are part of their number. We are part of that number not because we are “members” of the Episcopal Church. Despite what the canons of the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Southern Ohio say, despite all our concern, in parochial reports, with “members in good standing,” we are not “members” of the church. Your presence in this community is not like your membership in the Rotary Club or the country club, or the book club, or even the AARP. You do not pay dues to this community, and we do not assess you when it’s time to put in a new air conditioning unit or roof. Nor are you here because you have all the right beliefs, or because you understand perfectly all the tenets of the Nicene Creed – not that the Creeds are unimportant. You are not here because you have read enough books about the church, or prayer, or theology. You are here because you have been transformed by God and continue to seek transformation of your life.

We are all here because, through our baptisms, we have committed ourselves to being disciples of Jesus and have accepted his commission to proclaim the good news. We have promised to walk the talk in a world that doesn’t want to hear about Jesus, let alone encourage us to put his teachings into action. We are here because we trust that God has empowered us to bring the good news of God’s love to unexpected places. We are here because we understand that ultimately the work of proclaiming the good news is God’s work, and we are willing to be God’s instruments in that work. Indeed, we are open to letting God be incarnate in us. And we are willing to persist in calling others into the beloved community of Jesus’ disciples.

Do you remember one of the promises we all made in the baptismal covenant: “to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?” As those commissioned and sent by Jesus in our own day, we trust and hope that we will live our lives with such integrity and devotion that others will see Christ in us and will be drawn into fellowship with Christ. We trust and hope that we may be agents of reconciliation and friendship among those with whom we work and live. We trust and hope that our political actions, our votes and our communication with our elected representatives, and our support of social agencies, will enable us to partner with God in bringing in a reign of peace and justice. In addition, as a parish we have a significant ministry of hospitality, not only in Loaves and Fishes but in our support of the groups who use this building. How else might we proclaim the nearness of God’s kingdom? Are there other ways for us to serve the Gallipolis area? For example, can this building serve as a shelter in time of disaster?

Yet we know that there are times when we must also speak our faith, when we must actually say in equivalent twenty-first century language, “The Kingdom of God has come near to you.” Certainly, we must use modern electronic forms of communication. That is why St. Peter’s has a web site and Facebook page. We need to develop other forms of electronic communication, and I hope those of you more knowledgeable in this area than I will suggest new ways for us to proclaim the good news. What sites are you using where St. Peter’s should have a presence? Are there ways to offer Christian formation via electronic media? What forms or times of worship we should be exploring?

Important as electronic media are, in the end we are charged with speaking our faith to real, live people, face to face. Sometimes charismatic preachers can fill the hall for a year or two. Sometimes a glitzy, packaged program will enable a parish briefly to grow. But, believe it or not, a simple word-of-mouth invitation to a relative, neighbor, or friend is the most successful way to encourage people to “come and see.” Is this a community in which people are nurtured spiritually? If so, can you invite someone to join you here? How about inviting someone to join you at the picnic Eucharist in August? How about inviting someone to help with Loaves and Fishes this month? How about inviting someone to refresh their soul in a quiet morning? Can we dare to voice our faith in God’s love and tell others of its reality?

Even when we are asked to drink tea and eat a hard-boiled egg, we are commissioned and sent to proclaim the good news. “Come, labor on. Who dares stand idle on the harvest plain, while all around us waves the golden grain? And to each servant, to each of us, does the Master say, ‘Go work today.’”

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

You Gotta Serve Somebody


“You’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed/ You’re gonna have to serve/ somebody/ Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord/ But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” Do you remember Bob Dylan’s song about making choices? Dylan says, we may be a state trooper, a construction worker, or a preacher, we might wear cotton or silk, drink whiskey or milk, but we all have to make choices. God calls us all. We can turn our backs and refuse to hear God’s call, or we can fall in with God’s people and follow God’s lead. It’s our choice, but “you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

Young Elisha faced such a choice when Elijah threw his cloak over Elisha’s shoulders. Elisha knew what that gesture meant. He knew that God was calling him to take Elijah’s place. He also knew that taking the prophet’s mantle was a risky choice. Elisha knew that Elijah has spoken truth to power in a culture where truth-telling was unwanted and dangerous. Elijah had publicly that the prophets of Baal were false prophets. He had openly criticized King Ahab for the injustice he had perpetrated. And Elijah had had to flee for his life because Queen Jezebel had put a price on his head.

You can see why young Elisha might have wanted to think twice before accepting Elijah’s mantle. Was Elijah counseling discernment when Elisha asked to first bid his parents farewell? Or perhaps just Elisha needed to settle his affairs before embarking on the prophet’s itinerant life. As he slaughtered his oxen, broke their yokes, and made a great farewell feast with their flesh, clearly he was severing his last ties with his old life. Despite the perils, Elisha had accepted God’s invitation and courageously followed in Elijah’s footsteps.

“You gonna have to serve somebody.” This week we have begun our road trip with Jesus. Jesus has made his choice, no question there. He has “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” He has agreed to endure all that will take place there. However, despite all of Jesus’ teaching, his disciples have yet to understand what following him really means. On the way to Jerusalem, they pass through hostile Samarian country, where Jesus has to remind them that his way involves forgiveness not retribution. The group then encounters three wannabe disciples. All three in their different ways suggest to Jesus’ friends – and to us – something about the choices that Jesus’ disciples must make.

The first wannabe must have been following Peter’s play book, as he naively declares that he will follow Jesus “wherever you go.” “Oh, yeah?” says Jesus, “do you realize that if you do you may not know where or when you’ll sleep or where your next meal will come from?” It’s a warning, perhaps a suggestion that the wannabe disciple needs to discern some more. However, the message is clear for any disciple. You have to choose to follow Jesus, but don’t expect worldly security if you make that choice. Jesus’ way is not for the faint-hearted, nor for those who value personal safety and comfort above all.

On to the next wannabe disciple. When Jesus calls him, this one asks to first bury his father. A reasonable request? Making sure that proper burial rites were carried out, especially for one’s parents, was an important duty in the ancient world. Yet Jesus’ request carried some urgency. And his response suggests that the spiritually alive must choose to answer God’s call now. There can be no procrastination in responding to God’s demands. Jesus’ response also reminds wannabe disciples that traditional relationships are reordered in the Kingdom of God. Family ties must be secondary to bonds within the Body of Christ. Later Christian martyrs understood this aspect of discipleship fully, as they went to their deaths in Roman arenas, despite the pleas of their families to give up the new faith.

The request of the third wannabe disciple also seems reasonable: he wants to bid his family farewell. Elisha asked to do the same thing. However, Jesus warns the man not to have a divided heart. There will always be some reason to delay following Jesus, some obligation pulling you back into the old life. What Jesus tells him – and all of us – is that once we commit ourselves to following Jesus we must not look back to what we had, what we gave up, or what was better about our old life. In the Rule of St. Benedict, new entrants to a monastery are required to surrender every one of their possessions, including their clothing, so as to be able to grow wholeheartedly into the new life of the community. When Jesus calls us, we must set our faces to the work that God is calling us to do, the transformations that God is inviting us to undergo, and the new family that God is bidding us to join.

“You gonna have to serve somebody.” Even Paul had to make a choice. He had had an experience of Jesus’ presence on the road to Damascus. He could have chosen to reject that experience and return to his old life. Instead, he said, “Who are you, Lord?” When he heard Jesus’ answer, he made the fatal choice: to make a radical break with his own past. He then let himself be led into the city where he was baptized by Ananias. Some years later, after proclaiming the gospel to several gentile communities, here he is writing to the newbie Christians in Galatia. In most of this letter he has been rebuking them for following those who want to circumcise them and make them into Jews. Paul reminds them that in Christ they have been freed from the demands of the law. They are not Jews, and they don’t need to be circumcised or do anything else that the law requires. However, they still face a critical choice. They can revert to their old, self-centered pagan ways, or they can live as those who are members of God’s kingdom. They can discipline themselves so that the fruits of the Spirit will grow among them. It is a choice: to be guided by the Spirit or not.

“You gonna have to serve someone.” Dolores Hart was a beautiful and talented actress. At the age of ten, she had joined the Roman Catholic Church. In 1956, at the age of only eighteen, she was signed to play a supporting role as the love interest to Elvis Presley in the 1957 film Loving You. Thereafter, Hart was in frequent demand, and she made two more films before playing with Presley again in 1958's King Creole. Hart went on to make her debut on Broadway. She won a 1959 Theatre World Award as well as a Tony Award nomination. In 1962, she starred in the film The Inspector, in which she played Lisa, a Jewish woman tortured in a Nazi concentration camp.

Although she was engaged to be married, she had begun to hear the invitation to a different kind of life. She had been in Rome, filming Francis of Assisi. While there she met Pope John XXIII. She told him, "I am Dolores Hart, the actress playing Clare." The Pontiff replied, "Tu sei Chiara!" ("No, you are Clare!"). Francis’s sister, Clare too had been beautiful, talented, and wealthy. Yet she followed Francis into a life dedicated to God, founding her own order, the Poor Clares. Now Dolores herself heard God’s call. In 1963, at the age of twenty-four, Dolores entered the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, taking her final vows in 1970. In 2001, she was elected the prioress of the abbey. Dolores was profiled in the documentary God Is the Bigger Elvis, which was nominated for an academy award in 2012. In her autobiography, The Ear of the Heart: An Actress’ Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows, released just this May, she describes her inspiring journey from a full life in Hollywood to an even fuller life in the monastery.

“You gonna have to serve someone.” Choosing to follow Jesus is never easy – despite our Scripture lessons, or even Dolores Hart’s story. When we hear God’s call, we rightly fear the destabilization of our lives, we wonder what might be coming next, we fear the loss of status, and we fear our choices may make life more difficult for those who are dear to us. Those who think they are called to the ordained ministry must undergo a lengthy period of discernment, involving members of their parish and a diocesan commission. As a requirement of the Wellstreams program, earlier this month I spent a full day discerning whether I felt called to continue in the program. Discernment is healthy and appropriate – and there are many different aids to discernment – so long as we understand that ultimately we must make a choice.

Elisha had to choose whether to follow Elijah. We don’t know what the wannabes in the Gospel decided to do, but, even if they all turned their backs on Jesus, that was a choice. Dolores Hart had to choose. Even I had to sign my name to a piece of paper committing myself to the next phase of the Wellstreams program.

Our lives constantly call us to make choices, to answer God’s call or to fall back into a comfortable status quo. “You gonna have to serve someone.” Who will it be?