Good News! the Kingdom of God Has Come Near!

(Preached on July 3rd at Nazareth Lutheran Church, Rural Hall, NC)
 

Once again, in this Sunday’s reading from Luke, we are presented with

a vision of discipleship, one which presents following Jesus as, well, not

at all easy to do. We meet Jesus sending out the seventy…people he had

chosen and appointed…and how significant that must have made them

feel…sending them out two-by-two…okay, so far so good, at least they

won’t have to go it alone. But then he gives them their instructions, and

what should have been a kind of pep talk, a motivational speech, went

something like this…”I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of

wolves.” Now wait just a minute, Jesus,” can’t you hear them saying- or

at least, thinking? But he doesn’t stop there: “Carry no purse (which

means no money), no bag (you mean we won’t have a change of

clothes?), no sandals (Hold on there, Jesus. We’re supposed to go bare-

footed? On this hot, hard, dusty ground?)

    And he doesn’t stop there: “Stay wherever they take you in, and

offer a blessing of peace. Don’t move from house to house, trying to

better your situation, but eat and drink whatever they offer you. Then go

about your mission: heal the sick, preach the presence of the kingdom

of God among them. And even if they are not welcoming, let them know

that the kingdom of God has still come near to them.” By this time,

there can be no doubt in the minds of these seventy that this is serious

work, challenging work they will be undertaking. And whether they feel

prepared or not, Jesus is sending them to BE his presence wherever they

go. Talk about feeling overwhelmed! For these are ordinary people,

people like you and me.

    I thought of this passage from Luke’s gospel on Tuesday evening

when I heard a knock on my front door and saw, upon opening it, two

people standing on my front walk: a lovely African-American woman and

her adorable little girl. The little girl handed me a tract and asked me

(with some coaching from Mom), “How do you view the future?” She

pointed to the questions on the folder and her mother and I engaged in

what turned out to be a deep conversation, beginning with both of us

introducing ourselves, me asking the little girl’s name AND her age

(Tanika and she was 5!), and then talking about how we both had hope

for and faith in the future because we each see it firmly in God’s hands.

She pointed me to a passage in Revelation 21:3: God will wipe away

every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will

mourning nor weeping nor pain be anymore. And I told her that these

words had been such a comfort to me when my sister died earlier this

year.

     Tanika (the little girl) asked me if I belonged to a church and when

I assured her that I did, she looked up at her mother and asked, in a

kind of semi-whisper, “Then should we still invite her?” The mom and

I both laughed and Francine (the mom) said that everyone is always

welcome at their church, and perhaps they would see me again in the

neighborhood sometime. It was a lovely encounter and as they left my

place with my blessing, they joined two other  young people who had

been visiting down the block, Jehovah’s Witnesses all, and as I waved

goodbye to Tanika, many things crossed my mind: about how I have

usually found these “visitors” both annoying and pushy, and these

two hadn’t been- not at all…but was this perhaps that my own

attitude had been more hospitable, charmed as I was by that adorable

5-year-old and the quiet smile of her mom? About how these

“witnesses” always go out in pairs, following the mandate of Jesus to

the seventy, who he sent out by twos, knowing that going it alone is

difficult, but together, we can accomplish so much more. About how

these visitors were just ordinary people…a mother and daughter…who

were giving up an evening to knock on the doors of strangers, not

knowing how they would be received. Would they be welcomed or

rejected? They had no way of knowing but just took the risk because

this was their call, their mission.

    And I thought about taking- at long last taking the personal care

bags we had packed to the Salvation Army Emergency Shelter, where

they were received with enthusiastic thanks by the people there, and

where I was “gifted” by a beautiful smile and a “thank you, sister,

thank you for stopping” from the gentle man who was emptying the

trash bins, humming as he did this less-than-lovely task, doing it with

an open and gracious heart. Just who was being blessed here? I

thought as I drove away. And I recalled us filling those bags together

last December, many hands making light work of a task whose benefits

we will never know or experience ourselves.

    There was a reason Jesus sent out the seventy two-by-two…that he

sent them without any provisions except the clothes on their backs.

Risky? Indeed…but he knew that they could support and uplift one

another, that together they would be witnesses to the love of God by

their unity and cooperation. No guarantees about how they would be

received… no assurances about where they would stay or what they

would eat or- well, anything, except that they had the promise of Jesus

to be with them and bring them home again safely. That was their

only security, their only safety net.

     I have a pillow in my living room which says: WHEN IS THE LAST

TIME YOU DID SOMETHING FOR THE FIRST TIME? I bought it

years ago to serve as a reminder to me that life is a daring adventure

or nothing at all, in the words of Helen Keller…a reminder that security

is an illusion and that stepping out in faith, without the safety net of

material possessions or wealth is often to what we are being called.

But, wow, isn’t it difficult to believe that? To believe that our needs will

be met…that our only true security is in God- NOT in our possessions

or our jobs or our security systems or our weapons or our reputations,

but simply in the fact that we are each and all God’s beloveds.

    We have sadly become a fear-feared people…afraid of so many

things…of not having enough, whether it is money or food or housing

or our job. We have become afraid of anything or anyone which is

outside of the realm of our usual, everyday experience, pulling the

walls of our lives in tightly to keep out whatever we perceive poses a

risk to us. And yet, and yet…we have this Jesus…this one who sends

us out and says, “Take nothing for the journey. Only trust. Only believe.

I will be with you.”

    How can we convey that message of trust and hope and love and

inclusion to the world if we, ourselves, don’t believe it? Don’t live it?

Those seventy were armed with only one thing: the proclamation and

promise that the kingdom of God has come near. They were to speak

these words to those who offered them hospitality as well as to those

who did not. They were to be ambassadors for Christ; they were to

LIVE into God’s vision for the world, God’s dream of one-ness and

welcome and inclusivity. They were to practice peace, not just speak

it…because after what they had been seeing and experiencing while

following Jesus, after witnessing both pain and joy, both sadness and

wonder, these followers were being sent out to be “doers of the word”.

    There is something about the Christian faith that simply has to be

lived to be understood, some gospel truths that only make sense

while serving meals at the homeless shelter, or marching at the steps

of the capital, or visiting someone in the hospital, or holding the hand

of a dying person in a hospice house. There is something about the

Christian faith that calls us to any and all of the many places in this

world where people cry out for mercy, for bread, for justice, for

acceptance, for compassion.

     Now, I know how difficult it can be to both believe and share the

message, “the kingdom of God has come near.” Just think of the news

over the last several weeks…shootings in Orlando and Dhaka,

Bangladesh…suicide bombings in Istanbul, Turkey and Baghdad, Iraq…

tornados in many parts of the United States…flooding in West Virginia…

raging wildfires in California…crippling heat in the southwest…the Zika

outbreak continuing in South America. Worldwide, wars rage on with

little sign of stopping. Poverty and hunger daily claim countless lives,

while others live lives of excessive abundance. These are not the signs

of the kingdom we would expect, are they? And we certainly don’t

expect the harbingers of the kingdom to be people knocking at our

door with no sandals, no food, no money…in fact, we might be

tempted to tell them to leave us alone.

    Walter Rauschenbush was a theologian and social reformer who is

considered by many to be the voice of the Social Gospel Movement in

early 20^th-century America. At a young age, Rauschenbush became

pastor of a German Baptist church in New York City, located in the part

of the city known as Hell’s Kitchen, a depressed, rough area in which

poverty, malnutrition, unemployment, disease, and crime were rampant.

It was in this setting, this setting of deprivation, as well as an

awareness of the needs of the people in his everyday life that he began

developing his theology of the kingdom of God which came to be

known as The Social Gospel. Later, he would write, “The kingdom of

God is always coming, but we can never say it has arrived. It is always

on the way, always coming.”

     There is something about the Christian faith that must be lived to

be understood. Jesus knew this, and so he sent his disciples into the

world with only the message of the kingdom of God to guide and

support them. And this is true for us today, those of us who call

ourselves by the name of “Christian”. Oh, yes, we can use our theology

to bludgeon others who believe differently or who do not yet believe

at all. We can out-shout, out-speak, out-preach anyone and everyone.

We can be absolutely certain that we have the right answers and

condemn others who do not share our beliefs. We can stay firmly in

our comfort zones, eschewing those who are different from us in

order to feel safe and secure.

     But if we do…if we refuse to get our hands dirty and allow our

hearts to be changed, then we may miss the in-breaking of the

kingdom of God that has already happened, that is continuing to

happen, in our world…in the people we encounter…in us, if we let it.

We risk missing the terrifying and transformational journey that

requires only faith in the God who creates and calls, comforts and

sustains, welcomes and loves, the One we have come to know in

Jesus the Christ. We risk missing getting to know the countless and

varied fellow-travelers on this journey of life who can enrich and

enliven our path with their love and support and welcome.

    My own life was enriched this week by the presence of two lovely

African-American sisters who came to my door to show me that the

kingdom God has come near. Over the years, I have been blessed to

travel in Kenya and Rwanda, where countless poor- truly poor- people

have shown me, with their hospitality and welcome, in the sharing of

their meagre food, that the kingdom of God has come near. And a

gentle man emptying the trash at the Salvation Army Emergency

Shelter, with his loving greeting, showed me that the kingdom of God

has come near. Each and every day, if we are paying attention, the

Christ is showing us the reality of the kingdom of God, telling us that

this is the message we are meant to be sharing- with our words, yes,

but most of all, with our lives. It is a terrifying and truly transformational

journey- are you willing to take the risk? Amen