7 Pentecost, C p 9, July 7, 2013
2 Kings 5:1-14 Psalm 30
Gal. 6:1-18 Luke 10:1-12,16-20
A wrong assumption that we often make about
the biblical writings is that the entire Bible is a like a single book with
chapters and it is put together like a book in the same way that a modern book
is put together by a single human author..
Since the Bible is not like that, if we try to force upon the Bible singular
and consistent subject matter, we end up with contortions and the biblical
writings can lose their intuitive reality in our lives.
The Gospel of Luke is put together by an
editor who was in possession of perhaps six decades of sources within the
Christ communities. These sources are
presented in the speaking voices of Jesus; the early Christ communities
believed that they were inspired by a continuing risen-Christ oracle that
continued to be known within their various situations.
In the Lucan collection of writings we can
find policies differences and different understandings about the reception of
the Gospel message with the people who were able to hear the early preachers of
the Gospel.
Sometimes the Gospel writers use agricultural
metaphors; those who respond in a positive way to the preaching of the Jesus
and the disciples are understood to be in the ripe condition of the harvest.
So those who don’t understand or accept the
Gospel preaching are not in the harvest condition; they are not ripe and ready
to receive the message. The people who
harvest, the farmers have to know when to harvest and they need to know the
conditions to bring crops to harvest.
Persons who want to persuade others about
good news need to have some psychological wisdom in order to establish mentor
relationships that work for both parties.
If I try to force my good news on someone who cannot see the news as
good, then they are going be angry and bothered at me and I am going to be challenged
about how good my news is. After all, if
my news is not universally winsome, then I may have cause to doubt my good news
or my ability to share it in the right way.
It may really hurt when you are compelled to
share one’s very best with someone and then be rejected. In love we call this unrequited love; Boy
loves a girl and that girl does not love the boy in the same way that he loves
her. Boy is unrequited. Boy has dilemma. “I can’t force her to love me when she
doesn’t but why is this happening to me?
The power of love is so strong that it would seem ordained that she love
me in a similar way.” What does boy
do? Get’s angry. Redoubles efforts to try to persuade love to
happen. Get’s angry at the one to whom
he has just professed undying love (how ironic is that?) Get’s angry at self
and goes into depression. Sulks, pouts,
and make life miserable for all around him.
Hurts self. Writes poetry. Writes a Country and Western song, makes a
million dollars.
There is this unrequited tradition within the
Gospel. It fits into the prayer
tradition of blessings and curses that are found throughout the Bible. In the Bible it is often presented as
liturgically proper to use prayers and invectives to issue both blessings and
curses. This is for us a confusing
tradition within the Gospel; why would Jesus who asks us in one place to bless
and not curse, and to love our enemies; why would he in another place curse a village
as a place deserving a punishment worse than
the fire and brimstone destruction of Sodom, simply because the people of the
village did not respond positively to the disciple’s message about the kingdom
of God. If I were to say, if you don’t
accept my sermon then you’re going to hell, you’d probably suggest that I might
handle my rejection a bit better perhaps by writing a Country and Western Song.
You see, we Episcopalians are not too good
with this unrequited tradition of curses that is found in some threads of
Gospel tradition. Jerry Falwell, Pat
Robertson and a host of other preachers embrace this tradition out of their
certainty that they know the good guys and bad guys so clearly.
We Episcopalians are more used to the
tradition of cursing being exercised in scatological expletives when we’re
angry at some one…”How many times have we heard, said or thought God damn
someone….or Let him go to hell?” We feel
embarrassed about including our curse tradition under the umbrella of good
religion, while others incorporate the cursing tradition because they believe
they are so right and someone else is so wrong.
We as Episcopalians though often do get our dander up when it comes to
basic social justice and we can feel in a “cursing” mood for those who foster injustice or delay justice.
Within the Gospel today, we can glean some
practical tips about sharing God’s good news.
No bag or extra shoes or money.
Travel light. Why? We don’t want the good news to be about our
cultural baggage. When I traveled and lived
in an impoverished country, I determined not to carry a camera. I did not want to be marked as a rich
foreigner who had come over to observe the spectacle of poverty and ignorance
in a foreign country. Sometimes we can
give the impression that the Good News means saying Thee and Thou, wearing
fancy vestments, or being a King James Bible-toting American preacher with a
white tie and white shoes. Remember our
Good News is about the people to whom we bring the message; not about them
embracing an implied superiority of our culture.
We are not trying to make converts so that we can prove that we are
right or better. Remember we are not message; we
are to prepare the way for the message of Christ. And the message of Christ may come without us
ever using religious words. We need to be
people who live and present ourselves in such a way that people can make
positive transference upon our lives, because within us they see something of
their fuller selves to which they are being called. That fuller self is the risen Christ, within
us. We are to be bright and clear
mirrors for people to find their fuller selves.
If our faith message comes across as egotistical people who think we have with
the best religion; this is not going to be good news for others. People can feel rightly put off when they are approached in this way.
Next, take the message with peace. If each one has found the place of peace in
one’s heart then one can carry peace like a “vibe” as the hippies used to
say. If one has found inner peace, then
that peace has a way of creating a safe and pleasing and attractive context for
people to befriend one another and share their very best with each other.
Next, don’t force the message or the
encounter. If there is not a receptive
spirit for peace and befriending, be a good farmer and know that the harvest is
not ready. Put on one’s shoes and hit
the road Jack. Move on. How many religious solicitors do we refuse to
even let into our homes because they do not know how to read our non-receptive
messages that we are giving to them. People
of entire faith communities get branded as “pushy solicitors.” In regular life they may be kind people, but
suddenly when they feel group pressure to “save other people” they lose their
niceness because of their own group pressure.
This is not the wise evangelism of the good news of Christ.
Finally, if we should not be discouraged if
people do not accept us or our good news; we should be very modest about when
we seem to blessed with “apparent” success.
Remember that we get to live and share our good news is self-rewarding
whether it is received or rejected by others. And rather than rejoicing in success, we
should rejoice that our names are written in heaven. To me, this simply means there more to do and
become tomorrow so don’t get defeated by rejection and don’t get the ego
inflated by success. Keep looking onward
and upward because that is hope’s invitation to continue to have a future in
surpassing oneself.
My Episcopal friends, probably you and I
prefer the tradition of evangelism being like farming and waiting until people
are ripe to receive the good news. So you and I probably embrace the blessing
tradition of the Gospel and not the cursing tradition of the Gospel. But let’s be honest, we probably regard lots
of religious people to be intellectual impaired because of the way in which they
articulate their religion. We have to
admit we can be a bit snobbish in looking down our noses at “fundamentalists”
and so that may be our subtle buy in to the cursing tradition found in the
Bible.
May God help us to find our Good News today,
live in such a way that people can experience a peaceful presence, and be
mirrors onto which other people can positively transfer a sense of their
well-being because they see their fuller self in the risen Christ within
us. Amen.
