4th Sunday after Pentecost (Year C) - July 7, 2019

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Year C
July 7, 2019
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

We continue in the Gospel of Luke - for the first time in a while - with the passage immediately following last week’s passage. A brief recap: Jesus has been doing ministry in the Northern province of Galilee. He has set his face toward Jerusalem and has begun to walk to Jerusalem - walking directly through Samaria, where the Gospel gets… um… mixed reviews at best. Messengers of Jesus face rejection. They ask Jesus if it was appropriate to call on fire to rain down from the heavens in response to that rejection. In short: no. Not appropriate. Now, in today’s gospel, Jesus continues this practice of sending out messengers to go into villages before him. This time, Jesus sends 70 others to go ahead of him to villages around the region.

Interestingly, we don’t get any information about the 70. No qualifications listed. We don’t know if

they’re men or women or gender non-conforming. We don’t know if they’re married or single. We don’t know if they have kids or are, like so many in the Scriptures, struggling with infertility. We don’t know what seminary they went to (spoiler alert: no seminaries back then). We don’t know if they liked public speaking or hated it. We don’t know if they were adventurers who were up to the challenge of traversing the countryside, or homebodies terrified for what comes next. We don’t know if they were Jew or Gentile. We don’t know if they were old or they were young. We know nothing of their stories.

As a pastor, as someone who is trained (and who loves) to hear people’s stories, a piece of me wants to know more about these people who were called. I want to know their names. I want to know their call stories (as I so often listened to those of my classmates and told my own). I want to know who they are, how they got there. But I think that goes beyond just me as a pastor. I think that’s a human thing. For the most part, we like stories. We build meaning of our lives through story. We build our perceptions of our world around narrative around stories - the stories we tell about ourselves, about our communities, about our world. I learned the story of how Norge got its name during my first visit here; well, the community wanted a post office. And they wanted to call it little Norway. But the powers that be didn’t like that, no you can’t name your town “little Norway.” So how about Norge? “Sure! That works!” As those who still are part of that Norwegian heritage know, Norge (or Norge) is the word for Norway in Norwegian. It is the story of how bright and cunning settlers in the area got their way, despite the powers that be. It tells us something about who we are here in Norge: we’re part of a people that is crafty and creative, undeterred by obstacles put in the way.

We get to know our friends and family through stories. We remember our loved ones through story. Remember that time when Gram accidentally left the windows down at the car wash? In her car with the rolly windows? There was water EVERYWHERE. I’ll forever be remembered at United, my internship congregation, as the intern who passed out one day in her office, as we now know thanks to a bad reaction to some cold medications. I learned an important lesson: when your blood pressure drops too low, so do you. We can laugh about it now because all turned out fine. Hopefully, I’m remembered for more than that, but when I talk to folks from internship, that’s a story that often comes up - one that becomes more dramatic with every retelling, by the way.

It seems to be part of human nature to tell stories and to create memories through them. We are formed by story. And we want to know the stories of other people. We learn who they are, how they’re formed, what brings meaning to them. And today, I wonder about the stories of the 70. What did they find inspiring in Jesus’ life, ministry, and message that inspired them to follow him? Did they go off, leaving their families like the disciples, or did they convince their families to come with them? How did they respond to Jesus’ command to only go with the basic necessities and trust that the rest would be provided? Why them? Why were they sent out? Did they have special gifts or characteristic for mission and ministry? Who were they?

Today’s gospel is silent on their stories. We just know that there are 70. The more I think about it, while it doesn’t satisfy my curiosity, I find freedom in the 70 being anonymous. The way the story is told, the point isn’t about qualifications, characteristics, or qualities. It isn’t about family structures or lack thereof. It isn’t about gender. It isn’t about courage. It isn’t about bravery. It isn’t about wit or charm. It isn’t about excitement or fear. There are no boxes to check. Degrees to get. Preaching styles to master. The call to follow and to spread the gospel isn’t limited by our own human categories. The point, today, is that Jesus calls. That’s the only qualification necessary to do the work of spreading the Gospel - the call of Jesus. Period.

To be clear, I don’t want to imply that our stories aren’t important. We know from the Gospels and from the rest of the New Testament that the call to spread the Gospel plays out in particular ways in the lives of real and particular people. God connects each of our individual gifts, our personalities, our stories to the larger narrative of the Gospel, grafting us into the Kingdom of God, calling us to the work of that same Gospel. We’re not anonymous for God.

And thus, our call to do the work of the Gospel will look different for you and for me - because our lives are made up of different stories, different gifts, etc. Some of us are called to be rostered leaders - pastors and deacons -, some of us are called to be teachers, some of us are called to international mission, some of us are called to serve more locally, some of us are called to share our gifts of music or other talents, some of us are called to serve on our council, others on our committees, others as helping hands that do so much of the behind the scenes work, some of us are called to care for others for their ministry. I could go on. And we’re called to different things at different times in our lives. Whatever form it takes, we are all called to do the work of the Gospel - sharing the love of God through word and through deed.

Yet, as Luke tells today’s story, by leaving the 70 as anonymous, the author provides space to place
ourselves in that crowd of people that are called to do the work of the gospel. 70 is a special number in the Bible; it represents all the nations of the world. And thus, the 70 messengers sent out represent a diverse people - of all walks of life - called out to spread the Good News. If the Gospel writer got too particular in the description of the 70, the temptation would be to only see people who fit those particular descriptions as worthy of being messengers, of carrying the Gospel from place to place ahead of Jesus. There is good news in the anonymity - we aren’t boxed into imagining the messengers of the Gospel in one particular way. We - in our diversity of gifts, of identities, of backgrounds, of education, of sexual orientation, of gender identity, of viewpoints, of jobs, of family structures - we, our full diverse selves, can fill in the crowd of the 70 and see ourselves there. We are all worthy of carrying the Gospel because we are all called by Jesus.

That call comes from Jesus doesn’t come without risk: again, this week, we’re reminded that those who are messengers of Jesus face rejection. They’re like lambs in the midst of wolves. A few words of comfort: we don’t do this alone. We do this within a community - as the messengers were sent out in pairs. Yet take note: whether there’s acceptance or rejection, the Kingdom of God still comes near. The Kingdom of God is still breaking into this world. And we get to be part of that; we get to follow in the tradition of the first 70, bringing that good news of the Kingdom, the good news of being Easter people. It isn’t our job to force people to accept it or to retaliate in response to rejection. But our call is to carry the message. Our call is to share the love of God that we’ve experienced ourselves. Our call is to shape our stories, our lives around the story that we’re grafted into; the story of Easter Sunday. Our call is to tell the story of the Kingdom of God coming into our lives in word and in action through our particular lives and stories. And that is indeed difficult but holy work that we get to do.

Amen.