Sermon: Psalm 66:1-9; Luke 10:1-20
In spite of our theme introduction, I wonder how far any of us can imagine being in the position of one of Jesus' 70 disciples, whom he instructs in our Gospel reading today to go off and prepare people for his coming. I suspect we'd be fine at the logistical bits of it: sorting out our travel arrangements, working out how best to cover the ground; but a lot more nervous about what we might be called on to say or do.
For what examples may come into our minds of telling others about God's kingdom and Jesus' love? I suspect we may be thinking of people knocking on strangers' doors to interrupt their daily lives with threats of hellfire and damnation; or of huge evangelistic rallies like those of Billy Graham; of people standing on soapboxes with a megaphone or walking around with sandwich-boards about the end of the world on their backs; or again of televangelists demanding that people should send them money in return for promises of coming prosperity. Compare that with our own experience: many of us may have been taken to church as babies before we had a word to say for ourselves; we may never have had to put into words to ourselves, let alone to anyone else, what our faith means to us.
So as followers of Jesus today we have a problem. On the one hand, the models we have of people preparing others for his arrival may be ways we cannot imagine ourselves using. On the other hand, we may be uncomfortably vague about exactly what it is we would say or do if ever we were to go out, as Jesus sent his friends out, in order to prepare his way. Impasse.
It's not surprising that talking about mission, or evangelism, or any of the scary words which come up in this sort of conversation is often something which makes us cringe, or decide to take a vow of silence, or preferably run as fast as possible in the other direction, muttering something about an unavoidable prior engagement.
But does it have to be that way?
Do we have to choose between feeling guilt at not following Jesus and feeling powerless to obey his commands? Or may we be barking up the wrong tree? What is God actually wanting us to do?
Let's take another tack and look at the psalm set for today. Rather than what we should be doing or avoiding, it focuses on what God has done, and in particular God's power to rescue God's people from trouble. For God is the one who turns the sea into dry land; and that's not a question of marsh reclamation. It's a coded reference, for those who know, to the story of Exodus, when through a miracle the sea parted for the escaping Israelites, but rolled back onto the Egyptian slavers pursuing them. ‘Come and see what God has done,' says the psalmist; ‘God is awesome in his deeds among mortals.'
Now that is Israel's story, in which through our faith in Jesus we can share; but it is by no means the only thing God has done, or the only thing God is still doing, in our world. Let's go back further than the story of the seventy disciples sent out by Jesus, to the story of his sending out the 12, his closest followers. How does Luke describe his instructions to them? They are to proclaim God's kingdom, and to heal. But what does Jesus mean by the kingdom of God that they are to proclaim? How might we recognise it if we saw it? For that we need to go back further yet, to Jesus' manifesto, given in public in the synagogue at Nazareth.
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,' Jesus says to his family and friends, ‘because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.' So if and when we see these things taking place, we can justifiably point to God's work, to God's kingdom in operation. I keep on harping on that it's God's work and God's kingdom for a reason; because I suspect that it's too easy for activists like me to try to shoulder God's work ourselves, and then to retire disillusioned when things don't work out the way we'd hoped.
If God's kingdom only comes as a result of our efforts, then we are back to earning salvation by the sweat of our brows, or more likely by endless committees, fundraising events and petitions we feel we have to organise so that God's work is done. And we're back to the prospect of powerlessness, guilt and failure, since we are not God but human.
Is it possible, though, that God is quite capable of doing God's work? That our task is to look and notice when this is happening, and to say to others, as the psalmist does, ‘Come and see what God has done'? I don't mean to imply that we ourselves have nothing to do with God's work. Like Jesus' friends, whether the 12 or the 70, we are called to the work of healing, restoring, proclaiming God's good news. Yet when a church is working as it should, this arises naturally, not as a bolt-on extra.
Here are some pointers to the Kingdom I have come across this past week. At our Friday drop-in breakfast, I meet a man who has been looking after his friend's dog for months now, and as a result has been served an eviction notice from his Council flat. But our local Anglican vicar has taken notice of his plight, and has arranged for a private landlord to visit his current flat and find out whether the dog has damaged it; if not, a bond will be given guaranteeing his good tenancy, and a roof will again be over his head, when he was in danger of homelessness. Again at the Breakfast, someone who has come to church on Sunday brings a friend who suffers from depression. She is very nervous on first entering the building, but as we talk about gardening she relaxes. And as she leaves, she smiles, freed for a moment from the chains of her illness.
I think it's not coincidental that I'm talking about an event centring on food. While physical food is a necessity for us all, and therefore a leveller for all sorts of people, the sharing of lives that takes place during the Breakfast is just as important. And today we will be sharing together in the most important meal of our faith, where we believe Jesus is present with us: giving thanks for bread and wine, gifts of God's creation; sharing with us not only food and drink, necessities for our bodies, but also God's love for us, strong enough to survive death; a necessity for our souls.
It's not easy getting a handle on the dynamic of the Christian life. Jesus calls us in to follow him alongside one another, for we are gifts to one another in the life of faith. Then he sends us out to see what God is doing in the world: to notice it, to point it out to others. He gathers us in around God's table, to be nourished by him in a particular way. Yet at the end of the service he sends us out again, to find him, serve him, point him out in the church and in the world.
It's tempting for us either to get so comfortable in our church lives that we are fearful about the idea of seeking God in the world; or to get so involved in our lives in the world that we resent the idea of giving more time to church. But if we only have eyes to see, God is at work in both. And if we only dare to give our attention and our permission, God is yearning to transform both the church and the world in ways that will be good news for us, and for others not yet among our number.