June 15, 2008 – The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 9:35-10:23
Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus. Amen.
We receive new members here at Advent several times a year. Before each new-member reception we conduct an orientation, so that new members understand how the congregation works, and how they can connect with our various ministries and maintain that balance of giving and receiving that is so vital to faithful Christian discipleship.
As part of that orientation I outline a series of expectations that we have of new members. Those expectations include: regular participation in worship (hopefully, “regular” means weekly, either on Sunday mornings or on Thursday evenings); participation in one of our educational opportunities, either Pastor’s Class on Sunday mornings or Monday night Bible study or perhaps one of our series on Wednesday evenings; we expect people to grow toward the tithe in their financial stewardship; we encourage members to join in one of the many service ministry projects we sponsor throughout the year; and we urge members to participate in fellowship activities.
It never fails: As I outline those expectations I always notice that there are a few sets of eyes that get bigger and wider – this is more than these folks had planned on. But in view of our Gospel lesson this morning I think those expectations are way too low. I’m tempted to ratchet those expectations up to include raising the dead and casting out demons. And I’d do it, if I didn’t think it would scare us all off!
It must have been quite a scare for the disciples to listen to Jesus that day, to hear his call for them to bring the Kingdom of God into concrete, everyday reality. It wasn’t that they didn’t know what he was talking about. After all, they had been there with him from the beginning. When Jesus taught people about the need to reorient their lives around God, they were there. When he reached out his hand and touched the leper and made his skin smooth again so that he could rejoin his community, they were there. When Jesus healed the servant of the Roman Army officer, stilled the storm, restored sight to two blind men, even restored life to a child who had died, they were there.
They had seen it all, heard it all; what must have come as a shock was learning that now it’s their turn. Now, they could no longer be spectators. Now, they’d actually have to earn those T-shirts that said, “Hi, I’m a Disciple; Don’t You Wish You Were One Too?”
Sometimes the gospel writers present these disciples as if they were a classroom full of distracted, not-quite-engaged students. As long as Jesus is standing in front of them, teaching, they’re all attentive and ready. But as soon as Jesus turns his back and begins writing on the board, the spitballs start flying, paper airplanes start soaring, someone flips his pencil up toward the ceiling, trying to get it to stick in one of the tiles. But when Jesus turns back to face them again, there they are, paying attention, eager to learn. And that’s when he asks them, as he does in the gospels of both Matthew and Mark, “Do you understand these things?” “Oh, yes,” they respond.
But now it’s out of the classroom for real, out into the world populated by masses of people for whom Jesus had compassion, people who were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd because the leaders who were supposed to care for them had instead simply ignored them, tossed them aside. Now it was up to the disciples: to announce that an entirely new reality called Kingdom of God had arrived; and to perform specific, concrete actions that illustrated that kingdom: Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.
There, that’s easy enough, isn’t it? About as easy as Jesus’ earlier command in Matthew’s gospel: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Biblical language can act as such a barrier between us and these stories of the Bible, the most recent of which happened two thousand years ago. The language of the Bible can almost push us to the sidelines and encourage us to become mere spectators to these ancient stories that seem so interesting but so inaccessible.
But we cannot allow language to separate us from this story, because Christ’s call to the disciples is Christ’s call to us today. Christ is calling us at Advent to leave the safe confines of this sanctuary for the rough-and-tumble of the real world where there are still masses of people for whom Jesus has compassion, masses of people who are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Jesus focuses on issues and conditions that occupy and inhibit and disfigure individual lives. But these issues and conditions are at the same time very communal. Jesus is talking about the entire spectrum of human need, and because he is, there is no neat and tidy distinction between religious and social issues, between religious and political, religious and cultural, religious and economic issues. Public health care, racial justice, gender justice, homelessness, poverty and so many other issues – God has a stake in all of these because they all impact the wellbeing of God’s people.
On a recent Sunday morning someone came out of church and commented on my sermon, saying “Pretty political this morning.” The implication was that there are some places where God belongs and some places where God doesn’t. I wish we had taken time for a conversation about that, because Scripture in general, and this lesson in particular, argues against that thought. Wherever God’s people have an interest, God has an interest.
One of the most fascinating historical figures I’ve encountered is a man named Charles Finney. His isn’t exactly a household name, but Charles Finney was a fiery Christian evangelist back in the early 1800s. Finney was the one who pioneered the altar call. If you’ve ever heard of an altar call or seen one, it’s probably been connected to a well-known evangelist a little closer to our own time, Billy Graham.
Graham would conduct massive outdoor worship services – he led one here in Kansas City a couple of years ago – and at the end would conduct an altar call in which he invited people to walk down out of the stands and come forward to accept Jesus into their hearts, to give their lives to Christ.
We in the Lutheran tradition and in other mainline Protestant denominations don’t use the altar call because we believe that the act of Christ entering our lives happens in baptism, that God takes the initiative to claim us. We respond to that act of grace in the way we choose to live our lives, but we don’t make that grace happen. It’s one of the distinctions between ourselves and some of our Christian brothers and sisters.
But the altar call began with Charles Finney. And he instituted the altar call not only as a way to encourage people to become Christian; he did it also as a way to sign people up for the anti-slavery movement in the 1830s in this country. “Come to Christ and sign up for God’s purposes in the world!” It reminds us of the story of the lawyer who asked Jesus: Of all the laws that God has given to us, which one is the greatest, the most significant? Remember Jesus’ response? “… ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31) Two inseparably linked commands: Love God, love neighbor.
It’s interesting to note that no major social movement in this country – not one – succeeded without the significant involvement of people of faith. The abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, child labor laws, civil rights – all these movements succeeded because people of faith stepped into the public arena and lived out their faith there.
In our own time there are issues that deserve a clear, public voice from God’s people. Immigration reform, the war on terror, and other issues should be addressed by the faith community, but what interests should its voice express? There’s the difficulty, because the temptation is for us to simply give vent to our own frustrations, give voice to our own prejudices, our own desires, our own needs and opinions.
That’s why faithful living is costly.
Faithful living is costly because faithful living calls you and me first of all to die – to die to our own self-interest so that we can be reborn, every day, into Christ so that Christ can take us where he wants us and the world needs us to be: To see with the eyes of Christ, to work with the hands of Christ, to love with the heart of Christ, to speak with the voice of Christ. That’s our calling: To live as Christ to another, both in the public arena and in our own private arenas.
We listen to Jesus’ commands to his disciples to care for those who are suffering in body and mind and spirit, to bring hope into the midst of despair, to invite the lonely out of isolation; and we think, “I’m not qualified to do that! I sell insurance, I’m a junior high school student, I’m a teacher, I’m a homemaker, I’m a lawyer; I can’t do that!” And we’re absolutely right. We can’t do that.
But we must remember that this isn’t about us; it’s about God.
God was at work in Christ, bringing healing and new life to a very broken world. God still is at work in the Body of Christ, the Church, doing exactly the same thing: bringing healing and new life to a very broken world, proclaiming and living out the gospel of hope, to heal, to repel the forces of evil.
Our task is not to take Christ from this place out into the world; our task is to get out into the world and meet Christ there, because that’s where he already is. And he’s waiting for you, because he needs your voice. He’s standing right there, next to the newly single mom whose husband just walked and now she doesn’t have a clue how she’s going to make it. He’s standing right there, next to the rising young executive whose outer swagger masks an inner desperation. He’s standing right there, next to the retiree who’s battling depression because he suspects that since his work is over, his life has no function. He’s standing right there, waiting for you, because he needs your voice to speak a word of hope, a word of life.
I’d like you to do three things this morning. I’d like you to take a few seconds and think of a person, or maybe two, in your immediate circle – your work or family or social circle – who are not connected to a community of faith. Think of that person, and then write his or her name down on a piece of paper. Take a sermon feedback form or a prayer request form and write down the name. Now I’d like you to take it home and place it somewhere where you will see it several times a day; maybe on your dresser or on the refrigerator door. Next I’d like you to pray for that person. The prayer can be as simple as asking God to bless that person as the day goes on. An interesting thing happens when we pray for someone unbeknownst to them, pray for them for several days at a stretch: we enter into a spiritual intimacy with that person that makes the third thing I’m going to ask much easier.
At the end of a week of daily keeping that person in prayer, I’d like you to invite that person to come to Advent with you. If you’re a guest here this morning and belong to another church, invite them there, it doesn’t matter. Invite him or her to come to worship with you. They say that the average Lutheran invites someone to church once every 23 years. Well, if you’re over 23, this is your chance to catch up! If you’re not 23 yet, here’s your chance to break the average!
The power, the authority to do this was given to you in your baptism, when you died and rose again in Jesus Christ. When that happened, you received the authority from God to say to another person what Christ first said to you: Follow me. Follow me, and I will show you a life of more significance and integrity and purpose than you can imagine. Follow me, and I will show you the only unconditional love you can ever experience. Follow me, and I will show you a life that not even death can take from you! Follow me.
People of God, people of Advent, what you have so freely received from God, just as freely give to another. And may God richly bless you in your receiving, and in your giving. Amen.
