Ask, Search, Knock

Sunday, July 25th, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Luke 11:1-13

1 He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." 2 He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread. 4 And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial." 5 And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, "Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' 7 And he answers from within, "Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. 9 "So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

“Can I have scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast?”

Caleb usually wanders into the bedroom around 7 or 7:30, and you can pretty much bet on his asking for his favorite breakfast every day. We’ve learned that he is the one of the three kids who thrives on routine. He prefers things to be known in advance, and he expects them to go that way. He is the one most likely to point out “but, you said … so and so …” if we don’t keep exactly to the letter of what we originally planned to do on any given day.

He has his routines. He’s helped enough in the preparation of his breakfast that he can do it on his own, up to a point. When he was still going to bed with his “blankie,” he had a particular way of holding up the blanket, letting it fall open, and then bunching it up and hugging it to himself as he flopped down to be tucked in.

Yesterday morning, the scene Jesus described in the text could have been recreated in the hallway between our bedroom and the boys’ room over at the parsonage. Caleb came in, as usual, asking for his breakfast. I had stayed up until about 2:30 waiting for word from Leslie, and she had pulled in right around 4 AM, so we were both still pretty groggy when he first came in. She explained that to him, and asked him to let her sleep for a while longer and then come back. To a six year old, ‘a while longer’ means something radically different than what it means to an adult. All too soon, Caleb came walking back into the room and again asked for scrambled eggs and toast. To make a long story short, it took him about 4 tries to finally rouse his mommy and daddy out of bed to help him finish his breakfast, and the whole time, this passage was playing in my head.

I’ve heard several sermons preached on the Lord’s Prayer, and I suspect you have as well. There’s the straightforward exegetical and expository approach, breaking the prayer down into its component phrases, and how each presents a sustaining principle that should be followed in order to match the model prayer. While it was helpful to a degree, there is something in me that rebels against the … formulaic approach that presents. The notion that there is a kind of vending machine in the sky, where if you say the right phrase, in the right way, followed by the right condition, you’ll get the response you’re looking for, just doesn’t fit with the idea that God is looking for a relationship with at all.

What was so radical about Jesus to both his followers as well as his detractors was the whole manner in which he approached God – as Abba – as daddy. The leaders of the Sanhedrin knew formulas. They knew how to proscribe the practice of religion. They knew how to control what people believed and HOW they believed and practiced it – the key word being control. Relationships make all the difference. If you deal with someone on a purely functional level, there is a set protocol you go through in addressing and interacting with that person, but as you become familiar with them, get to know their name, get to know their story, about their family, their children, you begin to see the person, and less of the function.

Friday night after the game in Callao, I took the kids to Nino’s for a way-too-late supper. It was about a half hour before closing time when we walked in, and as we sat down at our table, the woman who was bussing tables came by to wipe our table clean. As she approached, I realized she was Mexican. I’d heard the hostess call her name, and I greeted her by name and we started a conversation. Within a few minutes, I’d found out she has two daughters, one who is going to start kindergarten this fall, and her husband works in Heathsville. She took the job at Nino’s because it allowed her to spend more time with her daughters during the day, but it still does not pay very much at all. She spoke about a couple of places where she’d gone to interview, and some of the things she’d heard others tell of what working there was like, and I was faced again with the reality that there is still blatant exploitation of people without a voice going on in today’s society. By the end of the meal, I’d invited her to the gathering we’ll be having at Kilmarnock next Saturday, and had built at least an initial bridge of friendship with her.

But it was in that building that I had to deal with the reality in which SHE lives – which is radically different from mine, and that is not only discomforting, it is MESSY. It is unpredictable. It is unsettling.

What do I do with this knowledge that I now have of injustice being institutionalized right here in our own community? A similar story was shared at the gathering we had at Fairport two weeks ago. I’m having to wrestle with the part of me that wants to blow a whistle as loud as I can, or strike up a protest march … and I’ve never really been one to do stuff like that … It IS unsettling.

What is Jesus telling me to do in this passage? He’s telling me that God, like this friend who, because of his friend’s persistence, finally DOES get up and give him something. ‘Whatever he needs’, the text reads. Then Jesus goes on to say “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”


There was a chorus that became popular in the late 60’s, taken directly from this passage –

Seek, and ye shall find,
Knock and the doors shall be opened,
Ask, and it shall be given
And the love comes a-tumbling’ down”

This week during vacation bible school, one of the activities every class participated in was the making of this chain you see draped around the sanctuary. As I mentioned in the beginning of the discipline of silence, the names on the links are the names of missionaries who are currently serving or who have dedicated their lives to service on the mission field. As I mentioned Friday night at the commencement exercise, these names only represent 2 months’ worth of names for those who are serving through the International Mission Board, and all the names of missionaries and their children who serve through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Even though this chain could wrap completely around the room and have some left over, it represents only a 6th of the missionaries whom we support through our giving and prayers.

The thing that Jesus made plain through his life and earthly ministry was that God is not a distant, disengaged God. God is … the theological term is immanent – PRESENT.

Last week, as I was taking communion to those of our church family who could not be here for Communion Sunday, part of the prayer was always ‘Thank you God that you have promised that wherever two or more are gathered in your name, you will be there. Thank you for your presence here today.”

I’m learning as I go as a father, sometimes not so readily, to measure my response to Hannah, Caleb and Judson’s various requests by this passage. When Jesus said,

11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

I think he was speaking as much about how we are to behave as parents as he was talking about the nature of the love of God.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

What are we willing to pray for? What are we willing to ask for? We are told to come boldly before the throne of grace. How boldly do we do that?

As we’ve been studying on Wednesday nights, the spiritual disciplines are ways to become familiar with the mind of Christ, the will of God, in a real sense, the heart of God.

When we pray, pray like this:

“Daddy, can I have scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast?”

The speech and the words may sound different, but the intent of the heart is what God hears.

Let’s pray.

Running the Race

Sunday, July 18th, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Philippians 3:10-20

10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. 16 Only let us hold fast to what we have attained. Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. 18 For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. 19 Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

On April 6, 1923, in a small town hall in Armadale, Scotland, Eric Liddell spoke for the first time of his faith in Christ. Eighty people came to hear Scotland's famous runner give his testimony. "Shyly, he stepped forward and for a few seconds surveyed his waiting audience, then he began," writes Catherine Swift in her biography, Eric Liddell.

"There was no lecturing, no fist thumping on the table, no wagging or pointing a finger to stress a point, no raised voice to impress on them what he thought they should be doing. In fact, it wasn't a speech at all. It was more of a quiet chat, and in his slow clear words, Eric for the first time in his life told the world what God meant to him. "He spoke of the strength he felt within himself from the sure knowledge of God's love and support, of how he never questioned anything that happened either to himself or to others. He didn't need explanations from God. He simply believed in Him and accepted whatever came."

News of Liddell's talk was reported in every newspaper in Scotland the next morning. God was preparing Liddell to honor Him, and his testimony still reverberates today.

"The Lord Guides Me"

Liddell was an unorthodox sprinter. Coming out of trowel-dug starting holes, Liddell ran with abandon, head tilted toward the skies, knees thrust upward to his chin, feet rising high from the ground. Before each race, Liddell shook hands with each competitor, offering his trowel to fellow runners who struggled to dig their starting holes in cinder tracks with their cleats.

When asked how he knew where the finish line was located, he replied in his deliberate Scottish brogue, "The Lord guides me." As word of his faith in Christ spread through England, many wondered if he would display the same zeal on the track. Liddell silenced any skeptics in the AAA Championships in London in July 1923, by winning the 220-yard dash and the 100-yard dash. His time in the 100 stood as England's best for thirty-five years.

He won the Harvey Cup for the best performance of the meet and readied himself for the Paris Olympics in the summer of 1924.

"I'm Not Running"

Liddell waited excitedly for the posting of the Olympic heats for the 100 meters and the 4X100 and 4X400 relays, his best events. He was stunned upon learning the preliminary dashes were on Sunday. "I'm not running," he said flatly and then turned his attention to train for the 200-meter and 400-meter dashes.

He considered Sunday to be sacred, a day set apart for the Lord; and he would honor his convictions at the expense of fame. On Sunday, July 6, Liddell preached in a Paris church as the guns sounded for the 100-meter heats. Three days later, he finished third in the 200-meter sprint, taking an unexpected bronze medal. He quietly made his way through the heats of the 400 meters but was not expected to win. Shaking hands with the other finalists, he readied for the race of his life. Arms thrashing, head bobbing and tilted, legs dancing, Liddell ran to victory, five meters ahead of the silver medalist. "The Flying Scotsman" had a gold metal and a world record, 47.6 seconds. Most of all, Eric Liddell had kept his commitment to his convictions of faith.

"It's Complete Surrender"

The next year, Liddell returned to China, where he had been born to missionary parents, as a teacher and missionary. In 1932, he was ordained as a minister and married in 1933. He ministered pleasantly and plainly, often traveling on bicycle, braving constant fighting between Chinese warlords and Japanese in their growing conquest of China.

His decision to share Christ in isolated communities, forcing him to leave his wife and children behind, was the result of insistent prayer. "Complete surrender" was his description of this attitude.

In March of 1943, Liddell, along with other Americans and Brits, entered a Japanese internment camp. He was appointed math teacher and supervised a sports program. He arose each morning to study his Bible and was the cheer of the camp.

But his health deteriorated rapidly. A brain tumor ravaged his body with severe headaches. Shortly after his forty-third birthday in January 1945, Liddell collapsed. His last words, spoken to a camp nurse, were, "It's complete surrender." Upon learning of Liddell's death, all of Scotland mourned. Heaven rejoiced.

Run The Race

Eric Liddell ran, spoke, and lived with great faithfulness and solid commitment to Christ. The movie, Chariots of Fire, chronicled his faith, influencing yet another generation for Jesus Christ. You do not have to be famous or skilled to make a difference for Christ. God asks only that you serve Him faithfully and wholeheartedly in whatever you do.
God has "appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain" (John 15:16).

Honor God in all you do, and He will honor your obedience with a life that counts for eternity. "Complete surrender" to Christ is total victory.

(With thanks to InTouch.org, and their 'portrait of great Christians, Eric Liddell, and the Eric Liddell Center Website)

Eric Liddell is for me a modern-day example of what Paul was for 1st century Christians.

His focus was on his calling, and the goal that God had set before him. He didn't let anything get in the way of that. Neither did Paul.

Most scholars agree that Paul wrote Philippians a relatively short time before his death. Reading the letter, there is a sense of Paul's looking back over his life and, in a sense, re-living the blessings.

Eric Liddell never gave up hope. He never let discouragement overrun his delight in the Lord, even until the day he died, because he knew where his hope came from-it came from God through Jesus Christ.

There are times in reading Paul where he simply sounds arrogant. Verse 17 could be one of those times, if it is taken as a separate verse from the surrounding text. Paul says, "Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us." basically, it could be read as Paul telling people to copy HIM. But before that, he is saying … confessing, really, that he has not yet attained the goal he is after, which is to be like Christ.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Paul says in verse 13, 'Forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."

"Forgetting" does not mean obliterating the memory of his past, but it was a conscious refusal to let it absorb his attention and impede his progress. He never let his Jewish heritage - including his early persecution of the church, or his earlier attainments as an apostle and a missionary to the gentiles, get in the way of what he needed to be doing. That means he didn't dwell on his failures OR rest on his … laurels.

Jerusalem has a lot to be proud of. Simply by virtue of the fact that this family of faith has been meeting here or near here since 1834 and continues to do so, there is reason to be thankful to God for his faithfulness. That is not to say that we should pat ourselves on the back and say 'good job, well done.'

What we can learn from Paul is that he never did that. He never considered his job "done". He was born a Jew, a member of the chosen people, as well as a Roman citizen, but those were not the things that defined him. What defined him is what he mentions in verse 20 - "our citizenship is in heaven".

We are surrounded by several flags from different nations. Baron de Cupertain, the man who instituted the modern Olympic movement, originally intended the games to be individuals against individuals, each athlete wearing a standard uniform, if they wore anything at all … he originally wanted the oldest competition, the footraces, to be run as they had originally been in ancient Greece, where the runners were unencumbered by clothing of any kind. But De Cupertain's vision was one of a competition in which individuals competed against each other as members not of nations, but as common members of the human race - the bottom line common denominator for everyone.

Paul worked in a similar arena, so to speak. He came face to face with Greeks, and Romans, and people from any number of other places in the known world. And he reminded them that, if they were followers of Christ, their ultimate loyalty and common citizenship was shared - they were citizens of Heaven.

So for Jerusalem, let's never lose sight of the fact that we may have minor differences while here on earth, but ultimately, our allegiance is to our one and only Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Let's pray.

Mercy


Sunday, July 11th, 2004 (proper 10(15))
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Luke 10:25-37

25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" 27 He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." 28 And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live." 29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" 30 Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" 37 He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

The Good Samaritan.

I would venture to say we could have all told the story from beginning to end without missing any of the details: the trip, the road, the robbers, the Priest, the Levite, and finally the Samaritan. Some of us may have even gotten the lawyer at the beginning, and the fact that he wanted to justify himself with the question he was asking.

The thing is we’re never going to understand half the impact of the story unless we change the key player’s name. I remember hearing a sermon preached on this same story several years ago, and the preacher replaced ‘The Good Samaritan’ with ‘The Good Homosexual’. Perhaps today we could replace it with ‘The Good Iraqi Insurgent’, or ‘The Good Terrorist’, and we might get a sense of just what sort of regard the man Jesus told the parable to held the Samaritan people.

We still get the other details, the condemnation of those who self-righteously parade around claiming to be good, who show no true love for their neighbor in need, but the whole focus of the story changes, doesn’t it, when we have to struggle to get over the first huge hurdle – Jesus just called a Terrorist my neighbor – and made him out to be a better person than the preacher and the theologian down the street?

What do we do with that?

We realize that the story has more to do with how OUR prejudice blinds us and less and less to do with who made the right choice and who made the wrong choice.

Labels serve two purposes. They cover up and they inform. Forget for a moment that there are clear labels, let’s just talk about your basic, old fashioned, paper with glue on the back labels that we’d find on a can of Campbell’s soup, for example. That’s a best-case example. Labels are DESIGNED to be helpful in those instances when we can’t see what’s in the packaging. They tell us what is in the can and what to expect to find when we open it.

Well, now that I think about it, they are designed for the same purpose when it comes to using them with people. We can look at someone’s exterior, but we don’t really know what’s going on inside; what motivates and inspires someone, what moves them to tears, or laughter, or anger, or desperation so incredible that they would be moved to kill others or themselves in an act that would be considered by the vast majority of the world’s population as inhuman and insane. So we come up with labels. Arabs. Terrorists. Martyrs. It’s a kind of shorthand that tells us where they are from, what they do for a living, and how they see it as their place to carry out these acts.

There is a terrible danger in labeling people, though. When we label people, we try to freeze them, to fit them in a particular box, with a particular set of convictions, beliefs, and motivations. We say they hate us because that is all we can understand through their actions.

The Jews of first century Palestine were used to ascribing motives to people they had come to view as less than human.

Meier Kahane, a radical Jewish Rabbi, who founded the Jewish Defense League, crystallized for me what it does to you when you label people. Though I’m sure he had his calmer moments, I don’t remember seeing him in either an interview or a talk show when he wasn’t spewing venom in the form of hatred and insults aimed at the Palestinian Arab people. He wouldn’t let an Arab walk past him without calling the person a dog or something worse. I remember watching the report of his death – at the hands of a person of Arab descent, if memory serves - and thinking ‘what a terrible, terrible waste.’ What compelled him to such a passionate hatred of other human beings?

I think removing the ‘human being’ from the equation had a great part to do with it.

How easy is it for us to dehumanize our enemies? It seemed fairly easy to dehumanize the greater part of the population of USSR, at the height of the cold war, or the Iraqi National Guard troops, during the Gulf War, as well as the latest war in Iraq, or the Taliban, as we entered Afghanistan. But can we really find ourselves doing the same thing that is easy to do on a national level on a local level? What if we replaced ‘Samaritan’ with ‘white trash’, or ‘colored man’, or ‘liberal’, ‘fundamentalist’, ‘democrat’ or ‘republican’ or ‘tree hugger’, ‘feminazis’, … how many other labels can we come up with in the next 30 seconds? I suspect we could come up with more than (I hope) we would be comfortable with realizing we knew, and some that we wouldn’t even consciously think of as labels would probably come to mind later.

What Jesus was doing in his telling of the parable to this lawyer who wanted to make himself feel good, was this: however much you disagree with someone … never forget that the someone is a PERSON, an INDIVIDUAL, and as such, someone just as worthy of God’s love and Christ’s sacrifice as you or I. Don’t be surprised if that person whom you’d just as soon spit on as look at turns out to be your savior.

So here we are. It’s our communion Sunday. This is the time when we are all invited to the table by not me, not the deacons, not the church council or any other part of the church besides the head of the church himself, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Who was the neighbor in the parable?

The one who showed mercy.

Who has shown us mercy far beyond what we could hope to receive?

The Lord Jesus Christ.

He is here with us, sitting next to us, telling us the story over and over again.

God loves us, Christ died for us. Thanks be to God.

(communion)

Our Place

Sunday, July 04, 2004
Proper 9 (14)
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house! 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this the kingdom of God has come near.'

16 "Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me." 17 The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" 18 He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19 See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

I got an email from Jimmy last night. I connected and logged on shortly after 10:00, and there was a message from him, sent at 6:40, both Chilean and Eastern Daylight Time, which, for now, happen to coincide. It was a short note, which he'd sent to everyone in the family, just telling us he'd made it to Santiago, that everyone there was fine, that they send their love, that he would be leaving Santiago for the 14 hour bus ride to Osorno a couple of hours from then, and asking that whoever got the message first to please call the rest of the family to give them the update on his whereabouts. Since I'd not heard from any of the rest of the family, I figured I was the first to get the message, so I picked up the phone and called everyone.

Though we spent the last 4 days together, Jimmy and I only had one or two … substantive conversations about his upcoming move. I'd like to think that there's an understanding between us, a brotherly connection that doesn't require blow-by-blow conversations about what is going on in our lives to get an idea about what one or the other is feeling or how we are doing. I think I've mentioned to you before what it was like when we first shared an apartment when jimmy was in college in Louisville and right after I had returned from Spain. It wasn't very different with this visit. We spent some good time together, and I don't think we left things unsaid that needed to be said.

We were standing in line at BWI Friday, Jimmy and I, with his 4 huge suitcases and two slightly smaller carry-on bags, and as is usually happens, it was a case of hurry up and wait. We'd ended up rushing to get to the airport two hours early, as per current guidelines, only to find ourselves in a line that snaked back and forth in front of the American Airlines counter. We would move ahead a few steps, then stop, prop the suitcases up, or set the bags down, and just stand and say a few words or simply people watch.

Airports are the best place to people watch. The sheer number of stories represented by the people milling around or walking hurriedly down the hall makes it as entertaining as any good book.

We were standing a few feet apart, I was in front of him facing back, and he chuckled and said 'Don't you miss this?' (Referring to what we were doing; lugging heavy bags and suitcases all over creation, standing in line, wishing to be at the other end of the trip) "not really," I said, I thought a minute and continued "this is different, after this you leave the building on that side (motioning towards the departure gates) and I leave the building on this side (motioning to the way we'd come in). I didn't quite get it out in the joking way I'd intended, and my voice cracked. So I stumbled on, "that's not a BAD thing, in the least."

"No, it's not, he answered."

I think I realized then, to some degree, what was happening. That exchange was my commissioning of my brother for his trip 'home'.

The text today is one that finds Jesus commissioning 70 of his followers to do a sort of 'first run' with this whole 'ushering in the Kingdom of God' thing.

I suspect the story is somewhat familiar to you, but if it isn't here it is in a nutshell: at the beginning of chapter 9, Jesus commissions the 12 disciples, giving them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. There are a few instances of consternation on the part of townspeople who are confronted with the miracles that the disciples performed, and at least in the gospel of Luke, we find the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 shortly thereafter. We also find Jesus' entreaty to the disciples and to us today who are choosing to follow him to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow him. The theme recurs in the text from last week, at the end of chapter 9, where we looked at the cost of discipleship.

Ultimately, though, Jesus' statement that we studied last week about how harsh conditions might turn out to be for those who follow him did not, apparently, dissuade some (at least) from following him. He is presented here with the duty of sending out the 70. He sends them out in pairs, with fairly specific instructions. Some of you might remember we touched on part of this passage last august, in the sermon where I thought I was asking you to remove both shoes from your feet but only got across that you should remove one of them. I apologize for that, and would like to say that, if you wish to, you may remove both your shoes now, though it might not tie in directly with the understanding of the sermon. :

What follows the introduction of the story is a series of instructions. Jesus is commissioning the 70, and we would do well to heed his words as well: travel together, GO, trust in God to provide for your needs, let hosts practice hospitality, and be gracious guests.

The traveling together probably had roots in the requirement of Jewish law that, in order for something, a message, an announcement to have legal standing, it needed two people to bear witness to it. But it also had a deeper purpose. The two who were traveling together offered each other support, Physical, emotional, and spiritual. It seems appropriate top mention that we are called to be in community for the exact same purpose.

Sometimes we think that when we are named to an office in the church, when we are asked to do a particular job, that this is an honorary designation. An honorary designation is one that gives us a title without an expectation of personally carrying out the task.

Jesus expects that disciples will go, now.

Jesus did not award these folks with an honorary title. In verse 3, Jesus emphatically tells them to get on with it. "Get the work done, he says. Go right now - don't wait for a phone call, or a meeting notice, set it up yourself and do it!

We are all commissioned to go into the entire world and proclaim the kingdom. Jesus' disciples were going out, telling the people they met "Jesus has been walking with us! We see a different way to live now." It's the proclamation of a new world, one in which the poor are made rich, the imprisoned are freed, the blind are given sight. It's the kind of world in which, according to Jesus, you are to walk into the house of a stranger bearing the peace of God. To proclaim the kingdom is to proclaim that the living Christ is with us, offering us love and grace.

The disciples were also commissioned to care for others.

The apostles were told by Jesus to "cure the sick." The Greek word that is translated as "cure" has a broader meaning than simply healing. According to the Greek understanding, the apostles were called to be servants of the sick, one's who cared for them and helped to relieve their burdens. We understand this today as care giving. Care giving is proclamation through action. It is about living out the values of the kingdom we proclaim in real and tangible ways.
The list I read at our invitation time last week ended with the statement: you're the messenger, not the message.

Jesus was trying to get that across to his disciples here as well. As we jump to verse 17, the 70 have been and gone, and they are coming back - and it sounds like they've just been to summer camp.

"The 70 returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!"

You can almost hear the giddiness in their voices. So excited about their experiences on the road, so eager to share about what they'd seen and done.

There's a key phrase that may get lost in the telling:

"In your name"

Whatever it is we are called to do, proclaim, lead, care, direct, teach, conduct, play, WHATEVER … we are to do in the name of the one who sent us in the first place.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

What is "our place?"

Where is our home?

Jimmy's earthly home, until a few months ago, was Pennsylvania. He'd lived there for a few years, had his circle of friends, work, places he frequented. He'd built a life in Allentown.

Then that started to change. His childhood home beckoned, and he answered the call. He did not go as a missionary in any official capacity. But he is modeling for me what it means to hold two places dear in your heart.

So we celebrate the anniversary of the signing of the declaration of independence of the United States today. We do well to give thanks for what part of our country models for us the kingdom, understanding that in many areas of culture and society we fall far short, as we would expect to see, this side of heaven. We can also take heed of the passages that tell us to shake the dust from our feet of those places that reject the kingdom, and work to change. Work to give a glimpse through the glass, dimly, of what the kingdom of God looks like.

Since most, if not all, of us were born here, we can't help but be citizens of the United States, and as such, we can be proud of that fact.

What is ever more precious is that we are, by the grace of God and the love of Jesus Christ citizens of the kingdom. And that reflects a CHOICE we made at some point in our lives.

It is because of THAT, and for no other reason, that we are gathered here, and that we go from this place to proclaim that kingdom to the world.

Let's pray.