Sermon July 4, 2010

Like Lambs Among Wolves

Celebration of our Lord’s Supper

Scripture Psalm 46 sung as the Psalter #191 and Luke 10: 1-11

Preached by Linda Jo Peters ~ July 4, 2010

INTRODUCTION TO SCIPTURE
Luke 10: 1-11
As we have discussed in other scripture readings we know the ancient world had strong customs about hospitality. The mission of the disciples relied on these customs. The result was quite confrontational: you either welcomed these people or you turned them away into the elements. It was accepted that enemies should not be offered hospitality, but were these enemies or friends? To reject someone who is not an enemy, to refuse to offer hospitality, was shameful. It brought disgrace and promised misfortune. The disciples claimed to be envoys of peace and wholeness, including healing. They claimed to be announcing the reign of God and by their actions, bringing its reality into life in the here and now. To receive them was to receive the one who sent them and to receive him was to receive God, to be open to the kingdom. That is the expectation here. Would you welcome these “lambs” into your home?

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. 2He 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. 3Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ 6And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7Remain 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. 8Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10But 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.’

SERMON
What is it like when the kingdom of God comes near? Is it easy to welcome into your home. Sara Miles was a reporter before she found Christ. Now she is Director of Ministry at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco. She tells a story of hospitality in the midst of terror that speaks profoundly about being lambs among wolves. She writes about being in Alexandra township during the “final throes” of apartheid. Remember what the disciples were told to take? Nothing! Sara had a guide/companion from the African National Congress, Mzwanele. She stuck a notebook in her pocket and Mzwanele took nothing but a bandana to wipe the sweat off his face.

They drove through the homemade barricades that were mushrooming at intersections. Then at one point they got out of their car and stood next to an injured boy who was facing a semi-circle of gigantic police tanks. There was the pungent blast of tear gas and smoke from burning tires.

Sara recalls:
I could see a line of armored personnel carriers descending a hill towards us. People scattered, running down alleys and dodging out of sight of the army. There was a rush of voices and a sound of breaking glass somewhere close by. And then the shooting started. I stumbled. A grandmotherly woman in a flowered skirt standing at the door of her shack beckoned urgently to us. “Come here,” she said. Mzwanele deposited me inside, saying he’d be back. I’ve seldom been as visibly an outsider as I was in Alexandra that day: a foreigner, the wrong color, someone whose very presence meant danger for the people around me. The woman calmly motioned me to sit down at her kitchen table, under a print of Jesus, a calendar, a broken clock. She took some spoons and mugs off a shelf… Then the woman smiled at me, pouring the hot dark tea from a banged-up kettle. She stirred sweetened condensed milk into my cup, humming under her breath. “Here, my dear, drink it,” she said. I had no idea that what was settling upon me in that moment, as I sipped my tea and traced my finger over the pattern in the linoleum, was the peace of God. But I knew the woman’s offer of peace was stronger than anything I was afraid of. The gunfire and the shouting were still there, outside, but in that kitchen some other power prevailed. Sara recalls Jesus’ words: Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide. The kingdom of God is very near.

In the late afternoon, Mzwanele came back for me, and we walked over into the township stadium, where ten thousand unarmed people were gathering for a march, despite police orders. The stadium was ringed by tanks with gun mounts on their turrets, riot-police vans, armored cars; policemen with pistols and army troops with automatic rifles; white soldiers with tear-gas grenade launchers and black police with shotguns; plainclothes cops with radios; sharpshooters, dog handlers and spies. Sara asks: have you noticed, there remains on Earth the very real threat of powers and principalities? And still the kingdom of God is very near.

She remembers that a helicopter hung overhead. The police bullhorn bleated at them to disperse. “Watch,” said Mzwanele, and through the haze of smoke she saw young girl, her dress whipping around her knees, dancing in front of the tanks. Out of nowhere, out of everywhere, people began to sing in harmony and clap, and with a deep collective sigh the whole crowd began to move forward singing out of the stadium, dancing toward Calvary, the place of the skulls.

The kingdom of God is very near. Entering that kingdom is as simple as welcoming a stranger into your house, and saying, “Peace be with you.” It is as difficult as welcoming a stranger into your house, and saying, “Peace be with you.” The air is full of tear gas, and the streets of this world are full of broken children, and the Kingdom of God is very near.

In South Africa fifteen years ago, in Kabul this morning, in a hundreds of communities all over the world where armies and violence rage, the Son of Man sends out his lambs to be instruments of peace. He sends us out to eat with strangers, who become friends. He asks us to go into the future even when we do not have everything in order. He asks us to trust him to provide when the whole world seems to be shouting about want and need and be afraid. The kingdom of God is very near, see the table is set and Jesus is beckoning you to join him in his hut or on a hill or an upper room or right here at Unity. Peace be with you, oh lambs of God. Amen.

RESOURCES: Pentecost 6, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia
“Like Lambs Among Wolves: Gospel Reflections on the Temptations of Violence” A guest essay by Sara Miles, author of Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion (2007). Sara is the director of ministries at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, where she founded The Food Pantry. For Sunday July 8, 2007. See: http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20070702JJ.shtml