Read the full transcript below:
Grace, grace, grace, and peace…
What a joy, what a delight to be with you sisters and brothers! Our being together is a sign of YOUR KINGDOM COME. Our being together is what Jesus longs for. “Father, I pray that they might be one even as you and I are one.”
I hold deeply to the belief that our primary calling and purpose as the people of God is to be continually extending the circle of who is included. Each time the circle was extended to the unclean, the unacceptable, the foreigner or the forgotten Jesus would declare that the Kingdom of God has come near.
Today in our Gospel Lesson we find Jesus readying the seventy to be sent out ahead of Jesus to every town and place that Jesus himself intended to go. It is so essential that we become aware of the direction one must go if one is to be a part of experiencing the kingdom. One must be sent out.
This is radically different that the way the Church in North America has understood itself. We have not been a sent church. We have been a church that invites people to come – come to us. Come and we will receive you with hospitality. We will wash you in the waters of baptism. We will feed you at the Lord’s Table. And we will equip you to invite others to come.
I served a church for thirty-three years in which the classic picture of Jesus knocking on the huge wooden door of the church hung in our Narthex. North Americans see the picture and understand that Jesus wants to come in.
But that is not the intent of Jesus. Jesus is knocking on the door of the church and asking, “Are you ever going to come out?” Or in the words of Luke’s gospel, “I need laborers.”
“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way.”
I have to tell you Lutherans are not an easily sent people. You may know that we are affectionately referred to as God’s frozen people. It takes all the courage we can muster to invite someone to come to church. Imagine our terror at being sent out. Jesus understands our terror. “See I am sending you lout like lambs into the mists of wolves.” (How well he knows!)
Being sent is an essential ingredient of faith. We only grow as people when we push out of our comfort zone. It begins when a two-year-old decides she can go down the slide at the playground. It happens when you have your first sleep over at a friend’s house. It happens when we move into kindergarten, middle school and high school, marriage, parenting, retirement, and death. Every adventure of leaving behind what we know is an adventure of faith.
One of my favorite passages in scripture is about Abraham and Sarah. They went out not knowing. When you go out not knowing – uncertain – when you are out amongst the wolves the likelihood of turning to God goes up dramatically.
This is why Jesus admonishes the seventy, “Carry no purse, no bag, no saddles; and greet no one on the road.” This is the equivalent of us being sent out without our cell phones.
The question is who we are going to rely upon? And the answer in our Biblical story today is certainly Jesus but perhaps even more importantly the stranger. The strangers who invite us into their homes. Strangers who deep down will receive us because they hunger for the very things we hunger for peace, wholeness, togetherness. “And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest upon that person, but if not, it will return to you.”
This is another way of saying people of peace urgently need to find one another.
I had a recent experience of this at Saint Mark’s Cathedral – the Cathedral that you dear people have declared is the whole community’s cathedral – a place for peace makers of every kind to gather. (The very place where I was installed as bishop.) I was there this time for the blessing of the Lummi Totem Pole. What I found so moving was who else was there. Tribal members from across the state, young millennials who believe deeply in issues of justice, ecumenical and interfaith leaders and lay people alike, not to mention environmentalists and earth ministry supporters. The kingdom of God drew near that day at Saint Marks and God delighted in seeing such an eclectic group of God’s children all under one roof.
What Jesus says next in our Bible Story is perhaps the most important lesson we have to learn in the church today. “Remain in the same house eating and drinking whatever they provide.”
Friends this is what radical hospitality is. It is one thing to be gracious and generous in receiving others to our table. But what does it mean to receive from the other what it is they have to provide? Radical hospitality is SENT hospitality. It is when we are willing to let go of the need to practice our rituals and customs so that we might be fully present for the other.
Friends most of our going out is for the purpose of charity. We who have more are generous enough to share it with those who have less. This is a good thing, but it ain’t radical hospitality because it is still done on our terms.
Ministry is when we take the next step, when we are sent out by entering into relationship with the other in the community. It is about sharing TABLE together. The table set by the other. When we share TABLE set by the other we discover anew that it is Jesus who is host. It is indeed a feast of victory. “Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.”
It is why I am so grateful to be with you today. To be at TABLE with you. (I must tell you it also frightens me because you all do TABLE so well and my manners are little rough.) If we can’t do TABLE together how in the world can we ever hope to be sent out to share Table with the other – “eating and drinking whatever they provide.”
FATHER I PRAY THAT WE
- Lutherans and Episcopalians
- Republicans and Democrats
- Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikh’s and Hindus
- First Nation and Immigrant
- Straight and Gay
- Friend and Enemy
MIGHT BE ONE EVEN AS YOU AND THE SON ARE ONE.
Send us out God! Send us out! That we might continue to surprise the world with your GRACE, GRACE, GRACE!!!
Your Kingdom Come!
