Repay the Lord
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Sermon Proper 6 A All Saints 6-14-20
Genesis 18: 1 – 15, 21: 1 -7 Psalm 116: 1, 10 – 17 Romans 5: 1 – 8 Matthew 9: 35 – 10: 8 – 23
How Shall I Repay the Lord?
God does indeed have a wonderful sense of humor – at least toward me! On a Sunday when I wish to preach a small sermon, a comforting sermon because I feel the need for comfort, we get 4 readings of vast, glorious, challenging content. I would prefer to hear a sweet sermon from a kindly voice that would allow me to bask in the love of God and to drift quietly into Monday’s labors.
Confession: I am weary of confinement, heartsick over the rising toll of Covid-19, nauseated at watching violence and pain over and over, terrified at the price of centuries of cruelty and indifference, and grieved over my own life of protected ignorance. I have a strong desire to run away from home, and a dreadful realization that there is no place to run away to. The old cliché, wherever you go, there you are, seems especially true. ME remains – here, there or anywhere I go.
St. Matthew tells of Jesus sending the 12 Apostles out on their first mission trip, not because they have learned everything they need to know, but because Jesus looks at the crowds around Him and feels their pain and their need. Jesus is clear in the instructions that He gives: Do not go to the Gentiles and stay out of Samaria. Go only to your fellow Jews. Proclaim the presence of the Kingdom of God, cure the sick, cleanse lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Require no one to pay you anything. Eat and sleep where you find good reception. Leave where you are not welcomed.
It sounds so simple when Jesus sets out the mission that clearly.
Go out. Preach God’s love and grace. Do what is good for those you meet.
Right now, this is the call to Christian service that I long to follow. Focus on what is gracious and loving in God’s message to those around me. Let their testimonies be full of joy and praise! Focus on peace and love.
Jesus knows what lies before the Disciples and the sacrifice that He Himself will make for us. So, in a few more sentences, Jesus tells the Apostles the truth:
Look, I, the shepherd, am sending you out like defenseless sheep
among the wolves…..
There is grief in this statement, but there is full knowledge too that no battles are won sitting on the front porch with a lemonade in hand. There is no need to bring peace where peace already exists, no need for mercy where mercy is abundant. We must go into the danger if we are to overcome and defeat the danger.
Jesus’s next statement is one we often overlook in this reading:
…so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
God’s Kingdom is not lollipops and glitter. God’s Kingdom is not marshmallows and cotton candy. God’s Kingdom cannot be brought to earth with a wish and a smile. There is demanding work to be done. Jesus calls us to do that work together, with love and strength for as long as we are given here in this place.
The church – the historic, world-wide Christian church – has a rich history of majoring in minor things, of fighting with each other of minutiae of doctrine, expecting others to clean up to our standards before we admit them into the circle, and setting up “us” and “them” categories to protect ourselves. Our hand is now being called. What we choose to do now, right here – right now, makes the difference. How we choose to react – examine ourselves and right our wrongs, or continue to go along to get along – makes the difference in God’s Kingdom coming to earth.
Our innocence must not be the innocence of ignorance nor the innocence of avoidance. Jesus Christ calls us to the wily craft of the serpent BUT the purity of faith and God’s grace. We must know the ways of the world but follow the ways of God so that the world is transformed.
Our sins of omission and of willful ignorance and turning away are not going to change without effort and pain, without repentance and God’s grace. Our world will not change without God’s mercy and peace. Are we to be complacent and comfortable in our faith? Or will we become disciples sent into the world for God and with God and in God’s love toward those around us?
