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Called and Sent with Power
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5 July 2009 We think we know Jesus. We have the sweet baby Jesus images of Matthew and Luke’s gospels as firmly entrenched in our own minds as the people of Nazareth had the image of a wood-chipping, lumber-handling local carpenter in theirs. We think we know Jesus. We have the image of a precocious twelve-year-old holding his own in the temple with the elders, and imagine the adult version as something of a cross between Charlton Heston’s Moses and a young Billy Graham dazzling the local church people. We think we know Jesus. We have the image of the compassionate healer restoring Jairus’ twelve-year-old daughter to life and healing a woman of her twelve-year hemorrhage when she merely touches the hem of his robe. But the image of Jesus advising his disciples to shake the dust off their sandals as testimony against those who don’t receive them feels a bit...uncharitable. After all, tolerance is the virtue we teach in our schools. And to insult those who do not receive them and their mission? That’s hardly the stuff of doing unto others. After all, even we have seen pictures of Iraqi men taking off their shoes to pound them against the fallen statue of Saddam Hussein. Or more recently, of 29-year-old television journalist Muntader al-Zaidi throwing his shoes at the head of America's then-commander-in-chief. In Jesus’ time, as well as in our own, Middle Eastern people considered it a serious insult merely to expose the sole of a shoe to a person sitting opposite from you. “The shoe is considered dirty because it is on the ground and associated with the foot, the lowest part of the body,” writes Caroline Gammell in the December 15 issue of London Telegraph. “Hitting someone with a shoe shows that the victim is regarded as even lower.”[1] Arguably, shaking even the dust off one’s sandals would have a similar impact. It would have been offensive, perhaps even the kind of action that rouses the rabble. In a word, it is provocative, hardly the kind of action that suggests setting out meekly as a beggar praying for a handout. Which brings us back to our scripture. Jesus is in the synagogue teaching. It’s the place you would expect to find a Jewish rabbi. And the congregation engages him in good Jewish fashion–by arguing about his teachings. After all, the very name “Israel” means “he wrestles with God.” Only in refusing to engage, refusing to argue, is the congregation disrespectful and faithless...something to keep in mind as we look at upcoming adult education offerings. No one, no one has finished growing in faith...even ordained clergy. We each have perspectives and experiences others need to hear about; others have perspectives and experiences we need to hear about. This is an unabashed aside and promotion: I hope every adult member will set aside time during the year to be engaged in one of our offerings....beginning next Sunday. Plan to join us after worship next Sunday for a conversation about Larry Rasmussen’s Talking the Walk, the keynote address he delivered at our Central Atlantic Conference annual meeting concerning environmental stewardship. Copies of that address are available in the narthex. (Other than that, they are not available for publication.) But the teacher Jesus is met with more than engagement. He is met with unbelief. After all, the people of Nazareth know Jesus as the carpenter, and can’t imagine him in a role beyond that. Unbelief is the death-knell for anything that needs to grow...like faith. Only after the failure of their imagination does Jesus send his disciples out–with authority over unclean spirits...but not much more. They go two by two as the most primary of communities; they go two by two to assure the validity of their witness (Deut. 17.6); they go two by two to form an example of their participation in a community of faith.”[3,119] As they go, the disciples do what Jesus has been...doing: calling people to repentance, and healing people.[2,189] What does this have to say to the church of today? Good news and bad news. First the bad news: the church itself may be the seat of faithlessness, of unbelief. Something along the lines of: this is a nice enough group of people, but I’m not so sure about this Jesus stuff. Especially in our pluralistic age, and especially in the more progressive churches, we can reduce Jesus to an inspirational guru. But the risen Christ? One who has power and presence in my life? Like many, I have not met the risen Christ in an instantaneous road-to-Damascus experience. My meeting has come over time. In the Christian Education director who made sure that the youth had mission experience in summer work camps. In the young minister who began to open the Bible for us in deeper and deeper ways. In the countless missionaries who committed a significant part of their lives to sharing the gospel in other cultures and tongues. In countless missionaries who committed a significant part of their lives challenging systems of injustice in the Civil Rights movement, the Farmworker’s movement, the Women’s movement. Those meetings of the risen Christ are compelling testimony to me that ours is a God who calls us into life and community, not death and isolation. The question for our own church is this: is this a place where people can meet the risen Christ? Or do people come seeking the risen Christ, and find only unbelief? The good news is that Jesus doesn’t waste time where it’s not productive. He sends out his followers–to canvass the neighboring communities, to attack unclean spirits, and to heal. They are sent out to call for change, to turn away from Roman pagan domination–just as John the Baptizer did, just as Jesus does. Why is this good news now? Because we are called to the same ministry. Toxic spirits of greed and fear and xenophobia, of poverty and despair abound. But this congregation offers multiple opportunities to confront those unclean spirits with a community that promotes charity and hope, and the clear message that this is an open, affirming, welcoming spiritual home. So come, gather at this common table to be fed by the living Christ, that we may share with others a provocative, restless, healing Christ, who challenges us to reconsider what we think we know–even about Jesus. Come and be fed, that we may be prepared to serve others in Jesus’ name. *** [1]http://www.newsmax.com/lowell_ponte/bush_muslim_shoe_iraq/2008/12/16/162337.html |