Pentecost 6, Year C

July 8, 2007

All Saints’ Bentonville

Gospel:

The Second Sending

Luke (10:1-11, 16-20)

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. 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. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 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. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 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, '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.' 
     "Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me."
     The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 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. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.":

Sometimes I have to think and study and pray for a good while before I understand how the gospel reading for the day applies to the life of All Saints’.  But sometimes, on days like today, it seems as if the heavens open up and the voice of God speaks directly to us.   “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”.   It is the story of the second sending.  The commissioning of 70 disciples, a sending that follows on the heels of the story of the sending out of Jesus’ original 12 disciples.  It is our story as well.

Today will, if all goes as planned, be our last Sunday meeting at Washington Junior High.  Next Sunday we will meet for the first time at Christ the King Lutheran Church.  Our journey will only be about a mile and a half up Central Avenue.  And I don’t think that in the midst of the Lutherans, we will feel like lambs in the middle of a pack of wolves.  In fact, I expect our welcome to be warm, gracious, and sincere, but if Garrison Keilor’s frequent characterizations of Lutherans is to be believed, our welcome may be just a little…  subdued.  As in this stanza from a Prairie Home Companion anthem titled:  “I’m a Lutheran”.

Once in awhile we go to shows
But a Lutheran is not a fan.
We don't whistle and we don't laugh
We smile as loud as we can.
If you come to church, don't expect to be hugged,
Don't expect your hand to be shook.
If we need to know who you are,
We can look in the visitors book.

Now I have nothing against Episcopalians
I believe in an open door
I'm sure it's good to get new ideas
But we never did it that way before.

We will have much to learn.  There may be a few fits and starts. But the experience will form us.  We will learn how we worship – how we “are” - in a setting designed for worship.  And we will learn from the Lutherans, perhaps directly from joint education classes and shared liturgies, but perhaps more importantly, we will learn how to share a space and to work together. (Somewhat in the same way that husbands and wives learn to live together - a process I’m learning more about…every day).

As the gospel reading suggest: our provisions will be light.  We will leave behind, the pulpit and lectern and altar and bishop’s chair that we wrestle into place each Sunday morning.  Jesus tells us to eat and drink what is provided for us.  We don’t know what form of sustenance we are to receive – but it will be provided and it will nourish us.

In this passage Jesus has “constructed a second sending, not just of the original twelve, but this time of about seventy disciples, going ahead to prepare the way for Jesus.  I think this move to Christ the King is our second sending.  We already count more than seventy among our band of believers, but that’s not far from the usual number of us that show up on a given Sunday.  It fills me with wonder about what our second sending will be like.

We are a people being prepared, a people in formation, a people being transformed for the work of the Kingdom.  And we are being sent forth to continue the process of change - to become God’s people.

Jesus said to the seventy as he sent them forth, “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals…”  He instructed them to travel light.  Last week I asked Bishop Benfield what we should do with our altar furniture.  He said, “Return it to the diocese so that we can use it for the next church plant.” I like that idea.  I like the idea of ouor using the furniture for awhile and passing it on to a new mission.  I like the idea of All Saints’ learning to stand on its own two feet sooner than expected, and playing a role in planting other mission churches.

I had intended to rent a small storage space here in Bentonville and move our altar furniture there, hedging our bets, in case our “sending forth” to the land of the Lutherans didn’t work out as planned.  But Jesus admonition – to travel light, not to mention the Bishop’s instructions, have persuaded me that when a people receive a commission to go forth, a back up plan isn’t required.  

Bishop Benfield was thrilled with the energy and vitality that he sensed among us last Sunday.  In conversation with those being received and confirmed into the church, it was evident to him that something exciting was happening here, but he offered me a caveat.  He recalled how another new Episcopal church, having met in a movie theater for some time, finally moved into their own worship space.  It was a time of great rejoicing and of no small amount of relief, but a funny thing happened – the energy went out of the congregation.  While they met in the theatre the energy of the people had been directed at setting up the worship space, having church in a temporary setting, and then dismantling - Sunday after Sunday.  The move to a more stable location left the congregants with no place to channel their energy, no focus for their attention.  I don’t really fear that for All Saints’.  Especially if we take seriously the observation that Jesus gave the seventy disciples in their second sending.  Just like the seventy, we are being sent on our way and we have plenty to keep us busy.  “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”  (Reminds me a little of the email I received last week from our dedicated coffee hour leaders, Carolyn and Debbie).  There is much work left to be done.  We may stop moving furniture around so much, but there remains important work to be done.

Almost everyone here has a job in the church.  Everyone is involved in some aspect of creating worship on Sunday mornings.  If not moving furniture then putting up signs, preparing food, reading the lessons, putting together the bulletin, leading Godly Play, creating our music, greeting guests, serving as acolytes, chalice bearers…the list goes on.  Sometimes I wonder how we find renewal in worship with so much work going on. 

As most of you know, I spent 12 days last month training with the Congregational Development Institute in Seattle.  One of the things we talked a great deal about was the Apostolate-Renewal cycle.  The model envisions a congregational life in which parishioners are renewed by the experience of church.  The liturgy, the music, the prayers, the fellowship that takes place on Sunday morning are intended to renew, to invigorate, and bring freshness into the lives of those who attend.  But this renewal has a purpose – to form us, to equip us for the ministry that takes place beyond the walls of the sanctuary.  The apostolate side of the model recognizes that we are called to the work of the Kingdom – to heal the sick, to feed the poor, to bring the peace of Christ into every home and business we walk enter. 

The Apostolate/Renewal cycle envisions church as the place where we find renewal in our baptismal identity and purpose in worship, study, and being equipped for Christian action.  In the Apostolate end of the cycle we participate in the work of Christ in service, evangelism, and stewardship – all in the context of workplace, among family and friends, in our civic life, and in the church. 

As a church plant, as a developing congregation, the cycle is a little confused.  The work we do is primarily centered on the creation of a worship service.  Moving into the Lutheran church, means that some of that workload will lighten.  And as we grow, the burden of all the kinds of work that are involved in creating worship can be spread among a larger group of parishioners. The process of creating a Sunday morning worship service will get a little easier.  And as that happens, I expect that church will become a place where we can more readily find renewal. 

I anticipate that with our move into a consecrated,  holy space, a setting that has been prayed in and around and through for decades, that the renewal of spirit we all seek on a Sunday morning, will happen with a little less labor, a little more naturally. 

If you arrive early enough on Sunday mornings, here at Washington Junior High, you have seen the miraculous process through which, by the shifting around of a few pieces of furniture and the laying out of a few altar hangings, a Junior High auditorium is transformed into a sacred place.   My hope is that as we move from this space where the echoes of school children’s voices still linger in the air and travel to a place where fifty years of prayers have hallowed the walls, that the transformation that takes place on Sunday morning becomes less about moving the furniture around, and more about the transformation of our selves, the rearranging of our hearts, the shifting of our souls, changing our minds, and the equipping of the people of All Saints’ for the work of Christ in the world.