Lectionary 14 B – July 5, 2015

Lectionary 14 B – July 5, 2015

July 5, 2015 Sermon     Ordinary Time
Luther Memorial Church    Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Ezekiel 2: 1-5  +  Psalm 123  +  2 Cor. 12: 2-10  +  Mark 6: 1-13 

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.

          Jesus ordered the disciples to take nothing for their journey except a staff: no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.              

I suppose there is some irony that I read this Scripture text this week even as Bruce and I began to pack for vacation.  This may come as no surprise to any of you who know me, but I pack for trips with great intention.  Some might even say that I pack defensively, you know, in an ‘always prepared’ kind of way.  I make a list well before we leave, carefully considering what I will need for where we are going.  I then make sure everything I intend to take is clean and ready to go.  A few days before we leave I begin to pack, careful to put the items I will need first on top.

If Jesus were to tell me to take nothing for my journey except a staff, well, I would have a problem with that.  No bread?  Yeah, right.  What am I supposed to eat on the plane besides those teeny tiny bags of peanuts?  No money in my belt for souveniers or sweet tea?  Only one pair of sandals and just the garment I have on?   And I guess I wouldn’t need a bag if I wasn’t to take anything along with me.

However,in this Gospel reading, Jesus isn’t preparing the twelve for vacation, he is sending them out for the work of ministry.  They are to do what Jesus has done.  And in this, he tells them, they will need to rely on the hospitality of those they meet along the way.  Having no bread or bag and only one set of clothes, they will need to become vulnerable enough to receive from strangers what they need.

This Gospel story, though, gives us two different views of hospitality:  Being a stranger at home and being home among strangers.

As the reading begins, Jesus  and his disciples go to his hometown.  They went to the synagogue where he did what he had been doing elsewhere, he began to teach.

It would seem that if Jesus was to be received well anywhere it would be in his hometown, among his family and friends…the people he’d grown up with.  But they rejected all that he had to say.  They could only remember him as a carpenter’s son, Mary’s boy – born out of wedlock.

Jesus understood what was happening; he observed that prophets weren’t honored in their hometown or among their own family.  And he was amazed at their unbelief.

This is a hard story for me to read and consider.  If messengers of the Gospel, teachers of the Word, are to be received well anywhere, we would imagine that it would be in the hometowns.  How heart wrenching must it have been for Jesus to be a stranger at home, to be rejected by the very people who had loved and raised him since he was a child?   The ache of being rejected makes being a stranger at home a heavy burden to bear.

Perhaps, though, it was that burden that propelled Jesus and the disciples out to other towns.   That is what they do after leaving Jesus’ hometown.   And Jesus sends the disciples out to do the very work that Jesus himself does.  But to equip them for this work of ministry, he prepares them, not to be a stranger at home, but to be at home with strangers.  To do this will be a challenge that is different than the one they faced in his home town.   To be at home with strangers will require that they become recipients of hospitality.

Receiving hospitality is very different than giving it.  Receiving hospitality requires vulnerability and risk.   To receive hospitality requires that we give up control and depend on others.  If we have no means by which we can support ourselves, we will necessarily need to depend on others.

The gift of hospitality is a reflection of the Kingdom.  In wide welcome, all are encouraged and included.

This week, hospitality was shining in this place as we welcomed twenty plus children here for Day Camp.  I was reminded that just seven years ago there were 4 children here for our Day of VBS.  But Donna and the Spiritual Growth Committee decided 3 years ago that radical hospitality was going to become a priority as we planned for our children’s ministry.  So we began to invite our neighbors, seen and unseen, known and unknown.  Last year we welcomed 12 or 13 kids and this year we had over twenty sign up.  It doesn’t just take hospitality for that….it takes courage!  Yet every day, there it was….radical welcome for children who started out as strangers but became friends.  Two differently-abled girls were swept into the circle.  Singing and crafts and snacks and stories welcomed everyone.  So did our amazing volunteers.  This was Gospel hospitality.  The parents of those kids sent them to us with little more than a name tag and a permission slip and they were welcomed widely.   There is a photo display in the narthex and I encourage you to check it out.

As I think about the week of Day Camp and all of those children I’m reminded that for those who were new friends to us, those who signed up through the web site or just walked in on the first day – those children and their parents were willing to walk in vulnerability and take the risk of bringing their children to a new place.  They were willing to be at home with strangers and accept what we had to offer them.  We want to celebrate that!  We have said that it is a priority for us that we are a place where the love of Christ is actively shared.

But what happens when we are the stranger?  When I am traveling to a strange place or preparing for an unfamiliar journey, that’s when I want to pack defensively – to be prepared for every possibility.  And Jesus tells us to take only a staff.

Traveling lightly means that it is easy to come and go.  In the event that the message we have to share is not received well, we won’t have to go gathering up all of our stuff and packing it into our bags and double checking that we’ve not left anything behind.  Jesus tells us that when the message is rejected to shake the dust off of our feet and move on.

But when we think that the message we have to share is the only right one – this can be hard to do.  And in case you haven’t noticed there are a lot of folks around these days who claim to speak the truth.  There are even a lot of different folks claiming to speak on behalf of Christians.  I’ve read that Christians are being persecuted by those who believe in marriage equality for our LGTBQ sisters and brothers, but what about the 200 Lutherans who marched in the PRIDE parade last Sunday in support and solidarity?  I’ve read that Christian pastors are going to be persecuted by being forced to perform marriages between same sex couples but the truth of the matter is we’ve ALWAYS had the option to refuse to marry anyone.

What if, when the message we are carrying is rejected, instead of needing to be right, we were able to do what Jesus advised the disciples and pick up our staff, shake the dust off of our one pair of sandals and move on?  History would look much different, don’t you think?

In spite of this lesson, I will probably still continue to over pack when we travel.  But Jesus offers us a new model, a better model, for the work he sends us out to do.  Pack lightly.  Speak truth.  Be vulnerable enough to risk new relationships with strangers….for in so doing, some have entertained angels without knowing it.  And trust that the One who was a stranger in his hometown is not a stranger to us.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.