Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Presented July 8th, 2007, by J.D. Kline
The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
One of the things that keeps me most rooted in the Church of the Brethren is our long-held focus upon life service rather than mere lip service—this affirmation that the journey of faith speaks to all of our living, rather than being compartmentalized and pushed into one corner of life. Reacting against a climate in 18th century Europe in which the religious hierarchy placed primary stress upon right doctrine while overlooking—and sometimes even encouraging—moral decadence and self-centered living, the Brethren moved in a very different direction. Faith, taught those early Brethren, was not simply a matter of knowing about the Christian life; it was a matter of living it. The Brethren were formed among those who had had a bitter experience of warfare, violence, and destruction, with vast parts of Europe devastated by the Thirty Years War, a war of religious infighting. And following the Thirty Years War, repeated invasions into the German Palatinate, the area from which the Brethren arrived, by neighboring armies kept fresh the horrors of armed conflict. Is it any wonder that the first Brethren were so drawn to the peaceful teachings of Jesus, as found in the Sermon on the Mount?
You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also….
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your [Creator] in heaven (Matthew 5:38-39, 43-45).
Gospel teachings about peace and nonviolence, compassion and self-giving love, forgiveness and going the extra mile in relationships—these were teachings to be taken with utmost seriousness. Indeed, those first Brethren were convinced that these teachings moved to the very heart of what it means to follow Jesus. All who would live faithfully are called to embrace this “upside down way of Jesus,” even when faced with resistance, ridicule, opposition, or persecution.
Back in the mid 1800s, during the days of the rising conflict between the North and the South in this country, Brethren remained convinced of the call to root their lives in the nonviolent teachings of Jesus. Elder John Kline, moderator of the Brethren during Civil War years, was a frequent traveler across the Mason-Dixon Line, keeping lines of communication open between northern and southern Brethren. As a result, John Kline was viewed with suspicion, both by many Northerners who feared he was a spy, and by Southerners, many of whom considered him a traitor. Perhaps not surprisingly, he was martyred in 1864. Some years earlier, as the sabers of war were beginning to be rattled, Elder Kline wrote these words in his diary, upon hearing the distant thunder of cannons on an 1849 celebration of George Washington’s birthday:
I have a somewhat higher conception of true patriotism than can be represented by the firing of guns which give forth nothing but meaningless sound. I am glad, however, that these guns report harmless sound, and nothing more. If some public speakers would do the same, it might be better both for them and their hearers. My highest conception is found in the [one] who loves the Lord his God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself. Out of these affections spring the subordinate love for one’s country; love truly virtuous for one’s companion and children, relatives and friends; and in its most comprehensive sense [it] takes in the whole human family. Were this love universal, the word patriotism, in its specific sense, meaning such a love for one’s country as makes its possessors ready and willing to take up arms in its defense, might be appropriately expunged from every national vocabulary.
A few years back Brethren Press published a book by George Dolnikowski entitled This I Remember: From War to Peace. The Russian-born Dolnikowski, after having spent years as a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany, was resettled by the Brethren Service Commission at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. A member of the Russian Orthodox Church who knew nothing of the Church of the Brethren prior to his being placed at Juniata, Dolnikowski began as a janitor at the college, but eventually became a professor. He writes in his book,
I remember beginning to visit the Stone Church of the Brethren soon after I arrived in Huntingdon. I was very much impressed by the friendliness of the people, with their warmth—and especially with the sermons by [the pastor], whose main messages were pacifism, service, and reconciliation. After spending so many years in the army and in prison, it was a joy to find people in America who said openly that they would not fight and that it is better to live in peace and follow the commandments of Christ. This appealed to me more than any other new idea I discovered in this country. I decided to continue visiting the Stone Church until it became quite natural for me to worship there.
I remember my first feetwashing service at the Stone Church…. When the service was over, I realized how meaningful the experience had been for me. At that time I was a janitor, and a professor had washed my feet. Suddenly I felt that there was no distinction. We were all human, with all the qualities that come with being human. This ceremony remains one of the most meaningful for me in the Church of the Brethren. I recall reading that the Russian Orthodox Church has feetwashing, but it is only for the bishops, not for the ordinary people.
This morning’s Gospel lesson from Luke, chapter ten, tells the story of Jesus selecting 70 followers—ordinary, even unpolished, people—to do the very things Jesus himself had been doing: preaching, teaching, healing, proclaiming peace, touching human lives with a message of hope. It’s an intriguing story Luke tells, for the Gospel writer frequently makes it clear that the smaller band of 12 disciples seldom grasps what Jesus is all about. In spite of that, Jesus now chooses 70 more ordinary, fallible people like you and like me, and commissions them to be in the business of announcing something radically new unfolding within and around them. William Willimon suggests that when Jesus sends out the 70 with the message, “The kingdom of God has come near to you,” when Jesus urges the 70 to heal the sick and preach good news to the poor, he is in fact challenging those 70 to be “a visible demonstration that, as far as the world is concerned, the world is under new management.” It is a call to live in the light of what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer—a call to live here and now as if the realm of God were fully emerging among us on earth, even as it is in heaven.
Moses, confronter of the Egyptian Pharaoh with the challenge, “Let my people go,” also appointed 70 to help him lead the wandering Israelites in the desert. In truth, Moses invited those seventy to join with him in his ministry. But if you read the book of Exodus, you will soon discover that Moses had all kinds of difficulties and struggles with his helpers. The 70 continually complained, resisted, misunderstood, rebelled, and generally made a mess of things.
In contrast, when Jesus sends out the 70, we are told that they return with joy, celebrating that they had been counted worthy to participate in the ministry of Jesus. Jesus takes the risk of inviting an ordinary group of disciples to do the very work he has been doing—proclaiming release to the captives, bringing good news to the poor, announcing a new way of living together, proclaiming the promise of God ‘s peace. Jesus invites the 70 to join in this work, and they return exhilarated!
Amazingly, Jesus tells them to take nothing with them on this mission—“no purse, no bag, no sandals” (10:4). It is a call to radical trust, and trust, as Brennan Manning reminds us in his book Ruthless Trust, “is our gift back to God.” Trust, asserts Manning, “was not some feature out at the edges of Jesus’ teaching; it was its heart and center. This and only this would bring on speedily the reign of God.”
Indeed, this experience of trust stands at the core of faithful living; it stands at the center of the new life Jesus invites us to embrace. Trust is a vital part of the way Jesus defines holy living—trusting that God is with us, even in the midst of life’s pains and grief, life’s struggles and hurts, life’s confusion and uncertainties; trusting that God holds us in arms of love that will not let us go; trusting that the God who calls us to be peacemakers and reconcilers upholds us with God’s own reconciling spirit of grace and peace.
Last week I referred to William Sloane Coffin’s book, Letters to a Young Doubter, which includes conversation with an imagined young friend yearning for an authentic faith that does not deny the reality of struggle, doubt, uncertainty, and times of questioning. Coffin has a section in which he reminds the young doubter that, while many spend their time seeking to “prove” the divinity of Jesus, the far more important issue is recognizing that Jesus ever points us to the gracious and loving character of God. “When we see Jesus scorning the powerful,” writes Coffin, “[when we see Jesus] empowering the weak, healing the hurt, always returning good for evil, we are seeing transparently the power of God at work. So as regards the divinity of Christ, what’s finally important is less that Christ be Godlike but more that God is Christlike.” What Coffin’s words suggest to me is that you and I are invited to trust, not in an angry and violent God of vengeance, but in a God of the extra mile, a God who thirsts for justice to roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream, a hopeful God ever scanning the horizon for the return of wayward children, a compassionate God whose love invites in those who have long been relegated to the fringes of society—a God who is Christlike.
This is the new definition of holiness Jesus offers us—the call to trust in the God whose grace knows no limits; the call to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and self-giving love. Some are inclined to limit Jesus’ call to a new holiness merely to personal piety, setting themselves apart—and often above—others. But Jesus calls us to new levels of trust, new levels of compassion, new levels of service, new levels of peacemaking, new levels of reconciliation, new levels of doing justice, loving tenderly, and walking humble with our God.
Sisters and brothers, now is the time to respond to Christ’s challenge to embrace a new definition of holiness. Now is the time to respond, “Here I am, Lord.”