Sixth Sunday after
Pentecost
July 4, 2010
Sermon by Rev. Dr. Marcus Pera
The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (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
“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 lightening. 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.”
The Gospel of our Lord.
In the name of Jesus, sisters and brothers, grace,
mercy, and peace be unto you. Amen.
It was a gift from France to the United States, a gift
to celebrate the Centennial, the hundred‑year birth of this nation. It was a gift that was a gift of freedom, and
that gift was the Statue of Liberty. The
Statue of Liberty was the first symbol that many immigrants saw when they came
to this country, as they moved by boat toward New York. Unless you take the ferry and go out to
Liberty Island, it doesn’t look all that huge, but it is a pretty impressive
scene. First of all, it is about 151
feet itself, but then the base of the Statue of Liberty also adds another dimension,
so that its total is about 305 feet.
That means a football-field high.
Or, to put it in another comparative thing, that means about as high as
halfway up the St. Louis arch. That was
a gift and a symbol, and it clearly is a symbol of liberty and freedom, a
symbol of hospitality.
There is a poem that’s on the plaque on the Statue of
Liberty. And among the words that are in
that poem are the words that are rather well-known, and that is, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddle
masses yearning to breathe free.” “Yearning to breathe free.” What a statement of hospitality. I say that this morning not simply because it
is July 4th. I say it this morning
because that is an introduction to the Gospel Lesson for this day, because I
think the Gospel Lesson is talking about hospitality. There is hospitality that is that which is
part of a nation and that is a human kind of hospitality. But there is a whole other dimension of
hospitality when we talk about Christian hospitality. And it’s the Christian
hospitality that is the core of our outreach and welcome to other people. When we simply define “hospitality,” we can
look at the dictionary and we see that it is a generous invitation to people, a
generous invitation of receptivity and entertainment to the stranger.
Henri Nouwen has a book, “Reaching Out,” and in
the middle third of that book he talks about hospitality; and he titles it in
an interesting way. He uses two Latin
words, and he says, from hostis to hospes, meaning from enemy to friend, to
hospitality. And then in that section,
he also points out that, for example, in German the word for “hospitality” is “freundschaft,”
friendship. And the word in Danish is “frihed,”
freedom to the stranger. And friendship
or freedom to the stranger is there in order that that person might feel the
freedom and the space to be able in turn to offer their gifts and themselves to
the other person.
There is that definition of friendship or hospitality
that is in Mideast culture. And in the
Mideast culture of that time, we, of course, remember Abraham and the three
strangers that came by, and he was hospitable to them. But if we take generally the generic profile
of hospitality, it involves, first of all, placing water before people in order
that they might wash their feet, maybe even if clothes were needed. It involved provisions, and that was mainly a
meal, or food, that was offered.
The second thing, it was interesting that no questioning
of the person, the stranger’s identity or their purpose there, was asked until
they had received both water and meal.
What that did was to assure them that they were in a safe space, if you
will, and then they were able to offer themselves in return as well.
And then the third part of that—and it is still
true in European countries today—often there is a gift that is given. It’s a mutual gift, and it’s one that kind of
symbolizes a covenant between the two, so that host and guest have that
relationship then in the future, wherever they might be and wherever they might
go.
And the last component of the profile of the one who was
given hospitality is that the host would give them a provision for one day,
and, if need be, also escorts them out of that territory to the borders of
another one.
Well, when we look at all of that, we say, in Luke 10,
there are signs of that same profile of hospitality to others. It is interesting that it is so difficult, I
think, in our culture to extend welcome to the stranger. And part of the reason that is the case is that
we are a company of strangers, and not only that, we are a culture of fear.
Not long ago there was a book that was titled, “The
Culture of Fear,” and it went down the list and line of all of these things
that happened in the land, stuff like abductions, and stuff like homicides, and
stuff like kidnappings, and stuff like domestic abuse. And what it documented is that in the last
ten years these things have all reduced numerically, in numbers of occurrence. And yet we have the impression that all of
them have gone up. It’s the media that
gives high visibility to this, but what this instills is a culture of
fear. And so young parents are in the
supermarket and a child, a toddler, gets away and gets down one other aisle,
and then there is this fright of, “Oh, my goodness, they could be abducted.” Or we’re walking along, and we teach people
that you don’t look them in the eye, or you look down, you don’t talk to a
stranger. It’s the fear of that person
as a stranger or an enemy.
When I was traveling, for 20 some years I ate in
restaurants a whole lot, and a lot of times I ate in a restaurant by
myself. It was always interesting to me
that you would go up to the maitre d and you wait, and they say, “How many?” And you say, “One.” And then they kind of look down at that
chart, and they may only have five tables in this whole place that are occupied
with people at that point in time, but it’s almost like they have to pause a
little bit as to where they are going to put you. And I was surprised how often they would walk
you to a table where it was right next to the kitchen, or they set the menu
down in a way that you were staring into a wall. But it’s the kind of thing where the other is
feared, the other is a stranger, and we don’t set a context or the atmosphere
in which to befriend and be hospitable to one another.
Well, the Gospel Lesson for today in Luke 10, I think,
talks about the core of the outreach of the Gospel, and its core is in a notion
of hospitality. It’s in an odd notion of
hospitality. First, there were the
twelve, the apostles that were sent, “apostolus” sent. And then there are the seventy that are
mentioned in this text, or the seventy-two.
And the seventy-two, this completeness, one way to look at it is to say
that everyone now is a person who is an ambassador for Christ and is one who
shares the good news. Or another way to
look at it is the seventy-two. In the
translation of the Septuagint, which is the Old Testament in Greek, has
seventy-two, and traces the nations of the earth at that point in time to be
seventy-two. And it would be another way
of understanding that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is intended for all the
world. The seventy or the seventy-two,
whatever, it is part of the mission of Jesus Christ that is given to Christ’s
disciples; it’s given to you and to me.
And the characteristics of that hospitality, it seems to
me, are present there as well. In that midsection of the Gospel Lesson, “Go to
that village, and be open to the receptivity of people at their door, their
hospitality. Don’t take things with
you. Be dependent upon them. Give no indication that this is any reason
that it has a personal advantage to you or for you. And then especially don’t go around and look
elsewhere and move from one to another.
Don’t think that there was a better smell of lamb down the street and I
will move over to that house the next night.”
No, be content with what they place before you. And then, interestingly enough, if that
rubric is followed, that after they have meal and they have washed their feet,
then they are able to share their identity and their witness and
conversation. Remember that it is not
about you, but it is the Lord and what you have experienced in the Lord. And then there is a safety and openness to
experiencing that word in that particular way.
These are all aspects of that hospitality, and that hospitality, in turn, that is able
to share.
Now, if we talk about that as the notion of hospitality,
it is the embodiment of the mission of Jesus Christ and Christ’s kingdom that
is involved. First of all, the
embodiment of that kingdom says, first of all, that the mission is the Lord’s;
it’s not ours. It is Jesus’ mission that
he has sent them on. How important it is
for us to realize that. How often it
seems to be either our mission or, as a congregation, Immanuel’s mission. And when we start from that perspective, so
often we look at it as a way of defining it ourselves or for our purposes. No, it is the Christ’s mission; it is the
Lord’s mission. And that is what we join
and are a part of that, and that’s our starting point.
It seems to me the second part of doing that, in
carrying out that mission, is then to be that kind of gracious host that
extends that mission. It is also there
in order that we might share it with others in a kind of way that they might
hear, remembering that it isn’t about us, but it is about the Lord. And when it is about the Lord, we don’t worry
about statistical success. We only worry
about faithfulness. And we also know
that comforting word that if there is not a reception but there is rejection,
yes, it’s not about us, but it is about the Lord. If the urgency of the kingdom says move on to
others, and if there is an acceptance of it, it is the Lord’s mission that is
accepted, and we rejoice in that as well.
And then I think all of this gets kind of embodied in
this thing we call the Holy Eucharist.
Here we talk about both guest and host.
And here both of us are involved in being both guest and host. It is interesting that the wafer that is held
up at the point during the Eucharistic Prayer, what do we call the larger
wafer? We call it “the host.” Jesus is the host here; he is inviting us to
this table. He is preparing it before
us. We come and, after having received,
we feel the safety of our relationship and our identity, to be able to share
back and in return.
Jesus is also the guest.
When we, as a community of faith, prepare this table for others, and we
say, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest,” he is the guest that is here with his
presence, sharing once again the abundance of his blessings. And so, here we are, guest and host. Guest and host, intertwined and embodying the
mission of Jesus Christ, given to us to share with God’s world.
Two quick
illustrations of how that might get flesh and blood in this community. Remember a couple of weeks ago and it was
Grand Days, and we had an e-mail go around for a little while that talked about
how we could answer the question of whether we could sell any parking places
for people during that time. And it was
an important business item to transact.
However, what dawned on me after that is, here we are, just a short
distance off Grand, and how we could have been hospitable to people in that
particular context, all those people running, all those people walking, all
those people going by within a block of this church. Could we have handed out just a little bottle
of water that said, “Have a drink of water.
Immanuel Lutheran Church.” It
would have been a hospitality to people in that situation and the enjoyment of
that time down that street. It would
have embodied a little glimpse of the mission of Jesus Christ.
Or let’s take one other one that can be in the
future. Students come back to school. We take this gathering space; we offer some
space that’s connected with wi-fi. They
can come in. What if we put snacks there
on an ongoing basis? And what if we had
the door open? And what if we were
hospitable to them in terms of they coming, being able to study, being able to
be given some provision, and then leaving on their journey again the next hour? And given the freedom of space, to be able
then to feel the freedom to respond with their gifts and with their sharing,
and thus see what else as a part of this community they might want to be a part
of.
The hospitality of the Christian community, it’s the
core of who we are in our outreach to one another. Come to this table this day. Experience Christ as both host and as guest,
and go from here. Be sent again as both
host and as guest.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
(This is an unedited transcription from a
tape recording of a sermon given by Pastor Pera.)