Foothill Congregational Church The Rev. W. Matthew Broadbent

United Church of Christ Summer Services

461 Orange Ave., Los Altos, CA 94022 July 8, 2007

UNEXPECTED PROPHETS

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

I need a group of volunteers to take on an important task for the church. I would like seventy of you to go out in teams of two to get the word out that “God is Still Speaking.” I am not looking for any particular skill set. You are all welcome to participate. The only requirement is that you are willing to go out and be a witness.

You know what makes a good witness? It is someone who observes an event, or lives through an experience, and then reports back what they have seen, or understood, as faithfully as they are able. Personal interpretations are allowed. Do I have any volunteers?

I know we have enough people to do the job. I asked the deacons to count those attending this morning. We have people worshipping today, more than enough. Who will do it?

There is minimal training needed, though most of you have spent your life listening to scripture, praying, and contributing to the work of the wider church so you should have some idea of what to do. You don’t have to bring religious tracts with you, you don’t have to sign people up to join the church, this is not a membership drive (though you might let them know that where and what time we worship). The task is really easy and the burdens are light. You are being sent out to witness to the Word of God – spoken and unspoken. You are called to announce – in whatever you voice you can find – that the doors to the kin-dom of God are open, and everyone is welcome, and every person is affirmed as a beloved child of God.

You don’t even have to speak if you don’t want to, you can just witness with your feet by showing up at the hospital, or school, or the Day-workers center, or the County Jail, or child-advocates, or hospice, or Habitat for Humanity, or Heifer Project – wherever there is a need for a prayerful presence, a healing touch, and willing, working hands. This is what we are called to do.

Why 70, you ask. Well, because it is Biblical. This is what Jesus did. According to Luke 10 Jesus gets his ministry rolling by calling 70 people and empowering them to be his disciples. Didn’t he have 12 disciples? He did and in chapter 9 he sent them out and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases… he sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal (9:1-2). Apparently that was not enough to do the job so he sends out the 70.

Why did Jesus choose the number 70? Because, it was a Biblical number. In Numbers 11:16 and 25, the great Moses appoints 70 elders of Israel, who are given a portion of God’s spirit and who, with this spirit, help Moses lead Israel. Some ancient texts refer to the 72 because, though Moses authorized the 70 in a special ceremony there were two more, Eldad and Medad, who stayed behind in the camp and yet they, too, felt the spirit move within them and started to prophesy. This made 72.

For those of you who like numerology these numbers have a special meaning. The number 12 represents the 12 tribes of Israel, thus the need to have 12 disciples for this Jewish prophet. Six days are the working days of creation, and 6 times 12 is 72. If you add to this the 12 original disciples we have 7 times 12, 7 being the number of creation. Therefore 7 times twelve is the fulfillment of Israel’s purpose in creation. For our purposes the point is that Jesus graciously empowers a body of workers to work with him in his ministry.

And what were they to do? 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.’ Do you think you could do something like that? Many of you already do this kind of work. We are preconditioned through our faith history and spiritual culture to care for those who are suffering in some way. It is who we are. So, why do you need us to go out, again.

Because, every age, every generation seems to forget the core message that God is with us, we are not alone, and we are only here by the grace of God. Even when Moses set aside 70 elders you may remember that Moses had all sorts of difficulties through that 40 years in the wilderness with those he led. They constantly rebelled, complained, misunderstood (murmured behind his back) and, generally, made a mess of things. Every generation needs to reclaim the mission and the message. This is why I am asking for 70 volunteers.

But, what is the essence of our mission? Can’t we hire someone to do this for us? We are busy people. Isn’t that what you clergy are for? Isn’t that why you were ordained to the ministry?

I am on Committee on Ministry, Section A, which deals with authorization for ministry. When candidates come to our committee we ask this question: “What does ordination mean for you?” There are many who come who are bright, committed and knowledgeable about the faith, but there are a few who cause us to pause. They don’t want to serve a church, they are suspicious of authority, they don’t want to be held accountable to a denominational body, they are not particularly attracted to a ministry of sacrament. The last thing they want to be thought of is (with apologies to Sam Sparck) “a marrying-burying Sam.”

“Why ordination?” we ask. “So, that I can have the credentials to be taken seriously.” Barbara Brown Taylor wrote (The Preaching Life, pp. 25-34):”God help the church if clergy are the only Christians with ‘credentials,’ and God help all those troubled people [ in the world] if they have to wait for an ordained person to come along before anyone speaks to them.”

This is why you are needed, today if possible, to serve in a ministry of hospitality. This is what Jesus is talking about. The terms, under which Jesus sends out the 70, presupposes that the host of Israel (to whom they are sent) will practice the rituals of hospitality. This is important to understand. Israel was a nomadic culture in its ancient past. The rules and commandments of social behavior that governed Jewish life were shaped by acts of hospitality that could make the difference of life or death to a wandering desert people.

Honoring your mother and father is a good idea in any culture, but among nomadic herding peoples such honor and care was essential. When the psalmist speaks of “setting a table before me in the presence of mine enemies,” he is speaking to the sacred rite of hospitality that allows a fugitive to find sanctuary and enough time to negotiate reconciliation. The care of the widow, the orphan, and the alien are social values that choose life over death by starvation, war, or persecution. So sacred were the rituals of hospitality that to break them brought severe judgment, even condemnation upon the perpetrators.

Thus, when Jesus says, “Whatever house you enter, first say, “Shalom – Peace to this house!” he is testing the hospitality of the people. And if anyone is there who shares in your peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not it will return to you(10:5,6). If they do not offer hospitality then leave the town and shake the dust off your shoes (and here is the judgment, left out by the authors of the lectionary) For I tell you on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town (12).

Is he serious? Is Jesus comparing a rude town with the sin of Sodom? What is the sin of Sodom? Maybe it is not what we think it is. Remember hospitality is at stake here, and hospitality is an obligation beyond all others in the ancient world. Let’s listen to the witness of the ancient world.

The Sodomites, overweeningly proud of their numbers and the extent of their wealth, showed themselves insolent to men and impious to the Divinity, insomuch that they no more remembered the benefits that they had received from him, hated foreigners and declined all intercourse with others. Indignant at this conduct, God accordingly resolved to chastise them for their arrogance. (Josephus, Antiquities 1:194-95)

The men of Sodom waxed haughty only on account of the good which the Holy One, blessed be he, had lavished upon them… They said: Since there cometh forth bread out of (our) earth, and it hath the dust of gold, why should we suffer wayfarers, who come to us only to deplete our wealth. Come, let us abolish the practice of traveling in our land. (Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin 109a)

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and the needy. (Ezekiel 16:49)

This is what Jesus is talking about, and this is why he calls the 70. He is asking them to do the work of radical hospitality especially with the poor and needy. The 70 are sent out to let people know the kin-dom of God is near, right in our midst, and ready to be open to us. And this is why I need, at least, 70 volunteers – to tell people about the extravagant welcome God offers to all people, regardless of their physical condition, emotional ability, intelligence, sexual orientation, race, gender, or anything else we can think up to divide and exclude. Will you be part of the team?

“What do I get out of it,” you might ask? “Sounds like I run the risk of being rejected, laughed at, humiliated, and at worst, persecuted.” There are risks, to be sure, but there are great rewards as well. Just read the story.

The seventy returned with joy. They were witnesses of the miraculous – which is everything we don’t understand – and it filled them with great and joyful power. You want to a taste of this joy, then just go and talk with K.C. McCoy, or the youth that spent a week at the Heifer Project work camp in Ceres, CA. They have a story to tell, and I hope they are going to find a way to share it. They are witnesses to the amazing grace of God through simple acts of kindness.

So do I have any volunteers? Will you take the risk, step out, move out with the 70 and go where Jesus is about to go? There’s a risk, yes, but also joy, the joy of doing what God means for you to do. Jesus is looking for about 70 good women and men to offer God’s extravagant hospitality to a world of need. Do we have any volunteers? Can I have a witness?

*The Sodom quotes were taken from Richard Swanson’s, Provoking the Gospel of Luke: A Storyteller’s Commentary, Year C, p. 160.