Stand Up for Jesus

You know what they say about organists and terrorists: you can't negotiate with an organist. Well, our organist might put up a big fight about singing St. Patrick's Breastplate on Trinity Sunday and definitely groans when I insist on singing all 14 stanzas of "For all the saints," but we are partners in our work. A lifelong resident of Decatur and a longtime member of St. John's, he gives me great insights not only into our worship but also into the lives and relationships of the people in the pews. We spend time talking with each other three or four times every week. He is one of my biggest supporters, and I strive to be one of his.

Every month or two, we sit down for an hour or more to select hymns and service music for the coming weeks. We've been doing this together for four and half years, and we've fallen into some predictable patterns. One of those is looking for hymns that will rouse the congregation in the doldrums of summer, especially when our church choir is on break during July. We recognize that some of these hymns will have nothing to do with any of the lessons, but they are fun to sing, and the congregation loves them. One of these is "Stand up, stand up for Jesus," and we've decided to sing it this Sunday as our final hymn.

Yes, I know it has some militaristic imagery that has the potential to distract from our commitment to the peaceable kingdom. Yes, I know that it has some antiquated gender references to "men" serving the Lord. Yes, I know it emphasizes the separation of the faithful from the rest of the world in conquering, battlefield language. But it's a hymn about being faithful to Jesus, and our congregation loves it.

More importantly, this Sunday's gospel lesson (Luke 10:38-42) provides the perfect foil for the hymn. This gospel reading is the story of Jesus' visit to the house of Mary and Martha. The latter busies herself with the duties of hosting an honored guest, while the former sits and Jesus' feet, listening to whatever he says. Martha, upset that she has been left alone to do all the work, begs Jesus to tell her sister to help out, and Jesus replies with those famous, cutting words: "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

When we picked this hymn for this Sunday, I said to our organist, "Are you sure? The gospel lesson is about sitting at Jesus' feet. Do we really want to 'Stand up, stand up for Jesus?'" And he looked at me with a long, silent smile, and I realized, "Yes, of course we do." This is the perfect week to hold those things in tension because discipleship isn't just about sitting at the master's feet, nor is it exclusively about getting up and doing something in Jesus' name. Contemplative and evangelical are always in balance.

I'm not preaching this week, and I'm looking forward to hearing how my more contemplative colleague tackles this Sunday's gospel lesson. Maybe he'll ask us to sit in silence for 10 minutes. Regardless, by the end of worship, it will be time to stand up and move out into the world, but we will do so remembering that we must always return to Jesus' feet.

Loving Indisciriminately

July 10, 2016 – The 8^th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 10C

Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37

© 2016 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here.

 

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” I’m always relieved when someone in the bible asks the same question I ask. It’s the question. It’s our question. It’s the deepest longing of our souls and the persistent nagging of our lives expressed in eightsimple words: what must I do to inherit eternal life? It means we want to know that ultimately everything will be ok. That’s why we’re here, right? Because we want to be right with God in the everlasting sense. And, if this isn’t the place to learn that, know that, and experience that, why would we bother coming here on Sunday morning?

Now, part of me wishes that the lawyer who approached Jesus had asked, “What must I believe to inherit eternal life?” because that sounds a lot safer—like something I can accomplish from the armchair in my den or the cushy pew in my church. But, as we’ve seen over the last few Sundays, Luke isn’t interested in separating belief from action, and, as today’s gospel lesson makes clear, what we believe about God affects what we do in God’s name. A meaningful faith demands that we live the life that God has given us in a particular way. And that means that the answer to the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” isn’t going to be easy. It’s not going to be an exercise in philosophical abstraction. It’s going to be hard work. Are we ready for that?

I think that my favorite part about Luke’s version of this encounter, which also occurs in Matthew and Mark, is that in his version Jesus doesn’t give the answers; he asks more questions. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” the lawyer asks. “What is written in the law?” Jesus asks in reply. And the answer was clear: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” That sounds simple enough. As Moses himself said in Deuteronomy 30, “This word is very near to you.” In other words, it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out. It makes sense: love God and love your neighbor, and you’ll be ok. We usually think of Jesus as the one who came up with this clever distillation of the law, but in Luke it is the lawyer who makes the elegant pronouncement. And, Jesus tips his cap to the lawyer, saying, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But part of me wonders whether Jesus was smiling when he said that. I’d bet that Jesus knew that, even though the answer to that question was simple, getting it done wasn’t nearly that easy. So I wonder whether Jesus winked at his disciples before he said anything to the lawyer because he knew that a follow-up question would come next. “And who is my neighbor?” the lawyer asked, wanting to justify himself. That means he wanted to be sure, wanted to know without a doubt that he had done everything that he was expected to do. If inheriting eternal life really was that simple, wouldn’t you want a crystal clear definition of exactly what was expected of you so that you could be sure? Like us, the lawyer wanted to know that he would go to heaven, and he wanted to be sure, so he asked his clarifying question. But, when he asked it, he exposed the trap that he had already set for himself.

Again, Jesus didn’t want to give the man the answer. He wanted him to figure it out on his own. So he told him a story—a story about a man who was beset by robbers and left for dead. Wounded so badly that he might die at any minute, the man lay forsaken on the side of the road. First, a priest and then a Levite passed him by. Both of them were religious figures, and both of them would have known that to come in contact with a dead body was a violation of the law. But both also would have known that saving a life was the most important duty of all. It trumped even the rules about touching a corpse. The lawyer would have known this as well, so, at this point in the story, he would have seen that Jesus was setting him up. But what he didn’t know—what he couldn’t have known—was how the story would end. A Samaritan—a dirty, ungodly, descendent of traitors, half-breed Samaritan—found the half-dead man, treated his wounds, took him to a nearby inn, spent the night looking out for him, paid the innkeeper enough for two-weeks of additional care, and offered to come back and repay anything more that was spent. “Now which one of these, do you think, was a neighbor to the man?” Jesus asked, smiling. Unable even to say the name of that hated tribe, the lawyer replied, “The one who showed him mercy.”[1] And, then, for the second time, Jesus said, “Then go and do it.”

No one saw it coming, but, by the time Jesus finished his story, no one could deny the answer. It was that clear. It was that simple. Now, if you’re like me, your instinct is to accuse the lawyer of looking for the easy way out. “Just give me the bare minimum I need to do to get to heaven,” we assume he was asking Jesus. And we hear Jesus’ reply as a way of shaming the man into realizing that getting to heaven isn’t about doing what is required. But that misses the whole point of this gospel lesson. In fact, that kind of “you-always-need-to-do-more” reading of this passage is more troubling than the man’s half-hearted approach to the faith would have been in the first place. The real power of this encounter comes when we recognize that the man’s intentions were good—just as good and genuine and earnest as our own. When he asked, “What must I do?” and “Who is my neighbor?” he believed that the path to heaven lay in the answers to those questions. But Jesus’ story shows us that asking the questions as if they can be answered is itself the fatal mistake.

The problem with Jesus’ story is that it sets us on a slippery slope of love that has no end. No one was as hated as the Samaritans. In Hebrew the word for neighbor means fellow, companion, friend, countryman. The last people on earth who would qualify were the Samaritans. If a merciful Samaritan proves to be my neighbor, who isn’t deserving of my love? A thief who steals from me to feed his family? The woman whose unscrupulous heart destroyed my marriage? The man whose addiction-fueled drunk-driving took away the most precious thing I ever had? The one who in a perverted religious quest kills innocent lives? Are they my neighbor? Who isn’t my neighbor? Where will it stop?

It doesn’t stop. And that’s the point of the gospel. If God chooses to love everyone, we don’t get to choose whom we will love. We inherit eternal life because of God’s indiscriminate love. In Jesus Christ, God shows us that he loves all of us—no matter who we are or what we have done or what we believe. God loves us all, and he loves all of us exactly the same—Samaritan or Jew, Christian or Muslim, black or white, male or female, Protestant or Catholic, gay or straight, faithful or atheist, church lady or axe murderer, police officer or sniper. And, if God loves all of us, we must love one another—everyone—because, if we don’t, we deny the power of God’s indiscriminate love for us. If we love less than that—if we decide that there is someone on this planet, even one person, who doesn’t deserve our love—then we have placed limits not only on our love but also on God’s love, and, if God’s love has any limits, we are all damned.

 
Do you want to inherit eternal life? Do you want to spend eternity with God in heaven? The only way that’s going to happen is love—God’s unlimited, unconditional, indiscriminate love. If you want to go to heaven, you must believe in the power of that love, and, if you believe in the power of that love, then there can be no limits on your love either. Jesus teaches us that no one in this world is unlovable. You must love indiscriminately because you are indiscriminately loved.

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[1] Gratitude to Steve Pankey for making this point in his blog post “Do Thou Likewise,” 7 July 2016 at Draughting Theology: https://draughtingtheology.wordpress.com/2016/07/07/do-thou-likewise/.

Who Is Testing Whom?

The Parable of the Good Samaritan only appears in Luke's gospel account, but all three synoptic accounts portray the interaction between Jesus and the lawyer/scribe/Pharisee (depending on your version) that precedes the parable. The funny thing, though, is that they don't quite tell the story the same way.

In Matthew 22 and Mark 12, a religious authority comes up to test Jesus and asks him, "Which commandment is the greatest?" In those two accounts, Jesus replies with some form of "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" and "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." In both cases, the lawyer-figure is the one to ask, and Jesus is the one to answer. Also, in both accounts, the (eventual) result is an impressed audience. Both record that "from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions." In Luke's version, however, Jesus isn't the one who gives the answer. He ends up being the one to ask the questions.

In Luke 10, a lawyer approaches Jesus to test him. He asks, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" But Jesus, playing the role of the experienced rabbi, puts the question back to the man, asking, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" which is a gentle way of saying, "What do you think the right answer is?" Instead of Jesus offering the concise summary of the law that we still quote in the Rite One Eucharistic service, it is the lawyer who gives the insightful response. He's the one who says that one must love the Lord and love one's neighbor." Well done, lawyer! Jesus affirms this, indicating that he accepts the man's summary, saying, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."

We all know what happens next. The lawyer takes it one step further, seeking to justify himself. He asks the rabbi for a definition of neighbor, but, again, Jesus puts the question to the man. After telling the story of the Good Samaritan, he asks the lawyer, "Which one of them was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" And the lawyer gives the only possible answer, "The one who showed him mercy." (I love Steve Pankey's post today about the man's inability to even utter the word "Samaritan," which you can read here.) And Jesus again agrees, saying, "Go and do likewise."

Did you see the pattern? With gratitude to Klyne Snodgrass, who demonstrates this parallel in his marvelous work Stories with Intent, the cycle in this parable looks like this:

Lawyer's Question #1: What must I do?
Jesus' Question #1': What does the law say?
Lawyer's Answer #1': Love the Lord and love my neighbor.
Jesus' Answer #1: Then do it.

Lawyer's Question #2: Who is my neighbor?
Jesus' Question #2': What does the story suggest?
Lawyer's Answer #2': The one who showed mercy.
Jesus' Answer #2: Then do it.

It's a beautifully constructed passage, and the remarkable part about it is that the lawyer doesn't end up testing Jesus; Jesus, in the classical rabbinical fashion, tests the lawyer and, in so doing, tests us as well. As I wrote about on Tuesday, the lawyer's question is universal. We all ask that question: what must I do? Jesus turns it back on him, and I'll suggest that the preacher do the same for her/his congregation. The people in our pews want to know, "What must we do to inherit eternal life?" And, through the preacher, Jesus is saying to us, "What do you think?" The power in this story--at least as Luke tells it--is the moment of realization on the part of the lawyer. What will our moment of realization be this Sunday? Fellow preachers, resist the temptation to give the answer. Let Jesus ask the question, and trust the congregation to be hit smack across the face with the truth.

When and Where is the Kingdom?

With a tip of the cap and a wry smile to the SCLM for acknowledging in a press release yesterday what happened to the lectionary options at the 2015 General Convention, I'm using the daily Eucharistic lectionary from Lesser Feasts and Fasts for the texts in today's midweek healing Eucharist at St. John's. The gospel lesson appointed is Matthew 10:1-7, which recalls the calling and sending of the twelve disciples. The list of the names of the disciples usually gets our attention. Can you name all twelve? But it's the message he gave them that I want to focus on today.

Almost as soon as he called them, Jesus sent the twelve out, saying, "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans,  but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.'" At least that's the way that the NRSV conveys it. The ESV portrays the kingdom with a different linguistic construction: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." But which one is it? Has the kingdom come near, or is the kingdom at hand?

The problem is that Greek has verb tenses that English struggles to convey. In English, we care primarily about when the action happened--past, present, or future. But in Greek the concern for time is only half of the issue (and arguably the less important part). Greek verbs also convey a sense of the kind of action that the verb represents. Is it punctiliar--happening in a confined moment of time? Is it continuous--happening in an ongoing way? Or is it completed yet effective--accomplished but still bearing results? That means that three different tenses of verbs can all reflect action in the past but with different implications for the present (e.g. aorist, imperfect, and perfect). Confused yet? Let's turn to the issue of the kingdom and see if it comes together.

In the case of Matthew 10:7, the Greek word in question is Ἤγγικεν, which is the active indicative third-person singular perfect form of the verb ἐγγίζω, which means "to make near." We get active indicative third-person singular ("He runs" or "She jumps") but the perfect tense throws us for a loop. The perfect tense is a verb with action that happened in the past but an effect or benefit or result that continues into the present. It's hard to convey both of those things at once, and the NRSV vs. ESV portrayals show that beautifully. The NRSV's "has come near" emphasizes more completely that the action occurred in the past (i.e., it's already happened) and the ESV's "is at hand" focuses on the present result (i.e., it's present right now). We really need both. To get the Greek sense of what Jesus is telling the disciples to proclaim about the kingdom, we would need to say, "The kingdom of heaven has come near and is at hand!" But admittedly that's a little cumbersome.

But why does this matter? Why do we care? Other than to indulge his linguistic fetish, why would a preacher subject a congregation to this grammar lesson? Because when and where the kingdom is matters. Notice that Jesus did not tell his disciples to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven would be coming soon. Nor did he tell them to say that it came and went. Nor did he tell them to say that the kingdom had already come and gone. Jesus told the disciples to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near and is at hand. And, as Christians, that means that we aren't living in the past or the future but right here, right now, in the present.

As disciples of Jesus, we often speak of waiting for Jesus and the coming of God's kingdom, and, in a sense, that is correct. We are still looking for the coming of Christ. But I want to suggest to you that we aren't waiting for the kingdom of heaven in the same way that we are waiting for a future event--like the Cubs winning the World Series or Alabama winning its seventeenth national championship. Instead, I believe that we are waiting for the coming of the kingdom in the same way we wait for something that has already happened but is still being experienced today--like waiting for the Constitutionally enshrined truth that "all men are created equal" or the egalitarian proclamation from Galatians that in Christ "there is neither Jew or Greek...slave or free...male and female." Those things have already happened. Even the words themselves portray the fact that, on both fronts, our equality is a given. They are true even if we can't see them as fully as we might. And so we look and wait and watch, but, as we do so, we live more and more as though we know them to have already been accomplished--not as if they are yet to be achieved.

You are a disciple of Jesus. You have been given good news. The kingdom of heaven has drawn near. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Don't undermine the power of the gospel by pretending that it isn't here yet. And don't shatter the good news of Jesus by believing that it has come and gone. It has come, and it is here. That should radically change the way you live. Live each day as if God is in charge. Insist that everything you do--with your time, with your voice, with you money, with your life--portrays that reality. We cannot accept anything that eclipses the fullness of God's kingdom. In imperceptible yet enormous ways, language shapes our identity. We have fallen asleep because our language cannot convey the urgent now of the kingdom. We must awaken and keep watch because the kingdom has come and is now.

Self-Justification

As we make our way through Luke in Year C of the lectionary, we are destined to encounter some of our favorite stories. Luke is the only gospel to include the Parable of the Prodigal Son (back in Lent 4), the raising of the widow's son at Nain (five weeks ago in Proper 5), the miraculous healing of the bent-over woman (coming up in six weeks in Proper 16), the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (on September 25 in Proper 21), and the healing of the ten lepers (on October 9 in Proper 23). This Sunday, we encounter the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).

Unique to Luke and beloved by Sunday school teachers around the world, the Parable of the Good Samaritan is deeply familiar to us. We know it well. Not only do we know what happens--three people come upon a man in distress and only one of them stops to help him--but we also know the implication of this story--that a true neighbor is the one to show mercy despite ethnic differences. Our over-familiarity with the text presents a challenge to the preacher and the congregation. If we all know what this story is supposed to teach us, how will we learn anything from it? Sure, we all need to hear it again, but will we bother to listen?

There is one familiar phrase in this familiar passage that I'd like to tackle. It's the verse upon which our impression of the whole encounter turns: "But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'" Verse 29 changes everything; in our minds, that's where everything goes wrong. Could there be a more basic, instinctive sin than self-justification? That little phrase about the lawyer's intentions completely transforms our reading of the whole story--especially the parable that follows. Once the reader realizes that this man was wanting to justify himself, we discover that the man's initial question about inheriting eternal life was mistaken from the start and that his desire was sinfully misguided all along. The parable, therefore, becomes a technique Jesus uses to humble the man, expose the futility of his self-justifying endeavor, and chastise us to avoid doing the same.

But is that what this story is really about? What does it mean that the man wanted to justify himself? I've read the Greek, and it's right there as plain as day: "ὁ δὲ θέλων δικαιῶσαι ἑαυτὸν." It means literally, "But he, wishing to justify himself." There's really no other way to understand it. But what is justification? If I set aside my Protestant presumptions about justification, I begin to wonder what's so wrong with the lawyer's question? What makes his desires wrongly founded? I can accept that, in light of the gospel, his approach to salvation is misguided without casting this story as a critique on humanity's attempt at self-justification.

Instead of viewing this lawyer as a self-interested, self-justifying egotist, try thinking of him as a man of faith who wants to know what all of us want to know: what does it take to be made right? Isn't that the universal question? In religious terms, justification is merely a being made right in the eyes of one's creator and judge. Don't we all want that identity when we stand before God? How else should the man have worded his question? Yes, Luke tells us that the lawyer "stood up to test Jesus," but don't we do the same every time we visit a church and hear a sermon? In our minds, we ask of the preacher, "Is this something worth believing? Is this really what God is saying to God's people?" Again, that's a man looking for a rabbi worth listening to. And the only real judgment for any disciple is summed up in his two-part question: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?...So who is my neighbor?"

I'm not saying that the man was perfect. I'm not suggesting that there wasn't a critical spirit behind his inquiry. And I'm certainly not implying that the man's question about self-justification is free from any trace of ego or self-accomplishing instinct. Sure it is. What I'm wondering is how we are any different? I'm wondering how this passage might get new life if we stop holding the lawyer in disdain and start accepting that this parable isn't a negative teaching aimed at one man but a positive teaching directed at all of us. Just like the lawyer, we want to inherit eternal life, and we want to be sure that we're on the right track. If we start there, it's a lot harder to brush aside this story as something we already know. Instead, it becomes a teaching we crave. This is the key. You want to inherit eternal life? Want to know what it takes to be faithful? Listen carefully! Jesus has a story to tell us.

Surely Not!

I have long held onto the hermeneutical principle that sarcasm isn't a good lens for understanding the bible. Like an e-mail or a text or a Facebook post, it's too easy to misunderstand. I assume that the biblical authors who shaped a text over centuries molded it until it said what it really said. Sure, there's irony--lots of irony--in the bible, and the authors were well aware of that. But sarcasm? In general, I don't think we're supposed to read a passage in the bible and conclude that it means exactly what it doesn't say.

But this week, as I encounter the RCL Track 2 pairing of Deuteronomy 30 with Luke 10, I begin to wonder whether it's fair to add a shade of a sarcastic tone to the voices of Moses and Jesus as they tell their audiences that keeping the law isn't really that hard.

In his last speech to the people of Israel, Moses exhorts them to enter their new life in the Promised Land as a faithful, obedient people of God: "The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings...when you obey the Lord your God by observing his commandments and decrees...because you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." It's clear. It's uncomplicated. It's simple...right? Moses continues, "Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you!" What could be so difficult about loving God with all your heart and soul? That won't be a problem for God's people, right?

As I mentioned above, the biblical text is heavy with irony. By the time Deuteronomy 30 was written in the form that we have received, the people of Israel had entered Palestine, forgotten how to be faithful, appointed wicked kings, made unholy alliances, perverted their religious practices, followed false gods, and experienced exile. It's written as if it's about to unfold, but the people who shaped this text already knew the answer to Moses' implied question: "Will that be too hard for you?" Yes. Yes it will.

When the lawyer (poor lawyers!) approaches Jesus to ask him what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus and the lawyer and everyone standing around are all familiar with Deuteronomy 30. When the lawyer rehearses for Jesus the well-worn answer of loving God and loving neighbor, everyone knew to ask, "Well, how easy is that?" I'll write more about justification and the man's motives later in the week. For now, though, suffice it to say that the parable of the Good Samaritan wasn't only told to shame this lawyer into confronting his own misplaced self-confidence but also to show all of us that it's never easy to love God and our neighbor as God intends for us to do.

I still don't think that Moses was speaking sarcastically, but I'm willing to let a sarcastic reading of the text inform Jesus' conversation with the lawyer and with us. That isn't to suggest that the New Testament corrects or replaces the Old. But I do think that the editing internal to the Old Testament includes that sense of self-correction. Even without the New Testament, one cannot read Deuteronomy 30 with an awareness of the foibles that the successive centuries brought and not appreciate the dialogical tension between "how hard" and "it's impossible" that is buried in that text. And that's why preaching on this parable is so much fun.

Success is a Gift

July 3, 2016 – The 7th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 9C

Isaiah 66:10-14; Galatians 6:1-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

 

© 2016 Evan D. Garner

 

Audio of this sermon can be heard here.

 

How do you prepare for a journey? For example, let’s say that you are planning a trip to Austin, Texas, for a wedding. Where would you start? Well, first you have to figure out how you’re going to get there. So you spend a few weeks searching the same travel sites to compare roundtrip fares from Huntsville and Birmingham and Nashville and Atlanta, wondering when the price is going to fall. And, during that time, you keep opening up Google Maps to confirm that, yes, it is a twelve and a half hour drive. And you try to convince yourself that, no, that isn’t really as far as it seems. But that doesn’t work. So eventually you buy your ticket, and then it’s confirmed: you really are going to Austin.

So then what? You’ve got to find a place to stay. Will you stay in a hotel? Will you look for a house on Airbnb? You won’t have a car. How far do you want to walk to the wedding…in Austin…in July? So you survey the options and find the best bet and make your reservation. Done! And now that the basics are taken care of—travel and accommodations—you can turn to the fun stuff: food. I was worried that I was the only person who thought like this, but I was relieved and delighted to find that Kristin Blackerby, one of my traveling companions, and I like to plan a trip the exact same way—with our appetites. Where do the locals eat? What are the specialties in Austin that we can’t get anywhere else? Everything else can (and should) revolve around food. What we’ll see and do will depend on which restaurants we want to be near when it’s time to eat. Does that sound familiar to any of you?

That’s how I like to travel. I’m a planner, and I want to return home knowing that I took full advantage of every opportunity that the place I’ve gone has to offer. I want to think through everything ahead of time. My worst nightmare is going to a great city like Austin and then coming home and having someone ask me, “Did you eat at this great restaurant?” or “Did you see that great place?” and realizing that I’d never even heard of it. But that’s not the way Jesus plans a journey. In fact, he hardly plans at all, which I find not only confusing but actually anxiety producing.

Go, he says, and, before you go, you should know that I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves. Don’t bother packing a bag or a change of clothes, and don’t bother taking any money with you. Just go. And don’t worry about where you’re going to stay. Knock on the first door you come to, and, if they will let you stay with them, great. If not, try the next house. Eventually, you’ll figure it out. And don’t worry about food. Eat whatever they give you. If the food is terrible, you’ll get over it. Don’t move from house to house. Just stay put and eat the food they provide. Do your work in that town, and then move on to the next and do it all over again. And, whether they receive you or not, your words to them should be the same: know that the kingdom of God has come near to you.

That sounds terrible. Eat whatever they put in front of you? Don’t take a change of clothes? Don’t even take any money? What kind of nonsense is this, Jesus? What if it doesn’t work? What if we can’t find a place to stay? What if we need money to stay in an inn? What if we need money to buy food? This is, without a doubt, the worst idea you’ve ever had. How will this make us successful missionaries? I’m going to be so worried about the lack of planning that I won’t be able to focus on the healing work that you’ve given us to do.

But you know what? It worked. Despite the lack of planning, the seventy returned to Jesus, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us.” Jesus had given them the power to prevail over evil. Despite their meager travel protocol, they had triumphed in their work. And why did it work? Because Jesus wasn’t sending them out as sheep in the midst of wolves in order to set them up for failure. He was teaching them that what they do isn’t nearly as important as who they are. And that’s a lesson he’s trying to teach us today.

Notice that, when they returned and began to celebrate what they had accomplished, Jesus even took that wind right out of their sails. Yeah, yeah, he said, big deal. “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you [this] authority…Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” In other words, this wasn’t about how many people that they healed or how many demons they cast out. This was a chance for them to discover that they had already been given everything they needed: they were chosen by Jesus; they were chosen by God. And so are we. And it’s a simple as that.

In the twenty-first century, we are crushed under the weight of our need for success. It starts on the ball field, where parents, who want the very best for their children, buy into the illusion that their four-year-old’s performance somehow indicates whether that child will grow up to be something special. It continues in school, where the parents’ obsession with grades and test scores becomes the child’s obsession, too. It spreads into relationships, and we worry whether we have enough friends and whether we have the right friends. Will we get into a good college? Will we get a good job? Will we succeed in our career? Are we successful parents? And by that I mean will we pass along to them all of our anxiety-producing, pharmaceutically-controlled obsession with success?

The same is true for churches. Are we growing? Do we have enough young families? What’s the average Sunday attendance? Are the sermons good enough? Is the children’s program thriving? Do we have an energetic youth minister? Is the organist halfway decent? Are people coming, or are they leaving? I haven’t seen the Johnsons in a while. Did I hear that they are going to the Methodist church? Is stewardship growing? Will the capital campaign be successful? Will we build the biggest, prettiest, most impressive edifice as a great and lasting testament to anyone who drives by that we are a success?

All of that? That’s us saying to Jesus, “Look, Jesus, look what we did! Aren’t we special? Aren’t you proud of us? And Jesus says to us, None of that matters. Do not rejoice in those things. Rejoice, instead, that your names are written in heaven. What you do isn’t as important as who you are. And, until you figure that out, I’m going to keep sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves—unprepared and vulnerable. Sooner or later, you’ll learn that what matters isn’t measured in budgets or attendance or square footage. It isn’t measured in salaries or mortgage payments or grade point averages or scholarship offers or little league batting averages. Success isn’t earned; it’s given. Like all good things, success is a gift that we are given by our heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us and calls us his own. There isn’t a harder or more important lesson for us to learn.

 
You are God’s beloved child. That’s the only thing that matters. You and your name belong with him in heaven. That’s all we’ve got. Other than that, we are emptyhanded. But that doesn’t matter because we already have the most important thing of all—his love. You didn’t do anything to receive it, and you can’t do anything to lose it, so why would you worry about it?