I. Theme – God’s Call and Response to us, being sent out on mission

"Harvesting"- Jorg Breu (1500)
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
First Reading – Isaiah 66:10-14
Psalm – Psalm 66:1-8
Epistle – Galatians 6:(1-6)7-16
Gospel – Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Today’s readings focus on the Christian experience of being sent by Jesus to continue his mission. This Sunday’s lectionary readings reflect on God’s call and our response, and how this affects the shape of grace and healing in our lives.
Isaiah speaks words of peace and hope for God’s people because God’s love never fails. Paul closes his letter to the Galatians with some final counsel on behavior within the Christian community. Luke tells of the mission of the 70 disciples and their success in defeating Satan.
How do we live out God’s faithfulness in our lives? How do we witness to others? When we read of the message to the seventy, Jesus is not calling them out to condemn and cause fear but instead to heal and proclaim Good News. God has brought Good News through Jesus Christ, but it is human beings who have drawn the dividing lines. It is human beings who will not receive the message of peace, who turn away from God’s love, who restrict and condemn others. God desires restoration, healing, and forgiveness, and offers us new life, if we choose to accept
Transformation emerges through a dynamic process of divine-human call and response. Our openness and efforts make a difference to the quality and extent of God’s presence in our lives. As scripture says, Christ is always standing at the door, knocking and seeking our attention and partnership in the quest for planetary and personal wholeness. Whether and how we the open the door to God’s graceful, intimate, and visionary energy can make all the difference in the world.
The central message this week is simple but significant – do not despise the saving power of small things. God’s commitment to justice, restoration and healing is proclaimed strongly through the Psalms and Isaiah’s song, but the way God’s saving work comes into being is often through small, ordinary people and actions
The picture of God’s care and comfort in Isaiah is that of an ordinary, familiar domestic scene – a child being nursed by its mother. Galatians speaks about the work of following Christ in the every day terms of our relationships with one another (correcting each other and sharing burdens), taking responsibility and doing good for all. And Jesus sends his disciples out to share the message of God’s reign, while accepting hospitality along the way – a very ordinary practice for travelers. Even when they celebrate overcoming demons, Jesus downplays it.
The power of the church to bring wholeness to society is in the grace, kindness and mutual encouragement that comes form living as the letter to the Galatians instructs. And, in every individual, the willingness to receive God’s grace and healing through ordinary means frees us to become channels. Our impact is often less about how we structure our services or what kind of music we use or how “prominent” we are in our community. Often it is in the quiet work of nurturing care and service within our community, and in doing the slow, transformative work of growing into caring, serving Christ-followers in our homes, workplaces and sports clubs (as Galatians calls us) that ultimately determines how effective our ministry is.
When, instead of pointing fingers at “the world” we are willing to accept its “hospitality” speaking blessing, and offering grace and mercy and justice in every situation and with every person (as the disciples were called to do), then people begin coming to us to learn more about our faith and the One we follow. But, if we fail to do this, then no amount of words or programs will be enough to compensate for our lack of grace and goodness. It’s significant that, even when the disciples were told to “shake the dust off their feet” when they were not received in a village, they were, nevertheless instructed to tell the people that God’s Reign had come to them. It was not that they were “judging” the people, so much as using a graphic and powerful image to challenge them about what they had rejected. God’s love and grace remained available to the people. In the same way, we can confront the small injustices in our communities, while still offering grace. And, in the end, what is important is not the dramatic confrontations, but the people whose names are “written in heaven” – who have discovered life in the dream of God.
In practical terms, this move toward “ordinary justice” has very significant implications. If we are to reverse the impact of climate change, it will take small but significant shifts in the habits of many ordinary people. If our world is to become more peaceful, it will mean ordinary people must learn to understand and respect one another, recognizing our common humanity. If wealth is to be equitably distributed, it will mean changing the values by which ordinary individuals live from consumerism to simplicity and from accumulating to giving. If these shifts were just taken seriously by Christ-followers alone, the impact would be nothing short of miraculous. As Christians around the world join together in peace-making, hospitality, taking responsibility for the change we can bring and doing small acts of goodness, the Gospel message is preached clearly and powerfully, with very few words necessary.
The one reading that appears to be out of place is the alternative Psalm (66) – but here the focus is on the Exodus, which, although proclaimed through retelling the miraculous story, is about the very ordinary human longing for liberation and salvation – which is, of course, the essence of the message that Jesus’ disciples would have preached.
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