The Sixth Sunday after Trinity, 3 July 2016
West Camel (w Queen Camel), Sparkford (w Weston Bampfylde)
In these testing times we’re living through, how we long to hear some good news. In these days which feel like dark forces are being unleashed, how we desire to see an end to evil in the world.
An end to the suffering of the world’s poor; an end to the avarice of the wealthy which heightens inequality.
Freedom for those held captive for their faith or beliefs, those hemmed in by dividing walls, abandoned behind the razor wire of refugee camps and detention centres.
Sight for the blind of the world - including ourselves in our blindness to our own self-destructive ways; and all who are blinded by ideologies which lead to division, hatred and violence.
Release for those who feel oppressed - exploited in the employment market, targeted in the street because of their race or religion or sexuality, the belittled, the unlistened-to, the uncared-about.
How deeply we people of faith and goodwill desire to find the words to proclaim the love and favour of our Lord in a society where healthy dialogue in public conversation is at an all-time low.
So let us give thanks for today’s gospel reading - for, in telling the tale of Jesus sending out the seventy disciples, it brings us into the wonderful renewing realm of good news; and in recording the vision of Jesus watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning, it points us towards not just the possibility of an end to evil in the world, but that that end has already begun.
Let us allow this gospel reading teach us how we can proclaim the love and favour of our Lord in these testing times. Aware of Jesus appointing seventy of his followers to spread his good news around, I encourage you to think of ourselves included in their number.
Yes, let us think of ourselves as being part of The Seventy - for the world is desperate for good news today, and we who have an inkling of the gospel need the confidence and courage to share it.
But the first and foremost question for us is this: if we are The Seventy - what is our gospel? What is the good news which we must share?
The gospel many Christians have been brought up with, the theology behind many of our liturgies, including the one we’re using today, the Reformed Protestant gospel of the past few hundred years, reduced into a formula of four simple points, is this: we are all sinners, whose sin separates us from God. God sent Jesus to die to save us from our sins - if we believe in him we will be saved.
This is so much part of our spiritual worldview that we might be forgiven in thinking it the only way of speaking about Jesus’s life and mission. But it is problematic, for it invites us to think of Jesus not as a man who lived a remarkable life, who fleshed out a liberating mission, but rather it reduces him to a formula, a spiritual fix. This so-called gospel is troublesome, for it contradicts everything Jesus seems to want to teach us about God being a loving Father, but instead offers us a God whose first instinct is not to create and hold us in love, but to judge us as sinful, and whose solution involves condemning his only Son to a brutal death. No wonder so many people fail to find any good news in this, feel repulsed by the blood-soaked language of our communion, and turn away to search for wholeness and blessing elsewhere.
But when we consider the passage from Luke we’ve heard today, we realise that the gospel formula I just described - could not have been the gospel of The Seventy. That could not possibly have been the story which they went out and told. For they did their Galilean door-knocking way before Jesus’ crucifixion and death took place.
When Jesus sent out The Seventy he was still very much alive and at the peak of his mission of teaching the good news of the kingdom of God, and demonstrating the coming of that kingdom in action. The gospel Jesus gave The Seventy to share could not have been about his death. Rather, his gospel must have been about his life.
This observation is good news in itself for those who suspect that some of the stories we have been telling about God have outlived their usefulness, some of the images of God we’ve held onto have lost their shine. That scripture contains far more wealth and wonder than we’ve reduced it to. And that the time is right for returning to scripture, prayerfully, asking the Spirit to give us the eyes of faith to help us make new discoveries there, to find other ways of talking about God.
Just one example of what can happen when we do - from today’s reading from Isaiah. It is said these days that the Church has alienated an entire generation of young people because of its slowness to affirm women in leadership and its reluctance to lovingly embrace those of different sexualities. Take a look at Isaiah 66.10-14. In it, the place where those ancient people met with God, Jerusalem, is described in feminine terms: she is a loving mother nursing her children; and then we hear God telling the people, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” God too, describing - himself? herself? - in feminine terms as a joy-giving, loving nurturing mother. Putting the feminine at the heart of the divine.
You might notice that in the last verse God reverts to male, warrior mode. It is indeed, a verse in tension. It begins with that gentle nurturing voice, “You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice; your bodies shall flourish like the grass; and it shall be known that the hand of the Lord is with his servants.” But it ends in anger, “and his indignation is against his enemies.” So this is a passage in tension, a conversation fluctuating between God as a vengeful warrior and a loving nurturing mother. It is worth remembering that Isaiah was written not by one man, but by schools of writers over many decades. Eight centuries before Jesus, Isaiah was in conversation about God. And to me, this makes it a passage also very much for today. For we are a people in tension, between old ways and new, in how we view God, and how that affects the way we view the world, and live in it. In how we view the world, and how that affects the way we view God, and walk with him.
We can guess that, on the doorsteps of Galilee, The Seventy would have had the very same sorts of conversations-in-tension; that in telling the good news they weren’t trying to sell a magic formula, they were provoking discussion - discussion about the life and mission of Jesus, about the meaning of the kingdom of God on this earth at this time.
Which brings us back to the question I began with - what was the gospel which Jesus gave The Seventy to share? What was the good news which they discussed in the towns and places where he intended to go?
Thankfully, we need not speculate on this, for Luke’s gospel makes it very clear indeed what Jesus’ good news was. Luke records it in Chapter Four:
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, … came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. He went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ [2]
This is the good news which Jesus gave The Seventy to share, and longs for us to embrace. This is the gospel of the kingdom of God, come to earth in the here-and-now, to transform lives in these present times.
This is no abstract magic formula, either, and we can thank Luke for detailing the many ways in which Jesus fleshed out this good news.
By bringing good news to the poor - like the widow of Nain, whose son Jesus restored to life thus saving her from poverty; or the many so-called ‘tax-collectors and sinners’ who Jesus invited to eat with the respectable Pharisees and lawyers, around the same tables, giving equal value to each.
By releasing many captives - like the man in chains outside Geresa who Jesus healed of demon-possession, like Zacchaeus, released from his captivity to greedy acquisitiveness, who found healing in repaying those he had defrauded.
By restoring sight to the blind - like the beggar Bartimaeus who he healed by the roadside.
By setting free the oppressed - like the woman who wiped his feet with her tears in the house of Simon the Pharisee, whose devotion he affirmed, like the woman who had suffered from haemorrhages for twelve years, who he healed.
These acts of love were good news to those he helped and healed. How The Seventy must have enjoyed sharing those stories in the homes of the towns they visited.
Furthermore Jesus’ teachings, often in the form of parables, encouraged discussion of these themes. Imagine what the conversations might have been like around the tables at those meals he hosted when he sat side-by-side the rich and poor, the respectable and the frowned-upon, the pious and the earthy people of the community. People challenged at that table, to put away their prejudices and to find some common ground. Imagine the effect of Jesus at one of these gatherings telling, let’s say, the parable of the dishonest manager, who put shrewd business practices above absolute integrity in his financial dealings, in an attempt to save his own job.
Imagine the different reactions this story would provoke from the different people around the table. Imagine the conversation which Jesus then led - how that conversation would have helped people hear and understand perspectives very different from their own. Imagine how that conversation might have ended - probably not with everyone agreeing, but with everyone appreciating each other’s points of view more, and seeing the possibility of them learning to live with each other in a more open, accepting, way.
These shared meals and provocative parables were good news to those who experienced them, finding their lives enriched in these exchanges. How The Seventy must have loved inviting people to share in these conversations around their own tables. And been disappointed when they declined.
The gospel Jesus gave The Seventy to share could not have been an abstract formula about his death. Rather, his gospel must have been about his life, and his invitation for us to join a conversation about how we can flesh out how to embrace the life of the kingdom of God in this world.
A conversation which focusses us on asking, who are the poor among us and how can we bring good news to them, what does it mean for us to release the captives and bring sight to the blind, how can we set oppressed ones free, what would it mean for us to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour?
Notes
[1] Written in the crisis following the UK Referendum decision to leave the European Union. And helped enormously by Paul Neuchterlein’s notes on Girardian Lectionary. Reflections. Year C: Proper 9C.
[2] Luke 4.14-21 Sometimes called Jesus’ Nazareth Manifesto, the focus of my sermon Learning cooperation in the body, Devon, January 2013.
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