Getting Ready for the Journey

 Loving God,
open our ears to hear your word
and draw us closer to you,
that the whole world may be one with you
as you are one with us in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

Getting Ready for the Journey

When we were kids we would go to visit my cousins once a year. It was an all-day drive. We got ready by packing our own gear – clothes, toothbrush, et cetera – whatever et cetera was at that age. We would then, sometimes, tromp around in our bathrobes and slippers on the front lawn, killing slugs with our feet (hence the slippers) and there a bye being helpfully out of the way while the car warmed up and my parents finished loading. We would head down the highway, stop for pancakes at the Busy Bee, plea for pea soup at Buellton, and arrive in the evening. We were assured of a welcome on our arrival, food and a place to sleep – and a greeting from cousins full of plans for our entertainment during our week’s visit. A neighbor would even loan us her bike so we could ride to the park together.

That is how we got ready for the journey – and what we knew to expect on our arrival.

What would it look like if you prepared the way Jesus had his disciples prepare, and go without knowing quite what to expect at the end of your journey?

What would it look like to travel light? – for you?

This is beyond Rick Steves’ one carry-on – or the Sierra Club handbook for hikers, Traveling Light with Backpack or Burro. 

Here’s the packing list: take staff, sandals, and tunic (1). You are ready for the journey. No bread, no bag, no money in your belt.

Ah! One item more: the holy spirit, the gift of God, the empowering call of Jesus Christ, the authority over unclean spirits – and the message to proclaim: Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Now we are ready for our journey.

To travel as one called, empowered – equipped and inspired, sent: to be a messenger and a guest, not a host, dependent on the hospitality of those to whom you bring the message.

It is an urgent message, good news, important news, news that cannot wait: and so you go to deliver it – and whether they hear or refuse to hear, they shall know that the Word of God has been among them.

They will know it through the Spirit, through you exercising your duty and your call as disciples. Go!

What does it look like if you try to do this? Saint Francis of Assisi, and his companions, tried to find out. Francis made for them a rule of life, pretty much straight out of gospel lessons like this, and it said:

From the Rule of St. Francis of Assisi:  The brothers should appropriate neither house, nor place, nor anything for themselves; and they should go confidently after alms, serving God in poverty and humility, as pilgrims and strangers in this world. Nor should they feel ashamed, for God made himself poor in this world for us. This is that peak of the highest poverty which has made you, my dearest brothers, heirs and kings of the kingdom of heaven, poor in things but rich in virtues. Let this be your portion. It leads into the land of the living and, adhering totally to it, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ wish never to have anything else in this world, beloved brothers.**

It’s that extra gift – the one that won’t fit in your travel kit, the one that keeps popping out and surprising you - that makes this journey possible. What is that gift? The word of God, which does what he sends it forth to accomplish; the word that he sent among us.

The ultimate “equipment” is this: God loves us as a loving father loves his children; so we are to act in the certainty of this love, and in imitation of it. The ultimate equipment is the certainty of God’s love; the ultimate commission is the urgency of sharing it.

The word among us – that is what the spirit means to accomplish, to make present in you and through the good and joyful news of the coming of the kingdom of God, the reign of heaven, God’s shalom.

And so the disciples, and the church, began, as Jesus had begun: baptized and in the spirit sent, leaving behind, casting aside, all earthly impediments, in the urgency of his message.

And,

         so,

                  what is this message—

                                                      to you?

What could be so important that you would lose your life for it? What but life itself – true, abundant, free, eternal life – life as it is meant to be lived, as we were created to enjoy it, as we were redeemed to bear it, as we were empowered to share it?

Wisdom and deeds of power: that is what Jesus is doing. That is what he calls the twelve into, as his partners in evangelism and mission.

That is what he does for us,

as we gather,

proclaim and

celebrate the transforming word and deed of our Lord, and

are sent –

we go forth,

in the power of the spirit,

to bring that good message of the kingdom

to the world

in our own words, and in our own lives,

in what we do and what we say,

everyday,

sometimes systematically, sometimes accidentally,

always faithfully,

caring, showing, sharing, doing

God’s gracious will for us:

so that all may share in the kingdom of peace and abundance –

the abundance of God’s love for all of humankind.

God calls us – we respond, willingly; God equips us, inspires and empowers us. We are dependent on God’s mercy, not on our own particular resources. And we are called to support the work of the church with our own resources, for this ministry is, after all, a treasure, a gift that we have in common. We cannot boast in our own strength, Paul leads us in knowing, but we can boast in God’s grace.***

May we be open to God’s word, calling us;

may we be open to God’s spirit, equipping us.

God of grace and powerful weakness,
at times your projects were ignored, rejected, belittled, and unwelcome.
Trusting that we, too, are called to be prophets,
fill us with your Spirit,
and support us by your gentle hands,
that we may persevere in speaking your word
and living our faith. Amen.*

BProper9, Ezekiel 2:1-5, Psalm 123, 2 Corinthians 12:2-10, Mark 6:1-13,

* Prayers from the Church of England, Common Worship 
(http://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts.aspx accessed 7 July 2012)

** The Rule of Saint Francis (http://www.ofm.org/ofm/?page_id=109&lang=en accessed July 7, 2012.)

*** Lance Ousley, Stewards' Stirrings: Pentecost 6 Proper 9B in the Diocese of Olympia
 (http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Pentecost-6-Proper-9B-Stewards--Stirrings-2012.html?soid=1101765871307&aid=9zhB6oiRYr8)

JRL+

 

We are his blessing

An Astonishing Secret

Jesus let us in on an astonishing secret: God has chosen to change the world through the lowly, ordinary and insignificant. This should give us all hope.
Changing the world through the ... insignificant has always been God's strategy. God chose a ragtag group of Semite slaves to be the insurgents of a new order. God sent a vast army to flight with three hundred men carrying lamps and blowing horns. God chose a shepherd boy with a slingshot to lead his chosen people. And who would have dreamed that God would choose a baby in a cow stall to turn the world right side up?

--Tom Sine, The New Conspirators (2008), p. 22.

There was a priest, named Henri Nouwen, who spoke of "downward mobility" - the way of the cross. He had some words to say about gifts, which Tara Ward has turned into a song. Here are those words:

Given

we may be little, insignificant in the eyes of this world
but when we realize that God has sent us to the world as blessed
our lives will multiply and grow and fill the needs of others
our gift is not what we can do but who we are
our gift is not what we can do but who we are

who can we be for each other? who can we be, Lord, for the world?
who can we be for each other? who can we be?

how different would our life be if we believed every single gesture
every act of faith or love or joy or peace or word of forgiveness
will multiply as long as people will receive it...
our gift is not what we can do but who we are

who can we be for each other? who can we be, Lord, for the world?
who can we be for each other? who can we be?

We are given. We are given. We are given.
We are given. We are given. We are given.

our gift is not what we can do but who we are

our gift is not what we can do but who we are

(Words: Henri J. M. Nouwen. Music: Tara Ward, Church of the Beloved, 2008.)


Jesus told a story about a man who went on a journey. While he was away he trusted his servants with his property, each according to his ability. From each he received according to their need.

There was a servant with five talents, and keep in mind that a talent is the equivalent of an ordinary person's wages for many years, who'd made five talents more. His need was to be faithful with what he had been given, and to bear good fruit from it. Likewise the one with two talents - only two: but he made two more. And he bore good fruit, and was faithful.

Then there was the third servant, whose need seemed to be: safety. Avoiding risk. Avoiding failure. Perhaps even avoiding the risk of success - of an outcome beyond his control. He did take the talent he had been given but he did not take the responsibility that came with it. He buried it. He hid it in the ground. He turned inward, and nothing could grow. When his master returned, he had nothing - nothing to show for it, nothing - for all he'd been entrusted with.

And so even the responsibility he had been given, the one talent with which he'd been entrusted, was taken away from him and assigned to the fruitful and obedient servant who had made ten. The faithful and obedient servants, by contrast, had turned outward - trusting as they had been trusted - and bore much fruit.

Do you remember the tree Jesus told about, the one that had born no fruit for many years? His servant, the gardener, said, give me one more year, one year to prune the tree and dig around it and give it nourishment; then we'll see.

I knew a tree like that. It had not been cared for, or pruned, for many years. A friend who knew trees told me how to prune it, to eliminate cross branching, thin it out, and guide the tree, helping it along in the way it wanted to grow. And with permission from the landlord, I began to prune, and thin, and water. And the next spring: apples.

It is as if we have been asked to a dance. We can stay on the bench - oh, I have a headache; oh, I cannot be sure that I wouldn't look ridiculous, oh, I'm no good at that - or we can accept the hand that is stretched to ours, clasp it, rise from our place by the wall, and join in the dance. However freely, however clumsily, we begin - and our place in the dance, the great dance of the world, which otherwise would have been empty, is filled - and filled with joy.

There is a story in the gospels about a servant whose master demanded his accounting for ten thousand talents - that is an outrageous sum. That is the value equivalent to tens of thousands of years of labor under the sun. This story is about a smaller amount - about five talents, and two, and one. Still, it's plenty.

I have always been afraid of being the one with one talent. I thought I had to have five. But look at the guy in the middle: he only has two. But he grows with them, to two more.

We may feel we only have so many talents - so many gifts to work with, only so much treasure and worth and value and promise. But we have what our master has given us.

Look around and you will see many gifts, borne under many names, behind many faces.

At St Alban's we have several gifts, more than I will count, but here are some of them:

We are very good, we Episcopalians, at celebrating.

We are welcoming, hospitable.

We are willing to love people who are different from us.

We hang in there with each other. We work together for each other. We practice faithfulness. We keep at it. We persevere. We keep the faith.

We have, dare I say it, courage and hope. And what abides beyond all else, love.

We may seem small in the world's measures, as small as mustard seed.

From us, from our lives, from our faithful obedience in keeping to God's promise, we can realize something wonderful and very, very big: We are God's people. And we are blessed.

We are blessed when we are poor, not because we are poor: we are blessed because we will be God's heirs.

We are blessed when we are hungry, not because we are hungry, but because God will feed us.

We are blessed who are mourning, because God will comfort us.

We are blessed when we are meek, because we will inherit the earth.

If we desire justice so strongly it is like a hunger, we are blessed, because that hunger will be satisfied.

When we show mercy, we are among the blessed: God will show mercy to us.

The pure in heart among us are blessed, because they will see God.

Those who make peace are blessed; they will be called children of God.

Even if you are persecuted or slandered when you stand up for justice, you are blessed: yours is the land where justice comes from, where you belong, where your true value is known -the kingdom of heaven.

We are blessed - we are blessed with all we need, supplied by the hand of God like a shepherd feeding his sheep.

We are blessed - but not for ourselves. We are blessed, that we might bless: and those who need our blessing are the ones we are here for.

God put us here in this place in this time for a purpose: to celebrate and convey the gracious love of God, to welcome our neighbors into God's holy place and into the kingdom where our God reigns, where all are the beloved of God, and all share in his blessings, where love abides and faith perseveres and hope yields its increase in abundant harvests.

We are here to be the people of God - and our gift, the gift of each other in the presence of a loving God, is what we have to share with the world. We are blessed, and we are called, to be the people whom God has created us to be. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that who ever puts their life in his hands will receive life in abundance, for eternity.

We are his children. We are blessed; we are his blessing for the world. Here. And now.

Whether we have one talent or two or five - or ten thousand - the challenge is the same:

Our gift is not what we can do but who we are.





St Alban's, Edmonds.
November 16, 2008.

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