Readings for Proper 9C: Lk.10:1-12,16-20;
Gal. 6:1-18
July 8, 2001
The Rev. Karen Siegfriedt
St. Jude the Apostle Church, Cupertino CA,
Every successful company is aware of its core values and its core purpose. The core purpose of a company is its "reason for being." Let me give you some examples. The core purpose of Walt Disney is "to make people happy." The core purpose of Wal-Mart is "to give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same things as rich people." The core purpose of Fannie Mae (who makes mortgages available to all kinds of people) is "to strengthen the social fabric by continually democratizing home ownership." The core purpose of Mary Kay Cosmetics is "to give unlimited opportunity to women."
The Christian Church also has a core purpose which is known as our mission statement: "The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ." Since most people today do not use religious language to communicate ideas, let me translate this mission statement. The purpose of the Church to is transform lives so that the condition of the human race becomes one of love, joy, peace, patience, k indness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Notice that the mission of the Church is not about getting people to swallow a horse pill of dogma and tradition. It is about transformation. Over the years, especially during the last 200 years, many people in the Church forgot its primary reason for being. Congregations began to look inward, focusing on themselves, forgetting about those on the outside who long for transformation through the healing love of God.
Today's reading from the gospel of St. Luke reminds us of our primary mission to transform lives. Let's take a closer look. In today's story, Jesus extends his circle of lay ministers from the 12 Apostles to 70 other people. Their job is to spread the good news about the Kingdom of God by healing the sick. Jesus instructs these 70 disciples on how to travel light, how to handle rejection, and how to act appropriately in people's houses. We don't know how many people received these disciples or rejected them but we do know that this experience of being agents of transformation filled the 70 disciples with an abundance of enthusiasm and joy.
*The early Christian Church was filled with stories of God's transforming power. Non-believers became disciples, not because of what they read in the Bible (which did not exist in the earliest days), but because of what they experienced through other Christians in community. And what they experienced was the awesome power of the love of God, expressed through the community of believers and felt directly in the depths of their soul. Non-believers heard stories from Christians about miraculous changes in their lives, and they come to experience those changes themselves. People were converted because they saw and felt the power of God, were loved, and were healed. It is the experience of the Holy Spirit that changes people, and it is this experience that the unchurched seek.
Today, we hear about the deep spiritual hunger in the American soul. Americans are reeling emotionally from daily life in a society traumatized by too much violence, too many divided families, and too little job security. The pain and isolation caused by reliance on material things and on human resources alone has grown unbearable. People are searching for something more meaningful and more enduring. As a result, tens of millions of unchurched Americans are open to a set of spiritual truths that will transform their lives by freeing them from the burdens of materialism and the darkness of loneliness. Who will show them the way out of this dark tunnel? To whom will they listen?*
Some years ago, Rabbi Nachman was teaching a class at San Francisco State College. He asked his students, "What are the most pressing issues facing society today?" He received the usual litany of answers such as famine, violence, poverty, and injustice. All of a sudden he heard a voice from the back of the room saying, "loneliness." Taken by surprise, he then asked the class how many of them were lonely. 75% of the class raised their hands. Imagine, 75% of our students are lonely. Our students are not the only ones who are lonely!
When I came out to California twenty years ago, I knew no one. I simply packed my bags in my little Honda and drove out across the continent. After I arrived, I felt isolated in Livermore, secluded in a laboratory with scientists who just grunted at me. There were many a weekend that I cried from the loneliness. That was until I found a terrific Church community who welcomed me with open arms. What a moment of healing and joy it was for me! I was blessed with a community of friendly folks, many of whom took the time to play together, eat together, and talk about the deeper things in life that meant the most to us. We would plan and throw terrific "newcomer parties" as a way of extending the bonds of friendship to those seekers who came to our church. It was this intimacy of community, not theology, that brought people into our Church, where they then could experience the healing grace of the Holy Spirit. It was this experience of intimate friendship that inspired me to seek ordination to the priesthood so that I could spend my primary time and energy building up Christian community.
Every time a person unburdens her heart to another, she reaffirms the love that unites humanity. Becoming a good friend with someone else unites us and enlarges our capacity to nurture the people in our lives. Our emotional growth is proportionate to our attempts at intimate friendships. Charles Fulton, the expert on Church growth, says that in healthy, growing churches, people have at least five friends within the community. A friend is someone who can share your burdens, share your joys, and walk alongside- supporting you to be the best you can be. I know that there are some of you who make a special effort in extending the bonds of friendship, reaching out to the newcomer, the widow, or the mother with children. My prayer is, that all of us become conscious of the need for friendship within our community as a way of sharing God's love. There is a great need for more and deeper friendships at St. Jude's.
In each generation, the Christian message of love and forgiveness must be conveyed in words and forms that the unchurched can grasp. For the 70 disciples in today's gospel, they used the art of healing to spread the good news of God's love. Today, our medical establishment has taken over that task and does a fairly good job with the ministry of healing. What would be a way in which we, the people of St. Jude's could spread the good news? I believe that taking the time to reach out in friendship and respond to the needs of another, is one of the best ways to share the good news. Let me give you an example. Mary Souza has just come back from a wedding in Maine. After the festivities were over, the mother of the bride (who is suffering from bone cancer and pulmonary disease), showed signs of anxiety in having to drive back alone to her home in Maryland. Seeing that this was a burden, Mary offered to change her plane reservations, spend two extra days driving to Maryland, and then fly home from there. This act of friendship showed more about the love of God than any bible study, theological argument, or liturgy.
God does not make strangers. We make strangers. And in that act of drawing back, we deprive ourselves of one of the greatest joys in life: friendship. The conscious prayer that we need to pray as disciples commissioned to transform lives is not, "Dear God, send me more friends." Rather it is, "Dear God, make me a good friend."
* Material taken from Reclaiming the Great Commission, by Claude Payne and Hamilton Beazley, 2000.
| Updated 7/8/01 |
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