366 Carrying ID

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Carrying ID”, originally shared on July 2, 2025. It was the 366^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   You are carrying an ID that cannot be taken away from you. Today, we’re going to find out what it is.

   There have been many images online and in the TV news recently of the arrests and detention of people who may or may not be in our country legally.

   Some may be thought to have been criminals or may have been already proven to be.

   But some claim that they are not criminals and have been in this country legally for years, and have documentation, even passports, which are nevertheless disregarded as possible forgeries.

   How does a person prove who they are? Can we carry anything that will remove all doubt, that will entitle us to claim certain rights and responsibilities?

   We will be celebrating the 249^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence this coming Friday, and we have been thinking about what it means to be a part of a constitutional republic a lot lately.

   “Two hundred and forty-nine” may seem like a big number, but we are a relatively young country. I read some time ago that almost our entire history can be measured in the lifetimes of five American presidents. Five.

   Thomas Jefferson, our third president, died when Abraham Lincoln was 17 years old. Abraham Lincoln died when Woodrow Wilson was 8 years old. Woodrow Wilson died when Ronald Reagan was 12 years old. And Ronald Reagan died when Barak Obama was 42 years old. Almost five lifetimes.

   We’ll celebrate it with barbeques and parades, and some time off, and maybe some fireworks.

   We’ll lift our phones to record those fireworks but, as the meme I saw once said, “’Let’s watch this fireworks video I took a year ago’, said no one ever.”

   We will also be watching video on TV showing the wildfires that are destroying land and buildings and people because of someone’s foolish use of illegal fireworks.

   Some of us might also take a few minutes to reflect on how fragile our freedoms are and how a few hot heads can burn everything down.

   It’s easy to gather a mob and destroy things built by common consent. It’s hard to build them.

   Today, we see how the first followers of Jesus were called and sent into a hostile world.

   That’s where we are in the Gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, Luke 10:1-11, 16-20. Jesus sends out 70 disciples into the world. Yup. Seventy. And he makes it clear that their reception may not always be friendly.

   Here’s a quick question: How many disciples did Jesus have?

   Did I say “quick”? I meant trick. 😊

   Because we mostly think of Jesus as having 12 disciples through almost all of his 3-year public ministry. But there were more. Many more, in various levels of closeness through various times.

   People are still being called to be disciples of Jesus but, then as now, they are sometimes unsure of what they are being called to do and how they are being called to do it.

   Then, this happens at the beginning of today’s Gospel reading, in Luke 10:1,

10  ¹After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.

   Now, the definition of an apostle is “one who is sent”, so were these disciples or apostles? I’m going with “apostles”, recruited from the second tier of Jesus’ disciples. A disciple is a student. Disciples learn from someone they follow around, at least they did that way in those days. An apostle goes among the people to tell about the teacher to people who may or may not be prepared to hear it. An apostle needs power.

   That’s a lot of people, though. Seventy. And he sends them out in pairs for mutual support and encouragement and strength when times are difficult as an expression of the living relationship with God that they have in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus sends them out to every town and place that he wanted them to prepare for his arrival.

   So, is it odd that he tells them to pray for more help, in verse 2?,

 ² He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

   Harvest work is hard. I worked a day as a farmworker picking crops when I was in 6^th grade and decided that I didn’t want to do that again. I worked a day or so bailing hay when I was in college. That was not as hard. But it was hard, and I’ve done hard physical work, from factory work, to maintaining and repairing railroad lines to Marine Corps training, to working in a concrete block factory the year before they automated.

   “Many hands make light work,” the saying goes, when it comes to doing a hard job. But I don’t know of any industries right now that have all the qualified workers that they need.

   Artificial Intelligence and automation may make many workers unnecessary. And if we can solve the income distribution problem, they may even make work unnecessary for most people.

   But some industries are currently having a hard time finding workers for the money that they are willing to pay, or that consumers are willing to absorb.

   Have you ever tried to talk about Jesus with someone? Anyone, other than a member of your church? Did you do it? Was it easy or hard? And if you did, you didn’t get paid!

   But, money is not why we do it. We do it because it’s who we are.

   I’m retired so I can do what we call “Pulpit Supply” most Sundays. That is, I preach and lead worship for congregations where their pastor is sick, or on vacation, or where they are between pastors.

   One Sunday, I preached at a Lutheran church where many of the members were Chinese.

   I spoke with a man whose family was from China at the fellowship time after worship. I had mentioned that my family, on both sides, had immigrated to the U.S. from Norway.

   He said that he was from a seaport town in China that was surrounded by mountains, so not many foreign influences had come there. But, his great grandfather had become a Christian because of the work of Norwegian Lutheran missionaries. He said that he had always wanted to go to Norway to see why they had come.

   He said that many missionaries had come to China as part of a colonial campaign, whether intentionally or not. But Norwegian missionaries had not come to establish trade, or to help extend their country’s power, or to conquer and rule. He said that they had come just because they loved Jesus. He wanted to thank them.

   That’s a beautiful thing to say, but it’s not easy to announce God’s kingdom. It never was. You and I are Christians today because someone, at some time, did something hard, and that Word was passed from generation to generation.

   Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few?” We can see why the laborers are few, but does the first part of that sentence make any sense to you?

   Does it seem like the harvest is plentiful, that there are a lot of people out there ready and just waiting for someone to come and tell them about Jesus?

   No? Me either. Why don’t we see it? What are we missing? What is the key to identifying people who are ready to receive the Gospel and who will respond positively to our invitation?

   Everyone has a God-shaped hole, but most don’t know it. We don’t bring Christ to people.  God is already at work in every human heart. We just name the only name, the living reality,  that can fill that hole. Why don’t we?

   Resistance. Because people have a natural resistance to the gospel, we are sinners, and partly because the faithful are resistant to share it as it is. We want to be, if not popular, to be accepted.

   Many churches, especially the larger ones today, offer newcomers a menu. They provide what they think will sell and then people get to choose what they want.

   But we are called to be more like a potluck, where everybody comes together and shares what they have been given. And we have been entrusted with living and sharing the Gospel.

   Do we feed people, or just offer what fills them up?

   Jesus sent his disciples out to talk about Jesus and his coming to them. How were they supposed to do that?

   What was Jesus’ answer to his disciples and apostles? Pray. He says, “ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest”.

   Actually, the Greek word here for “ask” carries more of the idea of “beg”.

   Beg that God, the Lord of the harvest, would send out more harvesters. Everybody can do that work, powered by the Holy Spirit. What credentials do they carry? He starts by telling them more about what not to carry than what to carry, and then about what behavior identifies them.

   Look at the instructions Jesus gave to these 70 sent ones (sounds like a rapper, doesn’t it? Seventy cent? 😊), the 70 disciples who are sent in Luke 10:3-11,

 ³ Go on your way; I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. ⁴ Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. ⁵ Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ ⁶ And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on that person, but if not, it will return to you. ⁷ Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. ⁸ Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; ⁹ cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ ¹⁰ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ¹¹ ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’

   The modern hospital is an invention of the Christian faith. There had been centers for healing before the Christian era, but they were for the elite rich, the military, or for workers in a temple. The modern hospital serving all who are in need began during plague times in the early part of the Christian era. Anybody in the Roman Empire with any money in those years had a little house outside the city. They would go there when plagues came to their cities, while Christians would stay and, with great risk to themselves, would care for the sick and dying. Everybody. They would bring them into their own homes, and as that grew insufficient, they opened hospitals. That made a deep impression on people.

   Jesus’ instruction to the 70 was to follow their healing with the words, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”

   That was the hard part. Everybody wants free services, but not everybody wants to hear the sermon, the love of Jesus, the good news about the source of all real power.

   What ID do we carry, and how do we know the difference between it and a counterfeit?

   People who call themselves Christians often offer the counterfeit religion, though possibly the most popular religion in the United States, the radical individualism that has been described as Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism (Google it).

   It was identified in a study of the beliefs of American teenagers published in 2005 that the researchers later realized actually described the beliefs of a large section of adults.

   They summarized these beliefs as Moralistic, Therapeutic Deism. Moralistic, because the emphasis is on being a good person because they believe that that’s how you get to heaven, Therapeutic because it emphasizes influences, particularly feelings, that help me be me, and Deism because it projects the belief that God exists but is not personally involved in our lives, especially when we don’t want God to be involved.

   They are like those who theologian H. Richard Niebuhr described in post-World War II America, teaching, 'A God without wrath brought men (and women, ed.) without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.'

   So, even when you go to share the actual Christian faith with someone, understand that you won’t always be welcomed, even among some Christians. Some hearts are hard. You’ll know who God is sending you to by their reception of the good news you have to share. People who don’t know that they need it are not going to receive it. And, if they don’t, move on!

   Jesus lays-out the consequences pretty starkly in Luke 10:16,

¹⁶ “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

   So, how did that mission of the 70 go? We see in verses 17-20,

¹⁷ The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” ¹⁸ He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. ¹⁹ Indeed, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you. ²⁰ Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

   Every one of us has an ID and a reason to be thankful today. Every one of us who has received the gifts of faith and baptism are members of the Body of Christ, the Church, because of a line that runs through thousands of years of people who have said “Yes” when God sent them to work in the harvest, to leap out of their comfort zones and into service as an apostle of God, preparing the way for Jesus to enter into people’s hearts and change their lives forever.

   And we go to share our stories of faith.

   How can we possibly do this? Not on our own, but in the power of the Holy Spirit in whom we receive our identity as a new creation, born again, as God’s people.

   Do you know who you are? You do know because you know whose you are. You are a made-new power-filled child of God. You are part of the Church. We share the good news, the evangel. No one is going to share the good news about Jesus except us. Put your gifts to work. Use the gifts that God has given each of us at our baptisms to share the Good News you have first received from God in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

   You are documented in the Kingdom of God by your baptism. That is the ID you carry always. It says, “Evangelist”. You are called to be an evangelist, and though you may be reluctant, know that God doesn’t call the qualified. God qualifies the called.

   Your ID is a gift from God. It says, “Member of The Body of Christ”.

   The ID we carry says that we are a part of something bigger. It says that our names are written in the book of life.

   The ID we carry is written on our hearts; it’s not something we have earned but is the gift of God. It’s who we are, which has been formed by Whose we are, and what we do is the outcome of Whose we are.

   When the 70 disciples returned and shared all the wonderful things that God had done through them, what did Jesus say? “Good job! Be proud of what you’ve done!” No. Jesus said,

   “Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

   The Kingdom of God is near. Ask God who you are being sent to reach, to prepare for the coming of Jesus, and be the means by which God brings the good news to this generation.

   We are carrying our ID in our hearts. It can never be taken away from us. God has given you everything you need to do what God is sending you to do today.