(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “The Advance Team”, originally shared on June 22, 2022. It was the 222nd video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Like the first disciples of Jesus, we are
all on Jesus’ Advance Team, the people who go out before Jesus to prepare for
his appearance. How did that work out for them? How’s that working out for us?
Today, we’re going to find out.
I saw a T-shirt the other day that said, “I
don’t like to brag about my expensive trips, but I just came back from the gas
station.”
It seems like our lives today are being
ruled by two liquids: gasoline and water.
Gas prices are zooming everywhere. I’ve seen
recently that gas is $11.21 in Hong Kong,
$8.17 in the United Kingdom, and $10.70 in Norway. Our gas doesn’t seem
so expensive now, does it? But get this, gas is $6.51 in Ukraine.
Yup, a gallon of gas costs about the same in
California as it does in a war zone.
And everything else costs more if it depends
upon fuel powered transportation. Which is just about everything.
Likewise, we are currently living in a
drought, which means fire season is pretty much every season now. We are under
water restrictions in most places. Claremont has no restrictions, but where we
live, we can only use our sprinkler system once a week for 8 minutes per
station. It just depends on where your water is coming from.
We can water our trees by hand, and we have
a lot of trees at our house. When someone nearby cuts down a tree, we plant
one. We believe that we are producing all the oxygen for our neighborhood.
So, some of our yard is still green, but
some is wilting, especially the grass, and even becoming crunchy.
How do we preserve life when the things that
produce life are growing out of our reach or becoming unavailable?
This is the challenge for the Christian
Church in a secular culture.
How do we make the good news of Jesus Christ
meaningful in a way that leads people to turn to new life in Jesus Christ,
receive the unending streams of living water that gush up to eternal life, the
source of the inexhaustible transformational power of God within us?
We get some ideas in Luke 9:51-62. It
starts like this,
51 When the days drew near for him to
be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And
he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the
Samaritans to prepare for his arrival, 53 but they
did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54 When
his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to
command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” 55 But
he turned and rebuked them. 56 Then they went
on to another village.
What does this tell us about sharing the
good news of eternal life that begins now and is brought to absolute perfection
in the life to come?
First, it tells us that we, like
Jesus’ first disciples, are his messengers.
Second, it tells us that we are
Jesus’ Advance Team. We are sent to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus so
that Jesus may find welcome hearts in which to abide, and open lives in order
to receive life transformation.
Third, it tells us that we will sometimes
receive resistance. We may even experience prejudice from those who don’t
believe as we believe. How long has it been since you’ve read something, or
seen something on TV or in the movies, or heard something on talk-radio or in a
podcast about Christians that was positive, or at least was something that you
would recognize as actual Christianity as you have known it.
The Samaritans lived in a territory dividing
the northern part of Israel from the southern part of Israel. They were the
product of the Assyrian conquest of 722 B.C. in which the people of many of
their conquered territories were all mixed together. The Samaritans, therefore,
had somethings in common with the Jews of their ancestry, and many things that
they did not, producing a completely different religion. Therefore, they were
resented and condemned by the Jews and people from the north would often go
around the entire country to get to Jerusalem in the south to worship. Jesus
instead makes a statement by traveling right through Samaria to bring the good
news, which made a lot of people uncomfortable.
Fourth, it tells us that not every
Samaritan is “The Good Samaritan”. Not every person is a good person. How
should we respond to that daily reality?
Hospitality in the time of Jesus was a
cultural duty everywhere in Israel and in what we call the Middle East. It
wasn’t hoped for, it was expected. And It was a massive insult not to be
received as a guest anywhere one traveled.
It was a huge slap in the face. That’s why
James and John asked Jesus if he wanted them to command fire to come down from
heaven and consume the Samaritans. Which is interesting because they thought
that they could do it on their own, and because they noticed that Jesus didn’t
do it himself and thought, maybe hopefully, that it might have been just an
oversight on his part.
Fifth, it tells us that Jesus not
about retribution. Jesus’ response to resistance is to move on.
Fire from heaven would come, but it would be
the life-giving holy fire of the Holy Spirit that came on the Day of Pentecost.
Living with family and friends and just the
people you know or meet each day is a challenge in a secular environment. How
do you even find words that make sense to people who haven’t heard about Jesus?
One way is to ask, “Have you heard about
Jesus?”. And then do a lot of listening before you speak.
Have you ever wanted, though, to ask God if
he wants us to call down fire from heaven to consume them? Probably not.
The president of the World Parliament of
Religions, which is a group of representatives from various world religions
that meets every ten years, once opened the convocation (I believe it was led
by an American and held in Chicago that year) by saying that their job was not
to try pretending that they all believed the same thing. Their job was to find
a way to live with their rival truth claims without killing each other. That’s
a pretty good goal. At least it’s a place to start.
How do we do that? The rest of the reading
from Luke 9:51-62 gives us some clues,
57 As they were going along the road,
someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And
Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the
Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To
another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my
father.” 60 And Jesus said to him, “Let the
dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of
God.” 61 Another said, “I will follow you, Lord,
but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 And
Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit
for the kingdom of God.”
The first clue is that members of an
Advance Team need to be able to tell people who is coming, the one that they
are going to meet. Jesus doesn’t come with anything but love and sacrifice, and
that will lead him to the cross. His Advance Team is likewise called to be
ready to do the same in their preparation for his coming.
The Rev. Dr. William Willimon has been a
Methodist parish pastor, a University chaplain, a seminary professor and the
Methodist equivalent of a bishop.
He tells a story, as I remember it, from
when he was a chaplain and had members of several denominations in his campus
youth ministry. One day one of them got him into some trouble.
A young woman who had been pre-med had
announced to her parents in her Senior year that she was not going on to med
school. She was instead going to work in a clinic at a missionary station in
Africa.
Her parents immediately made an appointment
with Rev. Willimon.
They were upset, and the said, “This is your
fault! You put these ideas into her head and now look what happened!”
“Woah!”, Rev. Willimon said. “Aren’t you the
ones who took her to church and had her Baptized?”
“Well, yes.”
“And aren’t you the ones who brought her to
worship regularly, and signed her up for Sunday School, and encouraged her to
be active in her church youth group and all their activities?”
“Well,” the air was starting to come out of
them, “Yes.”
“And aren’t you the ones who encouraged her
faith, and were so proud of the choices she made as a result?”
“Well,” and now they were completely
deflated and finally the father raised his head and almost whined, “But all we
wanted was for her to be a Presbyterian!”
“Then,” the Rev. Willimon said, “you have
failed. But I’m pleased to tell you that your daughter has become a Christian.”
The second clue is that members of an
Advance Team need to know the source of the real life that they represent.
People who know they are living in a world where the water of spiritual life is
free but that it came to us at a price, and that the power of God dwelling within
us comes to everyone who receives it and yet is not always received, need also
to know what their job is. Let the spiritually dead bury their own spiritually
dead. We are called to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus Christ, the
source of life. We have been called, equipped, and sent to invite and prepare
people around us to receive the gift of the living relationship with God
for which we were created.
Tourists like to stand on both sides of the
line between two states, or two cities, or two countries, and say that they are
in two places at the same time. You can’t sit on the fence between the Kingdom
of God and the forces that defy God. We are called to choose life and to
prepare others to do the same in Jesus Christ.
The third clue is that you can’t give
away what you don’t have. Christians are called to orient our lives toward the
future, toward what is coming, and toward the transformational message that
life can be lived anew. That we can be forgiven and move into newness of life,
born again as a new creation in Jesus Christ. We need not now look back, no
second thoughts or reservations, no approval from those who represent our old
lives. Our work as members of the Advance Team of Jesus is to invite people to
move on, to advance, for all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
The world may be drying up, but we are
walking wet every day in our Baptism.
Gas prices may be going through the roof,
but we have been given an inexhaustible source of energy, the
kind that matters for eternity, in the Holy
Spirit.
We who were no people are now God’s people,
God’s Advance Team, calling the world and every human heart to open themselves
to receive the living God. Jesus is coming. Jesus will come to you today.
Receive the streams of living water that is
the Holy Spirit. Receive the power that God has given you to be a new Creation.
Open
your heart today and receive everything you need to serve on Jesus’ Advance
Team.
No comments:
Post a Comment