368 How to Live Again

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “How to Live Again”, originally shared on July 16, 2025. It was the 368^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   It’s been said that what we do is how we make a living but who we are is how we make a life. Today, we’re going to find out about which is more necessary.

   A rabbi was once approached by a student who asked him, “Rabbi, how can I live without making mistakes?” The Rabbi answered, “Gain experience”.

   The student replied, “How can I gain experience?” The Rabbi answered, “Make mistakes”.

   We can learn a lot things in a classroom, but many of the things we learn about how to live come through experiences, and sometimes it’s through bad experiences. We learn things the hard way.

   I studied in high school, but I was also heavily involved in music, drama, leadership, athletics, and many other things. I was active in most aspects of our church.

   One day, I had not finished a paper that was due for my “College Prep” English class and I went to the teacher’s office after school, where he was grading that day’s papers. I told him that I was sorry that I hadn’t turned in the paper on time, but that I was very busy and would turn it in as soon as I had time.

   I thought that he’d be appreciative and sympathetic. He wasn’t.

   He rocked back in his chair, looked over his reading glasses at me, and said, “David, we do the things we love. If we don’t have time, we make time.”

   After years of college and seminary and life-long learning, I still consider him to be one of my five best teachers, not necessarily among my five favorite teachers, 😊, but he was among the best.

   Martha learned a lesson like that from a pretty good teacher (😊) in the Gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority churches this coming Sunday, Luke 10:38-42.

   Like Martha, we are all surrounded with many claims on our time and on our lives. Voices all around us tell us what we should think, what we should do, what we should look like, how we should vote, and what we should need. What is the one thing that is needed?

   In our Gospel reading, Jesus and his twelve hungry disciples show up at Martha’s family’s home in Bethany, near Jerusalem, where she lived with her two siblings, Mary and Lazarus, and she was busy.

   I was the first-born in my parents’ family. I tell my three younger siblings that they should be grateful that I was such a good baby because our parents said, “We want three more of those!” 😊

   My mother had four babies in five years. I was actually four years old when her fourth child was born; two weeks later though I would be five, and she was busy!

   The oldest sibling in birth order is usually “the responsible one,” because they grow up taking care of the younger siblings.

   We were so close together in age, though, that we somewhat grew up together. I don’t recall being consciously aware of being responsible for my siblings, just the slightly oldest.

   When you read or hear the story of Jesus and Mary and Martha, though, don’t you get a clear picture of their birth order?

   The Bible doesn’t say it, but don’t you just picture Martha as the older responsible sister, and Mary as the younger one craving attention? Parenting sometimes contributes to this.

   I read about a comedian who came from a large family saying that her mother had once told her that when her oldest sister coughed, she called the ambulance, but when her youngest brother swallowed a dime her mother said, “That’s coming out of your allowance.” 😊

   I once heard Garrison Keillor, humorist, author, and host of the public radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion”, observe that with the first child you're panicky, with the second one your nervous, with the third you're skittish, and after that it's just pure entertainment.

   I asked my dad what he thought about that, and he said that he wouldn’t say it was pure entertainment, but it did get easier.

   Here’s what happened when Jesus encounters the sisters Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38,

³⁸Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 

   Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. He and his disciples stopped at Bethany, about two miles east of Jerusalem over the Mount of Olives, at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, his best friends in the world, at his home away from home. It was Lazarus who Jesus later raised from the dead but who doesn’t appear in this story.

   Luke tells us that Martha welcomed Jesus and the disciples into “her” home. It was very unusual for a woman to be the head of the house. Scholars think that Martha may have been a widow. One of my favorite preachers, King Duncan, points out that name Martha means “lady” or “mistress of the house”. Maybe her name changed to fit her new self at some point.

   We also can picture a rather large house for the time, stocked with enough food to care for thirteen hungry men at a moment’s notice.

   We also know that she was brave, as the authorities were looking for a way to kill Jesus, so it was dangerous for anyone to be known to befriend and care for him.

   Then, Luke reveals something more, in verse 39,

³⁹She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 

   To say that she “sat at the Lord’s feet” was an expression meaning that she was receiving formal training from Jesus. In Acts 22:3 St. Paul declares that,

3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today.

   St. Paul sat at the feet of Rabbi Gamaliel one of the most respected rabbis in the history of Judaism. Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus.

   Some of us remember a time when there were very clear expectations for what was considered “men’s work” and “women’s work”.

   Mary was doing what would have been considered “man’s work.” A woman being taught by a respected teacher like Jesus would have been actively discouraged and almost nonexistent. A husband would not even teach his wife in Mary’s time. Men’s and women’s worlds didn’t mix.

   Martha took on the more traditional role, and was not happy that Mary didn’t, as we see in verse 40,

⁴⁰But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

   We see how much things have changed when we hear this story and wonder, “Well what about the disciples? Why didn’t they offer to get up and help?”  

   Theirs was a different culture It wouldn’t even have occurred to them.

   Martha speaks directly to Jesus as one used to having authority in her home, also a surprising attitude for a woman in Jesus’ day.

   Jesus knows something that the others don’t, however. Jesus speaks as one who knows that his time on this earth is short.

   Jesus sees that Martha is distracted by what she sees in front of her.

   We’ve been concerned lately about the seemingly indiscriminate raids on places that may or may not contain people who are not in our country legally. We could not be blamed for looking over our shoulders when we go out to carry out our responsibilities.

   Martha was no doubt worried about carrying out her responsibilities, knowing that Jesus had attracted negative talk among the religious, political and military authorities.

   She was the responsible one, though, and we couldn’t function, in the Church and anywhere else, without people like Martha. I mean, as a Bible study I once read on this passage asked, “Who would you rather work for, Mary or Martha?” And, “Who would you rather have working for you, Mary or Martha?”

   For Martha, though, her worries had become a distraction. We see it in verse 41,

⁴¹But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 

   I read a little book on time management once called “The Tyranny of the Urgent”. Its point is to learn to separate the urgent daily demands from what is enduringly important.

   Like the guy I read about who said, “I live every day as if it were my last. That’s why I never do laundry. Because who wants to do laundry on the last day of their life?” 😊 Urgent or important?

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer, was reportedly digging a hole to plant an apple tree when a member of his church stopped by to talk about the member’s belief that they were living in the end times. He asked, “Dr. Luther, what would you do if you knew that the world was going to end tomorrow?” Luther replied, “I’d plant my apple tree.” Urgent or important?

   Martha wanted to know who was going to feed all those hungry men? Who was going to fulfill the cultural demands of hospitality? Who was going to set out the dishes and set-up the chairs. All urgent, but Jesus encouraged her to consider what was of enduring importance in that moment.

   Providing hospitality in your home is encouraged throughout the Bible. Some people consider it a spiritual gift.

   I took a continuing education class at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena by Dr. Peter Wagner, who had written books on the subject.

   He said that, as a former missionary family, they were often asked to house and feed visiting missionaries in their home. When such an event was about to take place, everyone in his family knew their jobs. They planned every minute, cleaned the house, stocked the refrigerator, treated their guests like royalty and when the visit was over, they collapsed in a heap, exhausted.

   They did not, he said, have the gift of hospitality.

   People with the gift of hospitality open their homes in such a way that you feel like you belong there, without any need to impress. They give themselves to their guests.

   What was needed? What was more important than what was urgent? Jesus says it in verse 42,

⁴²there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

   Food and drink are urgent needs but satisfying them is temporary.

   There’s a diner near our home, Mr. D’s Diner, that is known for its large portions. A page in its old menu referenced this with the observation, “The trouble with our portions is that four or five days after eating here, you’re hungry again.” 😊

   What endures? What is the better part, what some translations call “the better portion”?

   In the 1991 movie “City Slickers” with Billy Crystal and Jack Palance, a group of friends from the city sign-up to go to a dude ranch for an adventure in the midst of their mid-life crises. They are charged with moving the ranch’s herd of cattle to a lower valley, which becomes more and more difficult as they go.

   Everyone admires the foreman, Curly (played by Jack Palance), because he seems to have his life together while theirs are falling apart. At one point the character played by Billy Crystal asks Curly about the secret of life.

   Curly holds up one index finger and rides away. One thing. It’s keeping your focus on one thing.

   What is the one thing that is needed? What endures?

   A living relationship with the one true living God, the one thing for which we were created.

   It’s been said that human beings have a God shaped hole, and that we cannot experience the wholeness for which we were created until it is filled.

   That is the one thing for which the Church exists, and for which we exist. To bring people to that wholeness of body, mind and spirit through a living relationship with the one true living God that has been God’s desire for us from the beginning of our creation. The one thing that God finally gave his life for on the cross.

   What defines our lives? What shapes everything about us?

   Only one thing is needed, everything else is merely urgent.

   We’ve been thinking a lot about those who have lost their lives in the floods throughout our country in the past weeks, particularly in the hill country of Texas, particularly the children swept away from a Christian camp. A Christians camp. How can that happen?

   Some might look at that news and say that no God would allow that to happen. There must not be a God.

   Others will go through that experience of losing a child, an unimaginable horror, and say that they don’t know how they would get through it without their faith in God.

   The fact is that the world is not the way it’s supposed to be. It was broken by people who believed the lie that they could be like God, and that that, frankly, they would do a much better job. That’s how evil enters the world every time, and it breaks us. And we are cut off from God, dead in our sin.

   God does not reject us, though. Instead, in the most important verse in the Bible, in what Martin Luther called the Gospel in miniature, in what, if you had only memorized one verse from the Bible, that would be it, we see God’s disposition toward us, in John 3:16,

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

   Our saving relationship with God is restored at the cross for all who believe and are baptized.

   There it is that we learn to live again. It is the one thing that is needful.

367 Right Judgment

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Right Judgment”, originally shared on July 9, 2025. It was the 367^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan is often used to shape Christian ministry for the poor and the helpless, but is that what it’s about? Yes and No. Today, we’re going to find out why.

   I took the Senior Lifesaving Class from the Red Cross when I was a young teenager, and among the many things I learned from my class’s experienced teacher, one stood out. If you ever have the opportunity to save someone’s life, don’t expect them to be grateful.

   Even when attempting to save a drowning person, they may panic and push you under to get a breath of air, if given the opportunity. And, if you manage to save their life without losing your own, they may be embarrassed and resentful. They may deny that they really needed help.

   Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, the one in Luke 10:25-37 that will be read in the vast majority of churches this coming Sunday, is a familiar one, but we know almost nothing about the person who was saved, and less about how he felt about it.

   I think that that’s intentional, because the parable isn’t about him. And it’s not about the Good Samaritan, either. It’s about you, and your story.

   Literature is full of stories that take place on the road. The parable of the Good Samaritan takes place on a dangerous and notorious one, the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. But it’s about our journey.

   Remember the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho? It was fought when the Israelites returned to the land that God had given them after hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt. Their land had been occupied by others, and they had to take it back.

   By the time of Jesus, many of hundreds of years later, the road between Jerusalem and Jericho was known mainly for crime.

   Lots of things can happen on the road to someplace else.

   Have you ever seen an RV with a sticker with a red background showing the smiling cartoon head of a guy with a gold halo over him and the words “Good Sam” underneath it? It’s the logo for the Good Sam Club, which began as a group who said that they were willing to help fellow RV’ers in need on the road. It takes its name from the parable of the Good Samaritan. The parable begins with a lawyer, in Luke 10:25,

²⁵Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

   He wasn’t a lawyer like we understand lawyers, but he was an expert in the religious laws, the 613 commandments in the Old Testament, and all the ways in which they were to be interpreted and kept. Jesus answers him, starting with verse Luke 10:26,

 ²⁶He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” ²⁷He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 

   That’s Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18.

   Augustine, one of the great theologians of the Church and one of the giants of Western literature, who lived from 354-430 A.D., expressed almost the same when he said, “Love God and do what you will,” because loving God means doing what pleases God, and the laws of God are given for human good.

   Jesus, approving of the man’s answer, said in Luke 10:28,

²⁸And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

   If only the man had stopped while he was ahead. We see at verse 29,

 ²⁹But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

   This man didn’t want to stop at knowing how to collect his spiritual inheritance. He wanted to believe that he had earned it himself.

   The man only wanted to make sure he was keeping the letter of the law, but in doing so he only showed concern for himself. He wasn’t thinking about what to share with others.

   He wanted to know what he had to do.

   Jesus was about to teach him what he needed to be, starting with Luke 10:30,

 ³⁰Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 

   The road between Jerusalem and Jericho was winding, it was mostly what we would call a dry gulch. It was a great place for robbers to hide and ambush travelers and merchants.

   I once walked inland from the west to Mt. Sinai in Israel when I studied in Israel during college. My friend and I were on Thanksgiving vacation, traveling north by bus in the Sinai Peninsula. We had taken our map at face value and got off the bus at Dehab where the map showed a road to Mr. Sinai, but found that there was actually no city and no road. We had to walk in over the desert.

   We met a Bedouin, a native of the desert who, with the 20 or 30 words we knew in Arabic, agreed to guide us overnight.

   At one point my friend quietly pointed out that, culturally, the Bedouin believed that everything on the desert belonged to them. They might rob a traveler of everything, including the clothes on their back, without remorse. And their brother might find you on the desert and bring you to his village and equip you with everything his brother had stolen and brought home, out of a cultural hospitality, and see no contradiction.

   As it turned out, he paced out trip across the desert, shared his water when ours ran out, and probably saved our lives. But have you ever spent a night wondering if you were about to be robbed?

   The robbers in this story were a bit more brutal.

   Have you ever been robbed at gunpoint? I have. It’s no fun. One of our dogs had jumped our fence one night, many years ago, and I had gone out to bring it back. We had indications that we lived near a crack-house and we think the robbers might have been on their way there, desperate. One robber said that he didn’t want to kill me, and I replied that that was good because I didn’t want to be killed. He took my watch, wedding ring, and all my cash that Sally passed through the back door. I think the other recognized me. He held back and kept telling the other guy to leave. They were satisfied with what they got. But it was traumatizing for us. It was a night when some help would have been very welcome.

   The first two possibilities for help for the victim in Jesus’ parable were not at all helpful, starting at verse 31,

³¹Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. ³²So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 

   Two potential helpers appear. We see a priest of Aaron who served in the Temple in Jerusalem and a Levite who served in a helping role in the Temple such as being a musician, a Temple official, a guard, or as a craftsman. They may have been concerned that victim was dead, knowing that if they touched a dead body they would have been considered “unclean” and unable to carry out their service until they completed a time-consuming cleansing ritual.

   Or they might have passed by thinking that “it’s not my job”, or they didn’t want to be late for work, or they were afraid that someone would mistake them for the robber, or that they might get blood on their clothes, or were afraid that they themselves would get robbed. Or who knows? (Everyone has a good reason not to help.) But, they did not stop to render aid.

   Who did? We see in Luke 10:33,

³³But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.

   Let’s just take a pause here to think about who the Samaritans were and how outrageous it would have seemed at the time for Jesus to make a Samaritan the good guy in this story.

   Samaritans were what was left of the mixture of local and foreign peoples that followed the Assyrian Conquest of the 10 northern tribes of Israel in 722 B.C. They were considered foreigners occupying territory in the middle of Israel, between Galilee and Judea (where Jerusalem was), and bad influences to boot! And the Samaritans felt the same about Israel. And what does the Samaritan do in Jesus’ story? We see in verse 34,

 ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 

   Margaret Meade, the anthropologist, was once asked what she thought was the first sign of human civilization. She answered, “The first evidence of civilization is a healed femur.” (a thighbone) 

   Evidence of a healed thighbone means that someone had to set the bone and provide security, food and water for the wounded while they healed, all at a personal expense to themselves. Prior to that, if you broke a femur, you died.

   Civilization begins when we put the needs of others ahead of our own.

   That is a very Christian concept, perhaps at the beating heart of what it means to be a Christian. It is rooted in the central event of the Christian faith. The cross. But it’s not the end of the story.

   The teaching continues in verse 35,

³⁵The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’

   A denarius was equal to a day’s wage for an unskilled laborer. Two denarii were two days wages. That was his down payment. He offered to contribute whatever it took to restore the wounded man. And now we are getting to why the expert on the religious law needed to learn. He needed to hear the answer to his question, at the beginning of this reading, about inheriting eternal life.

   Jesus asked, in verse 36,

 ³⁶Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” ³⁷He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

   How does God’s mercy come? It’s freely given. How does one receive an inheritance? It’s not because of what you do. It’s entirely because of our relationship with the one from whom we receive. It’s not about who you are, but about Whose you are.

   A neighbor is anyone in need of what we can give. It’s not our status or appearance in the world that matters. What counts is that we who have been healed express our gratitude in love for others. We who have received mercy show mercy.

   In the parable of the Good Samaritan, it was the one who was helpless who was restored. The good news is that all who repent can receive their inheritance,

   Living as a Christian requires sacrifice. It requires concern for others, not only for ourselves, not for the sake of appearances, but because it is a natural expression of the love and grace and mercy we have first received from God.

   The expert in the religious law was only concerned with his personal salvation by his own works. He wanted to know what to do.

   He pushed Jesus a little further because the man only wanted to justify himself.

   The Good news, the gospel, is that God has done that for us at the cross.

   When Jesus was once pushed about healing, i.e. doing work, on the Sabbath, while the law was at the same time being stretched so that other “work” was permitted, Jesus called on us to judge with another kind of judgment in John 7:24,

²⁴ Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

   When we are transformed by the Holy Spirit, when we become a new creation in our Baptism, when we are born again, the law is within our hearts, Jesus says. We judge as we live, with right judgement, from the inside out.

   That is Jesus’ answer to the religious lawyer. How do we inherit eternal life? By receiving it as a gift. Our status in the eyes of the world is irrelevant.

   The message of this parable is not just to be nice to people. The message is to live the love that we have first received on the cross, the love that has made us whole, restoring us to the living relationship of faith in the one true living God for which we were created from the beginning of human history and to share the hope of eternal life, not in ourselves, but in Jesus Christ. We judge from who God has made us to be in transformed lives. That is right judgement.

   Near the end of the movie on Mrs. Rodgers, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”, Fred Rogers, who was a Presbyterian minister, is speaking to a crowd and says,

   “From the time you were very little, you've had people who have smiled you into smiling, people who have talked you into talking, sung you into singing, loved you into loving. So, on this extra special day, let's take some time to think of those extra special people. Some of them may be right here, some may be far away. Some may even be in heaven. No matter where they are, deep down you know they've always wanted what was best for you. They've always cared about you beyond measure and have encouraged you to be true to the best within you. Let's just take a minute of silence to think about those people now.”

   Who has “loved you into being”? Who made those people into who they were and are? God.

   And we can be that kind of neighbor for others who need us because God has first loved us into eternal being.

   Was the man who was mugged on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho grateful? Are any of us sufficiently grateful for what God has given us? For what God has forgiven, for what God has restored in us?

   We can’t earn this inheritance. It is a gift of the loving and gracious and merciful God.

   Heaven is coming and it will be full of all kinds of people.

   What can we do for a broken world to make it whole again? What has the cross given us and called, equipped and sent us to do?

   Declare the inbreaking of the already but not yet fully here Kingdom of God by word and by deed by right judgment to everyone in need who God places in front of you. That is, your neighbor.

 

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.