4 July 2010

Isaiah 66:10-14
Psalm 66:1-9
Galatians 6:1-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

I’m betting most of you have heard the saying, “the devil is in the details.” As far as anyone can tell, the saying first appeared the Times of London on July 9^th of 1969. However, people who study such things are of the opinion that it’s a peculiarly British twist on an older German saying, “Der liebe Gott steckt im Detail,” “the loving God is in the details.” Oh yes. One of the things I’ve learned in course of 30+ years of studying scripture, especially in Hebrew and Greek, is that the Gospel -- the Good News of an unconditionally loving God – the Gospel often is in the details. Verb forms, prepositions, word choice, names of people, places, things, geography, numbers – you name it – they’re all far more than “just words.”

This morning we hear in Luke’s telling of the Gospel Story that Jesus, in addition to the twelve disciples, “appointed seventy others and sent them . . . to every town and place where he himself intended to go.” Twelve and seventy are almost never “just numbers.” The number twelve in Scripture is, among other things, shorthand for the Hebrew people with their twelve tribes. The twelve disciples represent, in part, Jesus’ presence among and for all the Hebrew people. And seventy, in the Hebrew scriptures is the number of nation named in Genesis – seventy then is a sort of shorthand that denotes “every nation and people on earth,” -- not counting the Hebrews, the Hebrews who often saw themselves unique in all the world – there were the Hebrew people and then there were “the others,” outsiders, Gentiles, the goyim – pagans and heathens, all of them. So the number of people Jesus appointed – seventy – tells us that the God revealed in Jesus is sent not only to reveal God’s unconditional and steadfast love to the Hebrew people but also to announce that same love for all people – yes, even those whom the religious people of Jesus’ time and culture considered beyond the love of God. This inclusivity of course, proves to be central to Jesus’ undoing at the hands of the religious – the religious who were looking for a Messiah who would throw off the yoke of the Roman invaders and make the Hebrews supreme among the nations. Heck, Jesus couldn’t be Messiah – the nearness of God’s dominion could not be for the whole world – God loves our nation, blesses our nation, makes our nation the highest, the best, the richest, the most powerful. Scripture says so. Jesus, however, will not be hemmed in by that sort of thing – even if it is in scripture.

So Jesus appoints the seventy – representing every nation – to go out into the towns of the much-despised Samaritans, not as a small army, but two-by-two – without anything that would speak of power or privilege or might – and Jesus commands them to speak “peace.” Now the word peace as it’s used in the scriptures means far, far more than just an absence of war or violence. The Biblical concept of peace – shalom in Hebrew – definitely includes the idea of an absence of war or violence – but shalom points as well to an end of oppression, an end that brings with it an equal distribution of the world’s goods and the absence of suffering in a creation where the lion and the lamb lie down together, a creation where none eat or devour one another. To announce peace, shalom, is to announce the arrival of God’s dominion where shalom is all and in all – the dominion of God that brings an end to the reign of chaos – and chaos, a word denoting an evil force, chaos, a demon – that which is the opposite of shalom. The seventy – like sheep among the wolves, naïve, trusting, gentle, defenseless – are appointed are appointed to cast out demons – in itself another way of announcing shalom, the presence of the dominion of God fully embodied in the Christ event.

We’re all aware that this is the Fourth of July. Now, don’t get me wrong in what I’m about to say – I love this land – this is my home, the country where my heart is. And I do know that merely by being born here I have much that I might not have otherwise had. But the dominion of God must not be confused with the United States or Israel or any other country, people, or tribe – even as today’s Gospel makes clear that then neither the Hebrew nation nor the Roman Empire was to be confused with the dominion of God. In Jesus, God reveals God’s will that all the earth and every people know the presence of shalom – that God blesses no one nation above another. In the shalom announced and made present in Christ there are no favored nations. Nationalism – that which is arguably at the center of every war and conflict that has ever been – nationalism is a force of chaos, a demon to be cast out. Yes, I love this country; “hear are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine” But I am all too aware that this country’s way of life comes at the expense of much of the rest of the people on earth, who are all equally belovéd children of God. I’m aware that my own way of life is implicated unjust distribution of the world’s natural resources. I’m painfully aware that my uniquely U.S. driving habits are part and parcel of that damn mess in the Gulf and that damn mess in Iraq and likely far more damn messes in far more place than any of us yet know. I’m aware that my stock portfolio and my pension plan and the money that I will likely inherit one day are all based upon a particular “ism” that has flourished in these United States in a way that has meant and continues to mean a staggering lack of equality in the distribution of the world’s wealth – and even on these shores. I’m painfully aware that when I say “God bless America,” I am saying something that is in direct contradiction to what Jesus taught us to pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And the dominion of God, the realm of shalom with its equal distribution of the good things – that’s going to seem like bloody hell to those of us who are used to the standard of life that is ours in these United States of America.

So Pastor, where’s the Good News, where’s the Gospel in all of this? When the seventy return from proclaiming shalom, the nearness of the dominion of God, return from driving out the demons, Jesus says, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.” And this – another way of saying that in the Proclamation, the forces of chaos have fallen like lightening. In God’s time beyond all time (the most truly real time), there are no more nations nor anything else that will ever again divide us. In God’s dominion there is neither east nor west, no north nor south, neither the United States nor its nemesis d’jour, neither rich nor poor, not strong nor weak, no labels of black, white, red, brown, yellow nor anything that we can use to divide the children of God one from another. God’s dominion of shalom has come to pass, and already is – and we are all equal citizens even with those we have called our enemies, with those who have called us enemies.  God’s dominion of shalom is our only true country – given to us in baptism – and in that country none shall be derided as “illegal aliens” and from that country none shall ever be deported. In our true country, the dominion of God, all the demons of our –isms have all fallen away; and on God’s holy mountain none do anymore hurt or destroy – and the lion and the lamb do lie down together – and the God who was once a little child now already leads us all. And that we be strengthened in that faith, in that hope of things not seen, the dominion of God is made present here, right here – in, with, and under the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation – the fullness of Christ – equal food and drink and for all – without cost or labor or condition. It is a foretaste of the feast to come – the feast at which you are already seated in the dominion of God. The dominion of God – our only country – already and in the life of the age to come.