4th Pentecost
Matthew 9:35-10:23; Exodus 19:2-8a, Romans 5:1-8
Hot weather the last few days. and on our cul-de-sac that means that a few of the young entrepreneurs on the block set up an old fashion lemonade stand. The card table and two lawn chairs in the shade of one of the big trees in their front yard. a hand lettered sign that read "cold drinks". and a blue and white cooler under the card table holding ice. I happened to drive by their stand a number of times the other day. each time the two young girls and a boy waved enthusiastically and tried to motion me to stop. Finally the one time I pulled over to the curb. The boy came running up to the car. "Do you want a drink?" He asked excitedly. "How much", I asked. "Fifty cents" he replied. I wondered mentally what ever happened to the penny and five cent cups of my younger days. "Okay," I said, "give me a cup." One of the girls came running up to the car with a plastic pitcher of lemonade and the other girl carefully carried a red plastic cup. The first girl poured the lemonade into the cup. I handed the boy two quarters from the toll money in the car. The cup girl handed me my drink. The boy ran back to the card table with the two quarters and carefully placed them in a small box. The pitcher girl turned and headed back for the table too but the cup girl stood their watching me drink. I tried to make conversation with her asking how business was going ("Not so good", she replied. "Everyone keeps their windows rolled up and won't stop.") I suggested they would see more people once the dog walkers got home from work. She smiled at that thought and continued to stand there watching me drink. I said, "Well, I better be getting on my way" and started to raise my window. She quickly stepped up to the car and asked, "Are you done with your drink?" "Almost," I replied. "Good," she said. "I'll wait." "You'll wait?" I said. "Why?" "So I can take the cup" she replied. "That's the only cup we have so we need it to stay in business." It is a challenge to run a lemonade stand with only one cup. it is challenging to do anything with limited resources. build a business--gather a harvest. limited resources call for creative solutions and new ways of seeing and doing things. And then there is the challenge to live life with a one cup faith. In our Gospel lesson for today Jesus is preaching, teaching and healing his way across the country side. then our text notes that Jesus looked upon the crowds and saw that "they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." The pastoral image of sheep is relatively meaningless to our suburban experience but the harassed and helpless feeling requires no metaphor. It used to be that I would ask people "Do you have any special plans for the summer?" and I would hear in response a variety of options and various vacation possibilities. Now the answer most people give is--"Summer? What summer?" I looked at the calendar the other day and we have the possibility of 5 days in July and maybe a week in August when there isn't something scheduled at work or with the kids or family. There is no summer--only a change of scheduled activities. Of course, we are the makers of the schedules--the planners of the calendars. We fill our lives with scheduled activities. often times so fully that we become anxious and tired just looking at the calendar. It is the mark of our time that we fill our lives. schedule them up--until the cup overflows. The crowd Jesus gazed upon were the common people--the people of the land. the crowds that lived in the real world. These were the people feeling stressed and harassed by a faith that demanded they keep the Old Testament law of Moses. demanded they observe ritual actions and purity codes concerning who you could touch and what you could eat and how, when and where you could do business. The Pharisees and other religious leaders taught a religion of limits and boundaries. defined who was included and who excluded--who was loved and who condemned. But in the people's real world there were Romans and Greeks and Samaritans and women and people with various diseases. and a whole collection of folks who simply wouldn't fit in the one cup faith that the law prescribed. The reality of living and doing business in a cosmopolitan world meant that either you rejected faith as out of touch and meaningless or you separated faith life completely from the world and pretended there really was no connection between faith and living. "Harassed and helpless"--we know the feeling. the soccer camp, baseball clinic, basketball schedule, softball game, summer camp, business trip, music recital, dance session, haircut, discussion group, swim meet, church event--all poured into one cup. we stir it around a little and hope nothing spills. Harassed and helpless--every where he looked. But Jesus saw something more--a harvest. Jesus lived in an agrarian society. the images we find in scripture are overwhelmingly drawn from the every day world in which Jesus lived. sheep and goats, seeds and soil, fields and harvest. We live in an urban technological world. it is tempting to shift the image from the agrarian model to a business or technology image. Instead of a crop and harvest we consider a business model. customers, clients, product and profit are words we are drawn toward. Where once there was a Lord of the harvest the closest parallel we can think of is a CEO. Unfortunately, anyone who pays even the slightest attention to the business page can't take a great deal of comfort in seeing God as the CEO of the world. especially if we consider ourselves one of the smaller more questionable divisions of the company. And I'm not sure any of us would like to consider what it would mean if God decided to downsize or worse yet out source our place in the corporate kingdom. Yet our gospel text feels too true. look around--harassed and helpless. the harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few. This past week I attended the grand opening of Sedgebrook. a new residence complex being built only a couple miles away over on Milwaukee Avenue that will bring some 1900 people over the age of 55 to our community. I met some of the new and potential residents. yes, several of those I met are Lutheran. I was told that of the initial residents moving in--22% are Jewish. 23% Roman Catholic--39% Protestant--and 16% no faith identity. Sounds like the fields just got riper doesn't it. And this is but one of the many fields we can identify around us. which brings us to the point of the laborers. Jesus responds to what he saw by gathering his disciples and making them apostles. This is the classic question we ask the confirmation students each year. What is the difference between a disciple and an apostle? A disciple is one who follows--any student is technically a disciple. the student of a math teacher or history teacher can be identified as a disciple of that teacher's thoughts and ideas. so also a coach or instructor. the coach teaches the players certain plays and strategies. the players are disciples of that coach. a dance instructor teaches certain steps, moves and dance routines. the dancer is a disciple of the instructor. a Rabbi named Jesus teaches his followers about the kingdom of God and how to live each day--the followers become disciples of Jesus. But one day the players leave the team and go off to coach other players. and the dancers begin teaching students of their own. and the followers of Jesus begin to live the faith that they now believe. and we no longer have disciples but apostles Apostle--from the Greek words "apo" and "stellos" meaning "sent from". No longer followers but sent forth that others might follow. might learn to do what the disciple once learned. We are told these twelve were sent out. And after naming all twelve of the apostles our text provides two paragraphs of description of what those sent out are to do. This lesson was my ordination text 28 years ago. the words that were read on the day I became a pastor. That is probably not a good thing to say. because it immediately give most of you a way out from listening to these words. But these instructions are not given to future pastors--they are given to those sent out. in truth to anyone who has heard the words of Jesus. From what we have received we are sent out to preach. And this is where most begin to worry about the cup. the one cup that has to be shared and passed around or we are out of business. What are we to say? How can we preach effectively? E. Carver McGriff retells a wonderful legend about Saint Francis. the kindly 13 th century monk who one day informed his brothers that he planned to go into the nearby village on a preaching mission. He invited a young novice to go along. On their way, they passed an injured man and Francis promptly stopped, saw to the poor fellow's needs and arranged medical care for him. They went on and soon passed a homeless man who was near starvation. Again, Francis stopped his journey and ministered to the hungry man. So it went through the day: people in need, Francis lovingly caring for them as best he could until the sun was low in the sky. Then Francis told his novice companion it was time for them to return to the monastery for evening prayers. The young novice turned to Francis and said, "Father, you said we were going to town to preach to the people and you have not stepped into a pulpit or opened the Bible once." Francis smiled and then he said, "My friend, we have been preaching all day by what we have been doing." This is not the most successful corporate model--no concern for the bottom line total. Yet that is exactly what Jesus expected of his apostles--those sent out. "Proclaim the good news" he said, "Bring healing to those who are sick and life to those dying". A sermon is best not preached or even heard--it should be lived. These past two days Pastor Chris and I along with Janice Edwards and Larry Neumann attended the Metro Chicago Synod Assembly. One way of describing what happened at the assembly is to say it provided one great sermon note. a reporting of all that our church has been doing this past year.. The hours of reports and presentations were an almost endless list of ministries `that our church supports--programs for the elderly, children, homeless, addicted, hungry and unemployed. Reports of schools and new ministries, volunteer opportunities, ethnically and culturally diverse programs and then reports beyond our Metro Chicago area involving advocacy on the national and international level. disaster relief projects--special peace and healing efforts in Palestine and the battle against AIDS in South Africa. And then there were the resolutions--the affirmations for programs and priorities well done-- and the challenges to our understandings of God's will for the church. The press and media will have little to say about the sermons of healing and wholeness our church continues to bring to the world. they will focus on the words that threaten to divide and limit our ability to witness to God's kingdom. Resolutions were passed affirming our commitment to true moral values. another identified specific steps toward ending world hunger. still another addressed racism. there was a resolution about the blessing of covenanted same-sex relations. and another on the definition of ordaining clergy in such relationships. Again and again we found ourselves with only one cup. We have to place the faith we have in the only form we know. traditions--categories--laws--and our reading of God's Word. There were those who quoted scripture on both sides of each issue. the problem was that each Bible text quoted was the words sought by a human heart or mind pursuing not God's truth but the truth that supported each position. As I considered the resolutions I was reminded that Jesus never preached by first announcing that he was the Messiah and then healing or entering people's lives. Jesus always acted first. revealed God grace and love and then offered words to bring to greater knowledge of the truth that which had already been witnessed. Those who quote to me God's words forget that we confess that Jesus is the Word of God. God's love revealed for all people. The Law had been the words that people could use to order their lives. to draw the lines that order our relationships and world. lines that Jesus broke again and again. We are sent out to live the Word revealed to us through Jesus Christ. To preach by doing and being. breaking through the barriers that oppress, divide or exclude. The Word became incarnate among us. that means Jesus did not just talk about life with God--He lived it. And his disciples learned to live that same way. He sends out those who follow Him to live lives that make the word real to others. Our actions proclaim God's love--God's grace. Even as I preach this morning there are those who give their very gift of life through a blood donation. Tuesday there will be witness to another sermon of caring as volunteers head for the Habitat construction site. Our lives are the living Word incarnate in and through and around us. that one cup of faith--that we receive by faith. God's grace given and shed for us One cup. that on the night he was betrayed he offered to those whom he would send forth. one cup shared by all His disciples--all his apostles. Take and drink--this cup is given for you.
Amen