The Fifth Sunday after PentecostE. Bevan Stanley
June 18, 2017
Proper 6, Year A, RCL
From Genesis: “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
God comes to us and promises to return in due season. We never know what God regards as the “due season.” But when it comes, new life arrives. Indeed, any time new life arrives, we can know God is acting. The second law of thermodynamics teaches us that any system will run down if left to itself. Entropy will move any system from a state of more organization to less. Randomness will increase, ultimately to total chaos. Things will wear out, break, fall apart, die, rot. The ancients used the general term “corruption.” In an age when there was no refrigeration for meat and the embalming of corpses was rare, everyone knew the smell of corruption. It was a powerful image for the effects of evil.
One of the great questions of science is how to account for evolution. If things generally move from more organization and complexity toward more randomness and simplicity, how come organisms have moved from single cell algae to plants, to vertebrates, and finally to homo sapiens? From simplicity to complexity, from sameness to individuality? What countervailing force is there in the universe that contends against corruption? What is it that defies the second law of thermodynamics? Our ancestors in the faith had a simple answer: God. This is how God works. This is how you know God is present—when new life appears, when corruption is reversed.
Jesus told his apostles to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” Each of these actions is confrontation of the power of corruption, of entropy. So when the biological system of a body starts to break down in disease, healing is the work of God. When the physical body breaks apart into molecules with decay after death, resurrection is the work of God. Leprosy in the time of Jesus made the victim a social outcast. When the fabric of human relationships breaks down, reconciliation is the work of God. When the soul breaks down or disintegrates in because of assaults of the Devil, expulsion of demons is the work of God.
This is our work: to strive with all our might against the forces of entropy and corruption. We work for new life in resurrection and evolution. We are to heal, to reconcile, to build, to raise up, to encourage, forgive. We do these things with individuals, organizations—especially this congregation—our city, nation, and world.
Consider the work of this congregation. Think of all the elements that need to be built gathered and connected together in the proper arrangement for organizational health. We need people, money, organizational structures, common purpose, buildings, and power. All of these need to be organized into a healthy system. People and their gifts need to find their places in institutional structures. Personal relationships need to be open, honest, and respectful. Financial and human resources need to be gathered, organized, and deployed. Buildings need to be repaired. This is the work of God in this place.
We say that our mission is to live and proclaim the transforming love of God.Or to put it another way, we are called to participate in God’s work of evolution, new birth, and generally reversing the effects of entropy. We all do this as individual Christians. Might there be also a call for us as a congregation to be active in the public life of our town, our state, and our country? How can this congregation help bring together people, money, and organizational health to the institutions of this town and region? With whom do we need to build relationships and alliances? How do we participate in the common life of this community? The Food Pantry is a great example. Because of Deacon Amy’s building relationships with other people in town we are receiving donations of food from all directions. Our institutions are helping neighbors help neighbors and share their abundance. So what relationships are the rest of us building so that we can learn and then address the real concerns and issues of our community?
In our country our political systems seem to be falling victim to entropy as well. Public relationships by members of the two major parties are breaking down. The ability to govern effectively seems to be diminishing. The rancor of public discourse has increased. I am proud to say that one of our parishioners, Sky Post, has taken the initiative with another Christian to create a discussion group designed to engage people of differing perspectives to discuss issues of public concern with respect and openness. This is building the Kingdom.
Jesus did not come to meet our needs.If that was his purpose, he was miserable failure.He did not heal everyone who was sick; he healed a few.He did not eliminate hunger; he fed a crowd on two occasions.He did not rid the world of demons; he cast out a few.Jesus did not come to meet our needs, because our needs are endless.Why did Jesus come to us?Jesus’ mission was to save the world.Jesus came to reconcile the world to God.He came to establish the Kingdom of God.He came to change us so that we could defeat entropy.
How did he do it?Was he successful?What did Jesus do?
After being baptized by John in the Jordan, and tempted by the Devil, Jesus started to preach.His message was, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” He called his disciples one by one. Many others were attracted by his preaching and healing, by his stories and his charisma.Out of them all he selected twelve.Twelve ordinary people to be his apprentices.He knew the job of saving the world is too big for him to do it by himself.The Kingdom of God is built person by person, relationship by relationship.Jesus could handle twelve.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus sees that the job is too big for himself. “The Harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” So he sends the twelve out with the same authority he has himself.Their mission is to proclaim the Good News.That good news is that the Kingdom has come near.The tense of the verb in Greek is a perfect which indicates the present state that is the result of an action that has already taken place.The Kingdom is near now because its drawing near has already occurred.The Kingdom is close enough to touch. This is the “due season” of new life.
Jesus worked for three years, recruited and trained twelve leaders and 120 disciples, and one of his leaders betrayed him.Then he was done, he said.The mustard seed had been planted.Jesus waited until it sprouted and was showing its first leaves.And then he left.That bush has been growing ever since, blazing with flames of the Holy Spirit, and yet not consumed.And here we are in Litchfield.About 80 of us.Jesus is saving the world by having you, his leaders, meet people, make disciples, select and train more leaders.
What we are given in today’s Gospel is a strategy, blueprint for our mission as Jesus’ followers.He sends us out with authority over all disease and spiritual opposition, even death.Our task is to proclaim the Good News that the Kingdom has come near. WE do it by building relationships, and engaging with people around their real concerns. The Kingdom is at hand.God is among us. The Holy Spirit is acting among us. Go tell someone.Don’t talk to strangers.Jesus sent his apostles only to their fellow Israelites.Go to people you know.Don’t try to tell a stranger about your Lord.Make a friend, be a friend, then bring that friend to Jesus.
In the end Jesus says to the eleven, I made you my followers.Now you go and make your own followers.Continue my work.Come, rise, we have a kingdom to build and corruption to defeat.This is the due season when God brings new life. Amen.