Blessed to be a Blessing
Luke 10:1-11 & 16-20
Come thou fount of every blessing, tune our hearts to sing thy grace, streams of mercy, never ceasing, calls for songs of loudest praise. So come blessing, come singing, do this holy work now in our hearts. Amen.
“The harvest will come say the parables of Jesus.
We scatter the seeds, let go of our fear.
One morning will rise and all cry rejoicing,
make ready the feast for the harvest is here.” Jim Strathdee
In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus ups the anti…he’s sent the 12 & the women of his company, and they have returned and now he sends out 70… St. Luke, the closest we have to a universalist theologian uses the number 70, because in his scripture the Torah…when God numbers all the nations in Genesis 10…the number is ??? 70. This Harvest is for everyone, everywhere.
And this harvest is to be offered as a compassionate blessing.
Blessing offered with compassion.
This is so important. For I believe, if you don’t get this, you can’t really understand the good news that comes to us in Jesus….can’t know what you are to be about as a disciple…miss the very meaning of life for everyone.
Compassion..so many rich associations in the scripture…but in its singular form it translates as WOMB. So, when it says in Luke 6:36: Be compassionate as God is compassionate”, it is saying live like the womb-wonder God. Live in a way that protects, nurtures, enables, restores, and surrounds.
And when you add blessing, you arrive at the critical heart of God’s Good news—the knowledge that each of you has been given a new, first name because of great love.
Jesus is given the new name first when he went up on the mountain with a few of his disciples. Do you remember what God said? “You are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.”
And Jesus passes on this compassionate belovedness to us, to pass on to all others.
Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: childhood memory:
“I recalled a time when I was eight years old: I came home from school, devastated because my friends on the playground were making fun of my naturally curly hair when straight hair was in. They called me a “witch.” My mother took me by the hand into the bathroom and sat me in front of the mirror.
“Tell me what you see, “she said.
I couldn’t look.
She took my hand and lifted my chin. “Tell me what you see.”
I looked in the mirror and my mother said, “I see a beautiful girl with green eyes. I want you to stay here until you see her too.”
This is our sacred calling, our mission to everyone. To live in a way that holds up the mirror to each person we meet—look and see.
“You are The Beloved.”
Jesus, as a Jew completely owned as a part of his identity the mission statement 1st given to Abraham:
“I will bless you (God said) and I will make you a blessing for others. I will make your name great, and through you all nations will be blessed.” Genesis 18.
Blessed, yes, beloved, yes. Why? To what great purpose? One purpose: To be a compassionate blessing…to bring heaven down to earth.
To carry on the pleasure of God offered to us in Jesus Christ. God’s pleasure, God’s delight!
Listen to pastoral theologian, Brian McLaren: “Jesus did not come to make some people saved and others condemned. Jesus did not come to help some people to be right while leaving everyone else to be wrong. Jesus did not come to create another exclusive religion—Judaism having been exclusive based on genetics and Christianity on beliefs. No, a missional faith asserts that Jesus came to preach good news of the kingdom of God to everyone, especially the poor. He came to seek and save the lost—on behalf of the sick….His gospel, therefore the Christian message is good news for the whole world.” Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy (p. 110-111)
Universally good news for Christians and non-Christians alike.
You can be an agnostic and receive a blessing.
You can be an arrogant atheist and receive the blessing of Christianity.
You can be Jewish, Hindu, Muslim…. how is this possible? Because of us!
We are called to do it.
It is our job—our identity, our purpose, our mission statement.
This isn’t anything goes—everybody is okay-all-belief systems-are-equally-holy….no, no. Taliban strong belief system….Putin has a strong belief system…Netanyahu has a strong belief system…our President has ….well, you get the idea.
“Because we follow Jesus, because we believe Jesus is true and because Jesus moves toward all people in love and kindness and grace. We do the same.” Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy (p. 251)
Herein is the foundation of the great principle of Catholic moral theology: care for the common good….a grace full move from a theology of shame and stigma to one of love and belonging.
I don’t think there has ever been a time when the world needed Christian people who are clear that their primary purpose in life is to be a blessing to others….blessed to be a blessing.
So the 70 go leaving behind all that might sustain, comfort or protect them…they go only with God’s presence as their calling card…go not to argue, or impose some new religious system of being, but only to bless….they go from love to love, from being blessed to bless…doing the small things with great love…Mother Teresa…
This is such a wonderful secret….keys to God’s kindom…this way will change the world: As one disciple exclaims: Lord, even demons submit to us…I saw Satan fall….evil simply cannot endure a whole-hearted people of blessing…here is our hope for this world.
To show love, respect and care toward people, is not say we understand or agree with all they do or believe.
So, for instance, in this day how should a Christian live in relationship to non-Christian neighbors? Listen to Brian again:
“This coming close to my non-Christian neighbor in understanding and love does not compromise my Christian commitment but rather expresses it.”
Duties in regard to my neighbor of another religion:
- Value everything that is good
- Learn all you can
- Offer everything you have with respect and blessing.
We never apologize for our faith, but in Jesus’ name we cannot afford arrogance. We are all recipients of the same mercy and share the same mystery.
And while Jesus is our way, we dare not set limits to the saving power of God.
Ask a Jew, “What is the Way?” and she will faithfully answer, “The Torah.”
Ask a Muslin, “What is the Way?” and he will passionately answer, “The Koran.”
As a Buddhist, “What is the Way?” and she will with joyfully respond, “The 8 fold way.”
And yet, none of them will ever find the way home because Jesus blocks the way?
This makes our way absurd—vacillating from silly to horribly, abusively sad.
Now I’m guessing someone here is now thinking, “Oh, you old liberal United Methodist! Come on! Didn’t Jesus clearly say: I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except by me?” Huh? Huh?
Wouldn’t you know I would have to go to a rabbi to get it right…to redeem one of the sweetest things Jesus ever said…
Amy-Jill Levine, teaches at Vanderbuilt…story in her book about Jesus called The Misunderstood Jew:
Rabbi Amy gets to heaven after a long and happy life…
Just as she is passing through the gates a guy behind her has one of those “red-letter” Bibles…and he has seen her on T.V. and says to St. Peter very loudly, “Hey, hey, I know that lady and she is not a Christian, she is not baptized…she shouldn’t be here!”
“Oy,” says Peter, “another one—wait here.”
Goes off and comes back with Jesus…
Well the red-letter Bible-toter is pretty nonplussed and sputters, “I don’t mean to be rude but didn’t you say that no one comes to the Father except through you?”
I did.
So.
“So, I’m saying again I am the way, not you, not your church, not your reading of Gospel, and not the claim of any individual Christian or any particular congregation… I am making the determination, and it is by my grace that anyone gets in, including you. Understand?”
Rabbi Amy says the last thing she sees as she is picking up her heavenly accessories is Jesus helping the man with a Kleenex trying to get the log that is stuck in his eye. (p. 92-3)
“If Jesus is the way then only he determines entrance to heaven,.. full access to the Holy.” The Misunderstood Jew, Amy-Jill Levine
I trust him with all my friends…all my enemies…just place my whole world in his hands. Jesus’ fine hands.
Final grace note: Story Diana Butler Bass, Broken We Kneel:
One day Emma her 5 yr old daughter saw a woman walking toward them wearing a veil.
What’s that mommy?
That lady is a Muslim from a far away place, and she dresses like that and covers her head with a veil because she loves God.
Pointed to her mother’s hair: Mommy do you love God?
Laughing, Diana answered: Yes, but I do other things to show this like serving the poor, teaching children. We don’t wear veils, but we do love God.
Two days later Emma and mom went shopping and beside them getting out of the car the same time was their Pakistani neighbor. Emma cried out, “Look, she loves God!”
Neighbor looked so surprised.
Then Diana explained her what she had taught Emma about Muslin ladies loving God.
While she held back tears, this near stranger hugged her saying, “I wish all Americans would teach their children so. The world would be better. The world would be better.”
One way, only one way….every face God has ever made, gathered, looking into one mirror all desiring one thing – blessing.
“The harvest will come see the parables of Jesus.
We scatter the seeds, let go of our fear.
One morning will rise and all cry rejoicing,
make ready the feast for the harvest is here.” Jim Strathdee
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