Sunday 8th July 2007TRINITY V

The Venerable the Archdeacon of Charing Cross, Dr Bill Jacob

Isaiah  66  :  10 – 14 ; Galatians  6  :  1 – 16 ; Luke  10  :  1 - 11  &  16 - 20

It is difficult to make sense of a book, or of an author’s intention, if one just reads selected passages from it. that is as true of the Christian sacred texts – the New Testament, as is of a novel or a biography. Without a sense of the narrative context, or of the story line, there is a great risk that one fails to make sense of a passage, or to get a proper impression of its significance. None of us would hope to make sense of a novel or a biography of a person by reading apparently randomly chosen selections from various chapters, taking no account of their sequence.

Being a Christian was not, and is not, a comfortable option. As we heard in this morning’s gospel reading, strategic planning, and well planned action is required to forward God’s Kingdom.

This, however is what we do with Sunday readings in church from the New Testament. I would like to think that you are all so deeply familiar with, for example S Luke’s Gospel that you would be immediately able to put into context the account we read this morning of Jesus sending out seventy disciples, in pairs, to prepare for Jesus’ arrival in the places which he was proposing to visit.  Just in case not everyone is very
familiar with the works of S Luke, I will sketch in the background. Luke’s Gospel begins with announcements, of the births of John the Baptist, and of Jesus, and then accounts of their respective births, an account of John the Baptist’s activities, and of Jesus’ preparation for his work, and then an account of Jesus activities in Galilee. These end with the account of a falling out among Jesus followers about leadership – who is the greatest among them, and membership of the group, and who may act on behalf of Jesus. After this, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem to meet his fate, leading his followers out of their home comfort zones, and challenging their commitment to him over against their loyalty to their families.

And now comes the episode we heard about in this morning’s gospel. S Luke describes Jesus commissioning seventy of his followers to go ahead of him, in pairs, to announce his coming, in terms which recall the terms used by the angels to announce and greet Jesus birth.

It needs to be remembered that S Luke is not just writing an account of Jesus’ life. He is the author of two volumes in the New Testament – the Gospel which bears his name, and the Acts of the Apostles. In these two volumes, he is concerned not jus to give us a biography of Jesus and the history of the early Church. He is concerned to show to his readers and hearers – both those who first heard his two books read aloud in worship in the latter years of the first century, and us, the significance of Jesus’ life and how closely it is linked with the corporate life of his followers who are the Church of God.

As Jesus is described here, sending out his followers in pairs, so in the Acts of the Apostles people go off in pairs to preach the gospel – Paul and Barnabas, and after they fall out, Paul and Silas and Barnabas and John Mark. They even sometimes went in pairs of a man and a woman, as S Paul describes Andronicus and Julia in his letter to the Christians in Rome. As Jesus is described telling them to eat what was put in front of them, so in the Acts of the Apostles S Peter is described having a vision indicating that all foods are acceptable for followers of Christ to eat.

Luke is setting out to demonstrate that there is a very close relationship between the life of Jesus, and the life of the Church, that the activities of the first generation of Christians, as he describes them in the Acts of the Apostles, are implicitly foretold and prefigured in the words and actions of Jesus. In doing this he is claiming that Jesus’ followers are more than just ‘followers’. They, as we hear on their return from their missionary expedition, were able to act ‘in Jesus’ name’, and S Luke goes on to enumerate what the seventy, acting in Jesus’ name were able to do. They were enables, as were later, Peter, Barnabas, Paul and the rest in the Acts of the Apostles, to triumph, through conflicts, over evil. They are more than followers. S Luke is pointing out to the congregations for whom he was writing, they are even more than ‘Christ’s agents’; they are his body, through which his deeds are worked, continuing his mission, beyond his earthly life.

S Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles. S Paul in his Letters, and all the New Testament writers have a very high view of the community of Christians as, collectively and corporately, being the body of Christ, Christ’s continuing presence in the world, speaking and acting in his name. Their emphasis is on a corporate activity, particularly focussed on the realisation of Christ’s presence among them as they broke bread together, as he had, at the Last Supper and at the meals after the resurrection, and as they continued to do, and we continue in the Mass, but also expressed in every aspect of their corporate life. Being a Christian is not an individualistic activity. The New Testament writers show people acting together, in pairs – as S Luke describes Jesus sending out the seventy disciples.

Nor are they dewy-eyed about the complexities of working together. The immediate context of today’s account of the sending out of the seventy was a dispute among the followers about who was the greatest among them. S Luke and S Paul show that rows and disputes were endemic among the first generations of Christians, and so they have continued to be in the life of the Church. The disputes and tensions in today’s Church are not uncharacteristic. They happen both at the macro-level of the Church, and, of course, as we all know well, at the micro-level of congregations. People trying to do their best in Christ’s name, and to lead where they believe Christ wants other people to go, can often behave very eccentrically and even badly. We all have experience of that, but, have seen that reconciliation and new growth is possible.

Being the body of Christ in the midst of the world was not easy for the rich people and slaves and servants for whom Luke wrote his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, as it is not for us. The acts of the Apostles describes disputes between Paul and  Barnabas, between Peter and James the Lord’s brother, and between the Jerusalem church led by James and Paul about Paul’s mission to non-Jews. S Paul in his letters is regularly reacting to disputes between people like James the Lord’s brother, who emphasised that Christianity was a Jewish phenomenon and that the Jewish Law must be observed, and S Paul, who emphasised that salvation in Christ is available for everyone, and that the Jewish regulations do not need to be observed to receive salvation and to be part of the body of Christ.

From our perspective one of the more surprising strategies S Paul used to try to reconcile this divide was an expression of practical charity. What better way to show solidarity in the Church, and mutual love between Christians than financial supprt for one another, and especially for the richer gentile Christians in Macedonia and Corinth to raise funds for the poorer Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and Judea. S Paul’s letters to the congregations in Corinth and Rome have much to say about this project.

The New Testament books, and especially SLuke’s two volumes are not just collections of stories about Jesus and his followers, and mines for Christian doctrine. They were written with the purpose of building up bodies of believers, illustrating the joy and liberation that the love of God, shown forth in Jesus, can bring in the lives of individuals and groups, and encourage people to share that good news, often against the odds. The New Testament writers don’t dodge the demands that taking God’s love seriously makes – busy lives were revolutionised and redirected – fishing businesses had to be abandoned, service in the Temple authorities’ enforcement agency had to be given up. New demands were made on people’s lives in serving the good news of the Gospel. Often it was not comfortable. Being a Christian was not, and is not, a comfortable option. As we heard in this morning’s gospel reading, strategic planning, and well planned action is required to forward God’s Kingdom. It is collaborative activity – people went out two by two, not one person pushing to dominate or control, for it is the body of Christ that is being built up through us. As S Luke regularly point out in his second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, and S Paul regularly points out, it is not just individual Christians, but groups of Christians – congregations and churches – who need to collaborate and to support one another, so that the whole church can witness to the love of God working out in the world, continuing Christ’s work in the world.

Rather surprisingly the New Testament writings give a pretty good steer on what congregations and churches should be like even in the twenty-first century. The spiritual has to be worked out in the practical. It is hardly surprising, for God was very practical in the incarnation. For the love of god to be lived out practically we have to learn to work together to plan together, drawing on all our abilities and experiences. We need to behave as though we belong, as well as believing., and as S Paul emphasises to the disputatious congregations in Corinth, part of our demonstration of belonging to the body of Christ is very practical, contributing financially to the rest of the Church, especially for the support of poorer congregations.

Twenty-first century congregations need to take these practicalities seriously as they work out together how they belong to the body of Christ, and are ambassadors for Christ in the footsteps of the pairs sent out by Jesus.