A Portal for God's Peace We warmly welcome single persons, people of all races and families of every kind.   Sunday Service: Holy Eucharist at 9:30 am Child care is available   Church of Our Saviour 191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094 Map and Directions   Tel: 201-863-1449 Fax: 201-863-1474 Mark A. Lewis, Vicar MLewis@secaucus.org Dorothy Fowlkes Pastoral Associate   This page revised 8 Jul 01 http://www.secaucus.org/ oursaviour		The Church of Our Saviour in the Town of Secaucus, New Jersey Home | Welcome | News | Sunday | Bulletin | Sermons Bookshop | Stewardship | Justice | Community | Links ----------------Leave frames---------------------   Emissaries of Love Reflections on the lessons for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, 8 July 2001 By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar Isaiah 66:10-16 / Psalm 66:1-8 Galatians 6:14-18 / Luke 10:1-12, 16-20   The whole Bible, Old Testament and New, is just full of commentary and lessons based on hospitality and the ancient world's ironclad "rules of the road". In antiquity, in virtually every culture from the Babylonians through the Greeks, Hebrews, Canaanites -- you name it -- there are tales about what terrible turns society and individual lives take when people violate hospitality codes, what the Greeks called the "guest/host relationship". It' s the foundation of civilization. Even more so than reading and writing. Because -- in those days -- nothing could get done if people couldn't reasonably count on being allowed to pass through territories unharmed. And more, since there were no Holiday Inns, to be provided a safe place to sleep and eat and water to drink while they were strangers in strange lands. Breaking the code of hospitality meant that virtually nothing could get done. No exploring, no trading, no negotiating. Only war and isolation. And breaking the code regarding strangers in your own land meant that barbarism was unleashed and you yourself would be wind up a prisoner in your own little world. In ancient times, rulers who wanted to establish ties with neighboring tribes or states would send out ambassadors to represent them. These emissaries would venture into uncharted countryside with no provisions, dependent entirely on the revered hospitality code. They would go unarmed; to display a weapon of any kind meant being set upon by other wanderers, fearful for their own safety. Their only possession besides the clothes they wore was their ambassadorial credentials; in preliterate societies, that did not mean a passport or official papers but an object that had carved or painted on it: a likeness of their chieftain or king. Because they bore the image of their sovereign, they were welcomed (or rejected) in the sovereign's name. It's how diplomacy began. It's how the world began to knit itself together into a whole, instead of scattered tribes of roaming warriors. The act of sending emissaries in God's name is revered throughout Scripture. And would have been completely familiar to anyone reading the texts throughout the centuries -- until our own age broke so sharply with the past. [There's a popular new book out about John Adams just now. One item I learned from it is how even as recently as the late 1700s, with all the networks of mails and shipping that were in place by then, it still took almost four months to send a letter from New York to London and get an answer back.] Emissaries and go-betweens have been critically important to getting anything done since the dawn of time. This tradition may have been in the mind of the writer of Genesis who celebrated the mystery of creation with the words: "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our own image, according to our likeness.'" Our understanding of these words expands if we see them as more than descriptive: As a statement, in fact, of our calling to act in God's behalf. We were made to represent God by proclaiming God's kingdom. Another biblical story tells of David, in one of his first kingly acts, sending a delegation to Nabal, a tribal chief in Carmal. Instructing the representatives, David says, "Thus you shall salute him: 'Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have'". Jesus uses almost the same words in appointing the seventy ambassadors who are to go ahead of him into "every town and place where he was to come". "Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace be to this house!'" Don't go with threats when you represent me, he seems to be telling them -- go in peace. Eat what is set before you. Announce to all: "The kingdom of God has come near you". If we put the spotlight on the seventy others being "sent on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go," an interesting thing happens. They start to look like us. (This happens all the time in the Bible.) Then they revert to the original seventy, and once again they become us. We all bear God's image and have as our vocation being emissaries for God's good news. What you can see in the gospel reading is a summary of the early church's strategy for mission. Practical rules for missionaries. They move in pairs (for mutual support) through a rich but potentially hostile environment. They should travel simply, lightly and quickly, accepting whatever support they need. There's your hospitality code at work again -- so crucial to every enterprise. And they're not to worry about dietary restrictions -- a radical thing to tell a group of Jews. Their message is the resurrection, indicated by their greeting, "Peace". Remember, that's exactly what Jesus said when he appeared after the resurrection. It's the badge of an emissary who comes in the name of a well-meaning king. The greeting -- "peace" -- is more than just an allusion to diplomacy or even to Jesus. It's Luke's shorthand for the results of the resurrection: The dawning of the kingdom of God on earth, the peaceable kingdom. That message calls forth either a faithful response or a stern rejection. Missionaries should not waste time when the message is rejected; they should move on immediately to new territory. People who aren't interested in peace are often unlikely to give ambassadors a chance to persuade. I had a short but interesting talk with a parishioner this week. He'd read one of Bishop Spong's old books and said "That man doesn't believe Jesus is the Son of God!" But -- not having the book in front of me, I proposed that the Bishop might have been saying that Jesus is no more nor less the Son of God than any of us are. Well, that wasn't very convincing. So I had to give in. But it's something I've been thinking about ever since. The commissioning related in today's gospel story is the privilege of all Christians -- all people, if you ask me. The first reading, from Isaiah, fits with that very well. The children of Jerusalem --poetically thinking, that's us -- are like hungry infants, and God, like a loving mother, feeds us and cradles us with tenderness and peace. And from that strong starting place, like Jesus, we move out into uncharted worlds to show what a grounding like that can do for human life. Our loving Creator wants all the aspects of God shown in the scriptures to be ours as well. The goal is not to learn about love and how to appreciate it better. The Almighty One who made us wants us to clothe ourselves in love's richness for a lifelong mission of going forward bearing with us the credentials of peace and spreading the good news of God's astonishing love for absolutely everybody and everything just as millions of other emissaries (great and small) did before us. -- Mark Lewis   Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org. Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page. © 2001 -Church of Our Saviour Home | Welcome | News | Sunday | Bulletin | Sermons Bookshop | Stewardship | Justice | Community | Links http://www.secaucus.org/oursaviour Webmaster - DRoberts@Secaucus.org