As a child growing up in a house of many books but little religious instruction, I was fascinated by our remnant collection of Bibles, mostly squirreled away in obscure corners of dusty shelves. We were like the statistically average American household that owns 3.6 Bibles per reader, but nobody ever reads them. I wasn’t sure how they came to be in my atheist parents’ home—I actually still don’t know—but they were fascinating to me. Their ceremonial leatherette covers, dense two-column type, and startling red letters suggested an entirely distinctive class of literature. Which I was mostly confused by, but—being a person with a spatial imagination—I was intrigued by the maps. What was the deal with that? How come other books didn’t have page upon page of full color maps?
It wasn’t until many years later that I learned to read the maps in conjunction with the biblical stories, and much later still that I learned that the stories really could not be read without the maps. It’s just not possible to understand the God who separated the sea from the dry land without reference to the historical places where people have been met and moved and called by God.
We come from a tradition that takes seriously the earthly dwelling place of God, and of God’s people. The Bible is full of reminders of temples and conflicted holy places. Our sacred stories document the kind of geopolitical movements that human societies continue to experience: oppression, displacement, migration, border crossing, and occupation of foreign lands. And these processes are generally as messy in the Biblical tradition as they are in contemporary times. Tribes and communities flee under duress, are met with hostility along the way, lands are occupied by colonial powers, and sometimes the migrants themselves become the colonists and oppressors.
On this Independence Day weekend, it’s good to remember that our elegant (if stressed) democracy was made possible in part because religious minorities displaced from Europe settled on land belonging to indigenous peoples. And enslaved and indentured peoples built the infrastructure that connects us from sea to shining sea. Telling the truth about the ways that our ancestors occupied this land need not diminish our celebration of our holiday. We are Christians. We know how to practice repentance and gratitude at the same time.
History is written by the victors, they say. That is, by the ones who carry weapons into territorial battles and deploy handcuffs at the border. Which makes the story of Jesus’ commissioning of the seventy all the more astonishing; you might think if it as history written by the losers. Today’s Gospel find Jesus resolutely bound for Jerusalem, the site of his own impending execution, but he pauses to send his followers unarmed and unprepared into hostile Samaritan territory. His startlingly countercultural instructions to them were to cross cultural borders, counting on nothing except the kindness of enemies. He was indeed sending them out like lambs among wolves.
They were commissioned to bear the peace of Christ to their neighbors, which is—lest the lamb metaphor confuse us—far more fierce than fluffy. The peace of Christ is the Biblical shalom; it is a peace that demands justice. The kind of peace that would call Roman colonial oppressors to account, that insisted on enemies sharing meals together, and that even now calls us to use our power and our land for the good of the most vulnerable.
This Gospel is about us, and about the way we too are sent into the world as harbingers of Jesus Christ. For Luke, the number “seventy” was a symbol for all of the nations of the world. So in Jesus’ commissioning of them, we are supposed to hear that as seventy times seventy times seventy, until the multiplication encompasses all of us, too. And the truth is that following Jesus requires all his disciples to move, in heart if not in location.
Yesterday morning our Cuernavaca-bound youth and their chaperones departed for their week of international service. A reminder that sometimes Jesus-followers are literally sent out as missionaries. But most of the time, our commissioning doesn’t actually require that we travel. That’s a good thing; it’s painful to be uprooted from home and family, as any of the refugees and asylum seekers at our borders would attest. But the Gospel makes it clear that home is not built on the weapons with which we defend our land, or by the walls at our borders, but through the peace we bear and the Good News we practice. Every single day, in every single place.
And for we who number ourselves among the universal seventy, Jesus offers some pretty specific instructions about what to do. Go into the world vulnerably. Ask for what we need, even in uncomfortable situations. And if the people to whom we are sent cannot receive our gifts, let us wipe the dust off our shoes and go our way. That is to say, we don’t have to let other people hold God’s peace hostage. And we don’t have to take rejection personally, either, because it’s not about us. We can trust God to do God’s work.
But irrespective of outcomes, the discipline of traveling vulnerably changes us. We start to notice who else in our community travels vulnerably, who has the humility to ask for food and a place to stay. I have to wonder; in what unexpected way might they be bearing the peace of Christ to us? Because that’s the marching orders we’ve all been given; migrant and missionary alike. That we go in peace. That we receive the hospitality of those who are compassionate enough (or brave enough) to host us. That we remain with them and heal them—as God gives us the power to do so—and assure them that God is near. Which is generally the most healing gift we can ever give each other.
Larry the Safeway checker knows he’s been sent to heal. I was waiting in a long checkout line last weekend and was blessed to see him do his work. A woman with a significant mobility impairment was in the line ahead of me, nothing was moving very fast, and Larry give her a huge smile and began to banter with her like she was his best friend. No matter that the harried Friday shopping crowd was getting restless, no matter that he was black and she was white. Everything about his demeaner suggested that she was, in that moment, the most important person in the world.
Who has been as one of the seventy to you? We may find ourselves called to bear good news to Cuernavaca or to the checkout line; but equally we are called to hear the good news. In that uncomfortable way that a Samaritan might hear it from a Jewish follower of Jesus who’s come asking for room and board. But in order to exercise that kind of radical hospitality of the heart—that openness to God’s peace that may come from migrants and strangers—we may have to make some new maps. To widen real and perceived boundaries, so that we don’t miss the bearers of good news who are already present at the periphery and amidst us.
How will you be one of the seventy to others? Today I’m going to leave church a little early—don’t look for me in the line at the door—because I’m racing across town to preach and lead the bilingual service at Saints Peter & Paul at noon. I confess: this is actually more about bad calendar management on my part than about any good intention to be a faithful apostle. Saints Peter & Paul is way across town, and getting there in time for the 12:00 service is pretty challenging. But I agreed to do this many months ago, before I had any idea that I would be preaching, or what our readings would be today.
But I am not sorry about it; I am grateful for Spanish speakers who will welcome my ministry, and grateful for to this connective Episcopal community that gives us opportunities to bear good news to each other. To receive peace and even healing from each other, in a time when we desperately need love that crosses real and perceived boundaries. Who will be your Saints Peter & Paul this week? I honestly don’t know, but I think that God does. I suspect you’ll hear your commission whenever—if you find your head and heart at odds—you honor your heart.
Go on your way, then, followers of Jesus. Preach good news all the time; sometimes using words. Let your love so shine before others that they may see it and give glory to God.
