O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the meditations of our hearts. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. "Rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven" Amen. (Luke 10:20).
A little girl of pre-school age was busy with her crayons. After several attempts to create likenesses of her mother and father, she decided it would be easier to draw a picture of God. Her finished product was a jumbled maze of squiggly lines. "Look Mommy," she said, "a picture of God." Mother took one look and said, "I'm afraid I can't find God in that picture." To which the little girl replied, "He's in there somewhere."
I have three questions for us this morning--
I suspect that for many of us today our rejoicing, and our work or our activities, has less to do with our Christian faith than we care to admit.
For all too many people in our so called Christian community and indeed for all too many people in the church, faith is something we add on - an extra dimension to our life as it were but not really, when all is said and done, truly central to our understanding of life.
Somewhat inclined to rejoice as did the disciples in today's gospel reading in the power that has been given them to help people to rejoice that in Christ's name they can help heal the sick and cast out demons, to rejoice in the power that they seem to have in prayer and in the fact that they can apparently do miraculous things to defeat the power of evil that is in the world.
Too often many Christians like us are totally unaware of the power that God gives to us and totally uninterested in going out and proclaiming the Gospel of God’s love How can we talk - about learning to delight in the fact that our names are written in heaven instead of in the powers that God gives us in his name - when we do not delight in or exercise that power? If I may ask.
During my years I lived in Europe I met quite a few clergy persons who did not believe in the Bible (the Bible is only a good story book) or heaven or life after this life. Also met many church going people who do not believe that heaven exists - so what would the point be of talking about how we should rejoice that our names are written there?
But it was helpful - because it got me to wondering about the question:
How excited are we about the life that God has given us and the life that God has promised us? A life in which his presence is all around us, to help us and lead us and guide us in every situation, until the day when we shed this mortal body and put on the resurrection body and join Christ with God in heaven?
I think that many of us have lost, if we have ever had it, the sense of rejoicing, the joy of living, and the sense of excitement we can have over these things. We lost the sense of rejoicing God wants us to have and to keep because we have allowed ourselves to be distracted by the tribulations of life, by the busyness of each day, and by the worldly care that each day brings.
Most of us - if the truth be known - put God on a back burner. We rarely consult his word in the Holy Scriptures. Our prayers are neglected. An our meditation on God's goodness is simply ignored in the daily bustle of our lives.
What do we rejoice in? What joyful hope do we hold onto to get us through each dayand to do so in the way that God intends for us?
What is important to us as we go about the course of each day?
What do we rejoice in...
What do we rejoice in as we see people demanding higher wages, higher profits, and greater social services while the economy slides towards the abyss?
What do we rejoice in as we see men, women and children being destroyed by wars, fear and greed, by hate and by neglect.... Some might say at this point that for us to rejoice at all in the face of the kind of problems, I have just listed is simply wrong - but this view is wrong - God wants us to rejoice - indeed he commands us to rejoice and be happy - to rejoice and be happy in Him and in His will for us.
If God is for us - then who can be against us? Rejoice says Jesus - not in your power over demons, which indeed you do have when you have faith in Jesus Christ, but rejoice rather that your name is written in heaven, that God has chosen you and has promised to protect you and help you through every danger.
Rejoice - that through Christ God forgives us our sins and calls us to repentance and new life in him, a life in which - as we strive to do his will - more and more goodness flows. Which brings us to the second question of the day:
This question can be asked in another way by asking - who is it that we work for? I suspect that most of us work for ourselves or someone else - and strive for our own happiness and contentment - rather than doing the works of God the works in which love and care and justice and healing predominate. I say this my friends because I know that often - without thinking - I do this.
Often in fact I work harder at ensuring that I am comfortable rather than, serving God and helping others in the way that he commanded. I think we all forget at times whose we are and what we are here for – we forget that we are cared for and worry more about ourselves than about anything else.
We shut our eyes to the troubles around us, and focus instead upon our own problems. We seem to forget that God - who knows our every need, carries us in the palm of his hand, and blesses all those who call upon his name and walk in his path.
Jesus commissions us all - as he commissioned the 70 disciples in today's gospel reading to go forth and proclaim the peace of God to every place that we enter - to bless those we meet - and to heal those who are around us and to proclaim to all that the Kingdom of God is near to them.
The Harvest is plentiful - he said - but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the Harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go on your way - see I am sending you out like lambs in the midst of wolves -Jesus instructed the 70 disciples to take nothing with them when they go to do the works of God - no hat or coat, no purse or sandals - no item that a man may trust in - but rather to go with only his word as their tools and his presence as their protection.
This is our calling and our commissioning to this day. We are called to proclaim and to show the healing love of God, to go house by house, work site by work site, camping spot by camping spot, village by village, and town by town, and to reach out to anyone who will listen and tell them the Kingdom of God is near; to reach out to all those around us and show them by our healing and tender care that the power of God is at hand.
There is a great need my friends for people to feel the power of God in their lives - and to hear that the Kingdom of God is near to them and its resources are available to them in their daily lives. There are people everywhere looking for that hope, people everywhere who need the healing that the word we bear can provide them, that the word we are entrusted with can give to them.
Jesus sent his disciples out to do this job of witnessing to God's love and care without human tools, without human protection, and without human security because this is the only way in which the job can really get done.
It is only as the labourers in the harvest really trust in God that they have the power to heal others, to cast out demons, and show that the Kingdom is at hand.
It is only as the labourers in the field themselves rely upon and trust God that they can show others that God is in fact present and a real help in times of trouble.
Three questions today for us think about my friends - - What do you rejoice in? - What do you work at? - And how Christian is it? Ask yourself this and ask - I am doing the will of God? Is my life in order? My soul right with Christ?
Let us not grow weary in doing what is right - for - as Paul writes - we will reap at harvest time if we do not give up. Praise be to God – Amen.
Rev. Samuel King-Kabu
July 4, 2004