Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way; I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on that person, but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near…’
“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”
The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. Indeed, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Sermon Text
I am never sure what to do with my first sermon in a new church. Do I show a side of my preaching that’s a little out there, inoculate you folks to mu peculiarities? Maybe go for something to show off my doctrinal chops, a refresher of the Nicene Creed or something that shows that I have a few letters after your name, that could work… I can never really figure out a good way to prepare the first Sunday to be something incredible and self-revelatory, so today my regular old preaching will have to suffice.
I still want to be able to introduce myself and to touch upon my philosophy on ministry. What does it mean to serve God through the work of the Church? What form do we expect our ministries to take? More than that, what do we as participants in that ministry need to model, to become, to embody in our ministry to all the world? Our scripture out of Luke has given us a powerful image of what ministry looks like.
In the Gospel, Christ calls his disciples together and laments that there is so much work to be done and so little people to do it. Looking at the twelve, he sees that they cannot handle the ministry on their own. So, from the midst of Christ’s followers emerge seventy-two other capable ministers. Their instructions are specific: go in, preach the word, heal the sick, make no money and hoard no food, and move on when your time is done. That basic formula – do, subsist, and move on – can be a powerful lesson for ministry. Likewise, when the seventy-two return and are overjoyed that they have power, Christ’s warning for them to not celebrate power but instead their identity as God’s people, is a lesson we likewise should not forget.
Ministries are meant to be relevant, efficient, and transient. Each of these feed one into the other into the other. A relevant ministry will meet the needs of the people around it, when that need is met, it will ensure people wish to support it, and when the need or the support dries up, then a new ministry should begin off of the inertia of the first. Failure to acknowledge this triune relationship is bound to cause trouble. Each has there only pitfalls, and we can explore just a few.
A ministry that is not relevant does not seek to meet the needs of the people around it. Sometimes these kinds of ministries are born out of desires in the congregation, to meet their own needs rather than those of the people they’re meant to reach. Other times, ignorance – intentional or accidental – leads to the creation of ministries that just miss the point. I met a minister who worked on the Pine Ridge Reservation once. He told the nightmarish story of clothing drives churches would hold without talking to his mission center first. The well-meaning churches across the country would gather literal tons of clothes, dump them off at the reservation, and then leave him and his staff to sort, clean, and – given the quality of the donated clothing – dispose of, what had been sent in. The ministry failed to address the people it needed to serve, and so in assuming their needs, there was a yearly cycle of waste.
A ministry that does not work efficiently will also falter. I do not mean strict budgeting or regimented working hours, but general sense for acquiring, using, and sourcing resources. If you have a food pantry, but no way to get food, then you are not going to have a food pantry for long. If you have one person who is passionate about a ministry and they establish no successor, then when they move on for one reason or another, that ministry will probably die out too. Ministry must do as the seventy-two did – meet the people, help them in the midst of trouble, and not take more than it needs or meander between too many disparate ideas. To truly be in ministry to all the world, we have to find a niche and embrace our participation in it.
Finally, a ministry must be transient in the sense that it will have its time to exist, and its time to fade away and make way for something new. Many times, a ministry will linger long past the time it is doing its best work, because the people involved are attached to it. We remember when we had hundreds of people involved with it, and we believe that if we just can keep doing things the same way for a few more years, they will all suddenly appear again. The flow of time, of people, of circumstances, means that sometimes a ministry will run out of people to serve, resources to serve them, or just fizzle out. There is no shame in that, just the life cycle of things.
The final point Jesus makes to the seventy-two is that they should not rejoice that they have been given power from Heaven, and I think that touches upon our general love of ministry. We love to do God’s work, to serve the people of our community, but sometimes love of doing supplants love of people. I am a busy body, for sure, I need to be doing something constantly. This is dangerous and has gotten me in trouble at home. Cleaning the house, I throw away things my wife needs, because in my desire to get things done, I clean off her desk and mix up the trash pile for the important document pile. I sometimes get caught up in doing, so I forget that doing serves a higher purpose.
Let me put it another way. I take an anti-depressant. The anti-depressant helps me to function because it traps Serotonin in my brain for a little longer, helping my body actually use it. I need this pill to lead a normal life, but I do not actually have a particular affection for it. Someday, I will need to up the dosage or change the drug, or maybe take two instead of one… but that’s fine because the pill doesn’t matter, its outcome matters. In the same way, the ministries we form are a treatment for the troubles we see in the world around us. The ministry’s form, its composition, and its lifespan – all are in service to doing the good work of the Church to further the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I cannot fall in love with the ministry itself to the detriment of the good that it does.
As I come into this church, I am certain that there are ministries we have not done in ages. Perhaps, the time has come for them to be revived. Likewise, maybe there are some ministries we cling onto, that need to be retired. More amazingly, and exciting for all of us, I bet there is work in this community that is not being done. Things this church has not tried, that no other church has tried, that could really make a difference. Up and down the streets of Keyser, I am sure there is something that the people need… How can we bring it to them?
I get to learn, hopefully for a good many years, all about this church’s past, about the people of Keyser, and about the ministry we owe to them. The Spirit of the Lord is moving in this world, as they have been from before time began. If we follow that Spirit, we will find life and not only life, but abundant life. We are told in the gospels that the springs of eternal life never run dry.[1] If we believe that, let us find new ways to invite people to the font, to drink deep of God’s grace, and find ourselves restored in the process. – Amen.
[1] John 4:13-14
Teach us to Number our Days 