Sermon: Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, 2010
July 4, 2010
Text: Luke 10: 1-20
First of all, happy Fourth of July! Happy Independence Day! Families and individuals from Maine to Hawaii, from Nome, Alaska to the Florida Keys will celebrate today the United States Declaration of Independence from England. When I let Lucy, our dog, out for her morning constitutional, I thought, “aaaah, ‘tis the season for the smell of sulfur dioxide.”
Independence Day has always been one of my favorite holidays. After all, I was born in a town called Independence, MO. When I grew up in the 1970s and 80s, kids could buy fireworks at the corner stand and had the freedom to blow their fingers off all day long, if they wanted to.
I know there are some war veterans in our congregation. If you have served in the military, Thank You for your courage and sacrifice.
I’m sure many of you will be observing the holiday with the traditional backyard cookouts with family and friends, maybe catch a parade and then go somewhere to watch fireworks.
The United States of America is founded on the values of liberty and justice for all. Those are noble ideals and we should all give thanks to God for the freedoms and opportunities which we enjoy as Americans.
Think about what the Revolutionary War was waged over. Taxation without representation. Being out from under a king and tyrant. Liberty and Justice for All is an ideal that wasn’t reached immediately. It’s not like everything was suddenly perfect on July 5th, 1776. If you were a black man in America, chances are you were someone’s slave up until the 13th Amendment became law in 1865. And women did not gain the right to vote in this country until the 19th Amendment in 1920. America is still less than perfect in 2010. All that being said, people still flock to our shores from around the world because they see America as the land of opportunity, and rightly so. We have many reasons to be thankful today.
So how does it make you feel when you hear Jesus say, “Behold, the Kingdom of God has come near to you”? He didn’t say, “the republic” or “the commonwealth.” He said, “Kingdom” and that is a concept we, as Americans, are not accustomed to or comfortable with.
As Christians, we live in under two separate governments. We live with one foot in the government of this world – in our case, it is a democracy which has a duly-elected president. But we also live with one foot in the government of God, which is a kingdom with a king.
I have a good friend who is a Lutheran pastor in Pittsburgh who happened to have been born in Sweden, though he’s lived in America with his family since he was about four years old. But my friend, Eric, has two passports. He has dual citizenship. He is a citizen of Sweden. And he is a citizen of the United States. I don’t know what he’d do if his two countries ever go to war with each other. Fortunately, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about the Swedish marines storming the beaches of New England any time soon.
In the temporal realm, we are Americans. We have a Constitution. We have certain rights and certain obligations.
In the spiritual realm, we are Christians. The Kingdom of God is not a democracy. You do not get to have a say in what God’s laws will be. He is a benevolent King, to be sure, but he has never once paid attention to an opinion poll.
There are a lot of people in the world who have made their own personal declaration of independence, not from England, but from God . . . which is really kind of ridiculous when you think about it. It’s not like you can just drive across the border to escape God’s jurisdiction. How many parents have told their teenagers, “As long as you live in this house, you live under my rules”? The whole world is God’s House. He is the King of the Universe (and of every universe). When you go to a foreign country, even if you are not a citizen of that country, you become subject to its laws by being there. So remember that the next time you go to Lichtenstein or Moldova. When you go there, you are subject to the laws of Lichtenstein or Moldova. As long as you exist, you are one of God’s subjects, whether you recognize it or not.
In today’s reading from Luke chapter 10, Jesus sends out 72 disciples to preach the good news from village to village, from house to house. They went and healed the sick. They cast out demons. They told people about the Kingdom of God.
Now, I think this “Kingdom of God” talk requires some explanation for most people today. Since we have never lived under an earthly king, it doesn’t immediately seem to relate to us. People read this passage and I think a lot of it goes swish right past their heads, not because they’re stupid, but just because we don’t have any real life experience with kings and kingdoms. And because we are good patriotic Americans, whenever we do think of kings and kingdoms we probably tend to think of them as negative, things to rebel against. That’s because when we think of human kings, we have been conditioned to think of tyranny. But I am here to tell you that Jesus Christ is the King who brings not tyranny, but freedom. True freedom.
Do you remember that old Bob Dylan song, Gotta Serve Somebody? Maybe Michael can play that for us on the organ for a postlude sometime… . It’s an interesting song. You should listen to it. The chorus goes like this:
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed You’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
That’s actually not a bad theological insight. Everyone does serve someone. It might be the devil or it might be the Lord.
You see, this fallen world has for a really long time been under the thumb of an imposter king. For eons, mankind has lived in occupied territory. God is the rightful Lord but the Devil has invaded our lives and brought all kinds of havoc. St. Paul even goes so far as to call Satan the “god of this world.” That’s god with a small “g”. Wherever there is addiction, wherever there is abuse, wherever there is hatred, wherever there is insanity, wherever there is strife or selfishness or greed that is a place where the devil has been attempting to take control. It some ways, this really has become his world. You can see the evidence of his handiwork all around us.
So when the Christian Church comes along and says, “Behold, the Kingdom of God is near,” we are not saying telling people something bad or negative. We are letting people know that the day of their liberation is coming, that it is here right now.
One of my favorite little books of all time is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Go rent the movie from a couple years back. Or better yet, go home and read the book. It’s short. You can probably nail it down in one or two sittings. It’s a fantasy story, kind of like an extended Christian parable. The character that represents Jesus Christ is a great lion named Aslan. At the beginning of the story, world of Narnia is under the tyrannical rulership of the White Witch, an evil queen. And under her reign, it has been perpetually winter. As the book says, “it’s always winter but never Christmas.” And believe me, the best part of winter is Christmas so if there is no Christmas, then winter is pretty hard to bear. In the wintertime, nothing grows. Everything lies dead or dormant.
One of the things the citizens of Narnia say repeatedly is this: Aslan is coming. Now if you prefer the winter without Christmas, if you prefer frozen earth where nothing grows and everything is dead and dormant, then the news of Aslan might seem like a threat. But if you are sick and tired of winter and you are ready for Christmas, and you want to see the colors of Spring and Summer, then hearing that Aslan is coming is actually pretty good news. For when Aslan comes, the world begins to thaw.
And that is what I am here telling you now. Jesus Christ is coming and He has come already. He brings a thaw. Are your hearts cold and dead and dormant? Are you ready for some sunshine and some flowers? The Kingdom of God is good news for you. Because in the Kingdom of God, sin is eradicated. In the Kingdom of God, people are good to each other and love each other and don’t step all over each other. In the Kingdom of God, death is no more terrible than sleep.
By his death on the cross and his resurrection on the third day, Jesus Christ has overthrown that interloper Satan. Tell that meddler to move aside. The King has come to town. In Jesus’ name. Amen.