The Welcome We Want (Luke 10:1-11, 16-20)
Sunday, July 11, 2010 at 09:46PM The sending of the Seventy is a significant moment in Luke’s gospel. Jesus gathers together a band of disciples, commissioning them to go out and spread word of the Kingdom of God. It is a moment with high expectation. These seventy, sent out in pairs, are to travel light, taking very little with them and depending on the hospitality of complete strangers for their food and shelter. They will serve as the “advance team” for Jesus, finding out where these teachings will find welcome or rejection.
A word of warning is also imparted: there is a great deal of work to be done, and while you find yourself wondering who the Lord’s going to call to do all this work, look out: the answer is you![1] Jesus does not reserve this work for the Twelve. Awaiting the Seventy is something that we rarely welcome in our lives: the potential for absolute failure!
Jesus does not make light of the task before these disciples. “I’m sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves” is not the most encouraging pep talk. Jesus himself is welcome in some places, and elsewhere, he receives suspicion or rejection. He does not pretend that the disciples will be impervious to the same criticism and treatment. Going out in Jesus’ name is not necessarily the easiest or safest of callings.
Jesus complicates things by insisting that his disciples go out and encounter friend and foe alike with the same attitude. If you get welcomed in and fed, enjoy the hospitality. If you are told to take a hike, take it in stride. There is to be no confrontation. If a town does not welcome you, dust your heels and move on.
I find this instruction of the Seventy quite remarkable. It goes contra to human nature, asking the disciple to refrain from meeting fire with fire. There are to be no angry words or reaction. Jesus wants these disciples to model what latter-day individuals like Gandhi or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., (who claimed he was influenced by Jesus and Gandhi alike) envisioned when instructing their own followers to go out. The rule is given for those sharing faith and encountering resistance: Take the path of non-violent response.
From generation to generation, such wisdom continues to bear witness to the better path we humans can take if we opt not to be led by confrontational or adversarial habits. In recalling the sending of the seventy, we are challenged to find ways to go out into the world to speak a word about Jesus and the Kingdom/Reign of God while also endeavoring to greet those who wish to hear and those who do not with the same humble spirit as those disciples sent out centuries ago.
Such a passage is a welcome word on a Sunday morning that coincides with the Fourth of July. On this day, we celebrate the Declaration of Independence and our nation’s development into the country that it is today. One of the rich traditions of the United States is religious freedom, supporting the rights of U.S. citizens to practice their faith convictions as each one of us sees fit.
Our nation was founded by those influenced by Christian beliefs, though the U.S. is not a “theocracy” (i.e. government ruled by a dominant religious worldview and a set of values that are maintained by compulsion). The United States stands for the freedom of the many religions, not “the one”.
In the greater history of Baptists, a helpful word about religious liberty is passed down through “the Standard Confession”, a document written in 1660 by English Baptists. In this document, we read:
It is the will, and the mind of God (in these gospel times) that all men should have the free liberty of their own conscience in matters of Religion, or Worship, without the least oppression, or persecution, as simply on that account; and that for any authority otherwise to act, we confidently believe is expressly contrary to the mind of Christ who requires that whatsoever men would that others do unto them, they should even so do unto others, and that the Tares and the Wheat should grow together in the field (which is the world) until the harvest (which is the end of the world).[2]
From such a commitment to religious liberty in the U.S. and England arose a movement of Christianity holds dear that the freedom of conscience and religious expression of others is to be protected. To be a good Baptist is to follow Jesus and live peaceably with others, whether one follows Jesus or another path. We share the gospel we hold dear, yet we do not hinder the right of others to believe differently.
Throughout the 18th and 19th century, Baptist writings included themes of religious liberty alongside other deeply held convictions such as believer’s baptism. Baptists advocated for the separation between church and state, knowing firsthand the challenges of being a religious minority. Baptists endured discrimination, incarceration and other forms of harassment for their beliefs and practices.
For today’s U.S. Baptists, it may be surprising to read of the hardship endured by Baptists in the movement’s infancy. In the 20th-century, the Baptist movement grew exponentially, and Baptists in the U.S. became part of the mainstream religious landscape. Recalling the history of Roger Williams, Isaac Backus and John Leland is helpful in reminding ourselves of our heritage and the continuing need to recognize and protect the rights of religious minorities in today’s U.S. context and around the world.
In the verses the lectionary omits (vs. 12-15), Jesus gives a word about inhospitable towns, though he reserves ultimate judgment for the divine, not the human. He invokes the old story of Sodom, a town that has infamy as a place where little welcome was to be found.[3] Jesus gives a harsh warning about any place lacking in welcome!
For the reader, it is a warning that welcome can be hard to come by for followers sent in Jesus’ name. It is also a warning to believers not to be party to offering welcome conditionally given. Likewise, as Baptists who affirm religious freedom, we confidently preach the Gospel, yet we are called to humble co-existence with those who do not believe the same as ourselves.
Earlier this year, I discovered a rather sobering story of religious freedom eclipsed by a fundamental lack of welcome. In 1943, three Jehovah’s Witnesses were on a preaching tour, and they had a very adversarial reception while visiting my hometown of Sedan, Kansas.[4] Thanks to the online archives of the Kansas Historical Society, you can find an affidavit sworn by Homer Hunter, one of the Jehovah’s Witnesses involved in this incident, sent to the attention of the U.S. Attorney General. In this affidavit, Hunter outlines what happened when his group came to town to preach their beliefs and hand out literature.
In 1943, Jehovah’s Witnesses offered beliefs quite unpopular during the height of the Second World War. In addition to their beliefs about matters divine, they were known for being conscientious objectors, and they also are known for declining to salute flags of any nation. Their presence in town soon attracted certain members of the local American Legion Post. The three men were told they were not welcome and to leave. The local sheriff was approached for assistance. He told them he could not protect them.
The three men declined to leave town and continued their proselytizing efforts. A mob of angry citizens gathered to scare off these men. An American Legion member brought a U.S. flag before the Jehovah’s Witnesses to salute, which they declined to do. The mob turned to violence, beating the three men and forcing them out of town. Recounting the incident in his affidavit, Homer Hunter asked the Attorney General’s office to investigate the incident, so that these men could “safely exercise the privileges of American citizens.”
Despite the laws and court cases helping articulate our nation’s protections of religious freedom, [5] this story from 1943 Kansas reminds us that the implementation of this ethos is in the hands of the average citizen as much as that of federal, state or local authorities. Together, we make space for religious freedom, providing the sort of welcome that we would want others to offer us. We must work together so that all may “safely exercise the privileges of American citizens”.
Here at First Baptist, I believe this sort of ethos is reflected in the spirit of our congregation. We work diligently with the local interfaith council, collaborating with people of differing convictions on common ground issues and basic human needs. We do not come to the council table looking to convert people to our own ways of belief and practice. Instead, we seek out ways to live with a degree of mutuality, offering respect and partnership.
A good example of what we’re doing right: Just two years ago this month, Dr. Richard Dundas was looking for a way to “fast track” a free health clinic sore needed in our community. He came to the interfaith council, given our collective support for the community through the Food and Fuel Fund. Within six months, the interfaith movement of Bennington worked alongside the medical community to get the clinic operational. The cooperative spirit of our council has been a key part of this clinic’s development.[6]
Recently, our interfaith council received national recognition for an educational partnership with Southern Vermont College. At a conference at the White House, the Department of Education highlighted our comparative religions course offered last fall at a conference hosted at the White House. The course offered a genuine approach to religious diversity, not just speaking of what a particular faith believes in a clinical, abstract way. Being in dialogue with other religions keeps us honest cultivating an open spirit and the same sort of humility Christ called for when the seventy were sent forth.[7]
After we have finished our worship, I hope you will remain for the coffee hour fellowship time. At coffee hour, we will drink a cup of coffee with a very delicious story. The coffee we serve today comes from Uganda, a fair trade coffee sold by a unique cooperative of coffee growers. In a rural village area, times were getting tough, and a coffee grower had a creative idea. He approached others in his village, especially those who were of different religious beliefs. Soon, growers developed a cooperative for producing and selling coffee.
What was their marketing strategy? They have quite the story to tell. The cooperative represents coffee growers who are Jewish, Muslim, and Christians. The common work of growing coffee supports their families while gathering together people of differing faith traditions.[8] The coffee cooperative models the only way forward for the religions of the world. Beyond mere tolerance, when we speak a peaceable word and then seek to live it out, the welcome that Jesus expects comes about.
What better way to celebrate this day what it means to be
an American citizen,
a Baptist,
a participant in interfaith cooperation,
and a good, peaceable human being?
[1] Here, I recall a great line from Stanley Hauerwas, as he reads Matthew’s gospel. “In a wonderful moment, Jesus, confronted with such need, asks the disciples to pray God will send helpers. The mission of the church has begun. The disciples’ prayer is answered, and the answer turns out to be them [i.e. the disciples themselves]” (Matthew, Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006, p. 104).
[2] Lumpkin, William L., Baptist Confessions of Faith, rev. ed., Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 1969), p. 232-3.
[3] The history of interpretation around Sodom (Genesis 18-19) continues to be divisive, not the least due to the tradition of claiming Sodom’s “sin” revolves around homosexuality. Modern scholarship ponders the text in a different light, claiming the downfall of the city was due to the people of Sodom’s fundamental lack of welcome and hospitality. While I advocate a progressive interpretation of such texts, I note even among conservative evangelicals, a few voices echo this interpretation. See Stanley J. Grenz, Welcoming But Not Affirming (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1998), 36-40.
[4] The affidavit of Homer W. Hunter to the Attorney General (sworn March 22, 1943) is accessible online http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/216559.
[5] The Supreme Court ruled in 1940 (Cantwell vs. Connecticut) that religious groups could promote religious teachings without municipal or state/federal restrictions. I am grateful to Ms Cherilyn Crowe, BJC staff member, who noted the connection to the Cantwell precedent.
[6] Local interfaith council leader Joshua Boettiger offered celebratory remarks at the clinic’s opening in January 2009. To read his text, visit : http://cbevermont.org/wordpress/?p=34.
[7] The course is highlighted in the remarks of Dr. Martha J. Kanter, Undersecretary of Higher Education, Department of Education, given on June 15, 2010. The speech is available online via: http://www.compact.org/news/doe-remarks-on-compact/11754).
[8] To learn more about this fair trade coffee’s back story and online store, visit www.mirembekawomera.com. Thanks to Rabbi Joshua Boettiger and Congregation Beth El for making this coffee available locally in Bennington.