The Sermon Text —Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

After this the Lord appointed seventy 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. See, 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 anyone is there who shares in peace, 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 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. See, 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."

One of the things I’ve noticed about dying churches is that they’ve lost a sense of urgency. No, that’s not quite right: maybe they haven’t lost urgency, but they’re urgent about the wrong things. Few things are urgent: Leading people to Christ, announcing that the kingdom of God is near, healing the sick, befriending the poor, visiting prisoners, feeding the hungry—the list of essentials is pretty short of the things about which we are to be urgent.

What are dying churches most likely to become "urgent" about? Maintaining traditions. Paying the bills. Filling Committees, keeping the buildings looking good, having the right kind of music, making sure the church calendar is filled with activities, meetings, outside groups, etc. Not bad things, but not essential and certainly not urgent.

On this beautiful, lazy July day it’s a real challenge to create a sense of urgency for what Jesus commands his followers to do. Our Gospel text aims to make us feel the urgency of reaching people with the Word of God. In the ELCA, where 80% of our congregations are in decline or barely holding their own, there is a greater sense of urgency about survival than about telling people about the nearness of the Kingdom of God, about bringing unchurched people to Jesus Christ. Why is this? Why are we so unwilling to talk to people about Jesus Christ?

For one, it’s hard to show people why they need Jesus Christ.

Most of the people we meet seem relatively content with their lives. Most of us don’t run into people dying of hunger. Most of us don’t know people in prison, or who are homeless. Yes, we know the statistics about incarceration and homelessness, but we don’t know those people, and we don’t feel any urgency getting to know them either.

I have a friend in ministry named Dave Householder. He and his brother Mike are two of the most gifted pastors in the ELCA. Mike is Senior Pastor at Lutheran Church of Hope, in West Des Moines, IA, the fastest growing ELCA church in America. Brother Dave is Senior Pastor in Huntington Beach California now, but I first got to know him as a Mission Developer on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. He was forming a new congregation in an area that was experiencing a great deal of growth, mostly from people retiring in California and the Pacific NW and moving to the Port Townsend area.

Dave once told me that the hardest thing about starting the church wasn’t knocking on doors telling people about Jesus Christ, inviting them to his church—the most difficult thing was to convince people that they had any needs for the church. Most were relatively young retirees, active seniors with money, leisure time, good health. What needs did they have that only the church and Jesus Christ could fill?

Second, it’s hard to show people they need Jesus Christ when they don’t live in dread of the Judgment. Not many seem the least bit concerned about whether they are sheep or goats; if pressed, they would surely consider themselves to be among the sheep—the saved. "I try to live a good life. I live by the golden rule. I’m basically not a bad person," we hear them say. Given the biblical picture of sin (e.g. "turned in on ourselves", "missing the mark", "out of relationship with Jesus Christ") this is certainly a wrong understanding of the human condition. More unbiblical is the self-medicating notion that there are no goats and there is no separation of the good and evil.

If people do not fear judgment, they are not likely to feel any urgency.

Another reason we don’t feel a sense of urgency to tell people about Jesus is that we don’t feel confident or competent to do it.

The Gospel lesson today says that Jesus sent his followers out in pairs to invite people into the Kingdom of God, which is near. "Travel light and move quickly," he said. He warned them that it was a dangerous task, and that they would not always be well received. His instructions created a sense of fear, of adventure, of dread, excitement perhaps, but the one thing it probably didn’t create was a feeling of serene confidence.

I think I speak for most of you in saying that you aren’t excited about going out in pairs, door to door, looking to talk with people you don’t know about Jesus Christ!

Thankfully, that isn’t what Jesus tells us to do. In fact, he expressly tells us NOT to go door-to-door. Hello Mormons! Hello Jehovah’s Witnesses! Hello Lutheran Mission Developers! Don’t move from house to house!

What he commands us to do is to greet people with a word of peace. "Peace be with this house." Jesus isn’t so much looking for members as he is in people being peace-bearers and peace-bringers. His instruction is remarkable for its vision of simplicity, clarity on the message of peace, and refusal to allow the messengers to use force or exercise judgment. "Don’t waste time-- if your greeting of peace isn’t accepted, move on. There are plenty more people who need the opportunity to hear it."

Well-known Baptist preacher and college professor Tony Campolo has formed a ministry called "Mission Year" Young adults (post high, college aged students) commit one year of their lives to living in a house in some of the roughest neighborhoods in America. They are to become part of the neighborhood, extend themselves to their neighbors, experience what their lives are like. When they knock on someone’s door, they say something like "We’re not here to convert you, to preach to you, to ask you to give to anything or to do anything. We’re here to ask if there’s anything for which you’d like us to pray for you or your family." They are often overwhelmed by what they hear: please pray for my son-he’s on drugs. Or a daughter who’s run away. Or a father who needs a job. Not everyone is willing to share, but many people do. It’s a life-changing experience for these young adults, and perhaps the most effective kind of evangelism anywhere.

Our job as Christians is not to convert people. Our job is to share the peace of Jesus Christ with others. The Holy Spirit converts hearts to Jesus Christ.

Jesus gives those whom he sends the very power he has to bring peace and healing to those who are hurting and lost. And that peace and healing which we bring will find a home with people who are in touch with their own brokenness, pain, hunger, loneliness, despair. "Those who are well do not need a physician, but only those who are sick, " Jesus says.

Anne Lamott wrote what is for me one of the most moving testimonials of Christian conversion in our age. Her book is called "Traveling Mercies." Lamott was raised in a well-educated, relatively affluent family on the West Coast. She had learned well the lessons that we are self-sufficient, potentially powerful people who have within us what we need to make it through life. She writes, "I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to save the world." But the flip side was that "God forbid that someone should ever think I needed help. I was a Lamott—Lamotts give help."

But Lamott soon discovered that she needed help—lots of help. She began drinking as a young teenager, and gradually sunk into a complete dependency on alcohol and drugs. Her live was a mess. Although she had been raised in a family that practiced a rather harmless and uninspired form of atheism, she was appalled (her word!) appalled to find herself drawn to Christianity. She says, "I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends. I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, ‘I would rather die’ … one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hung-over that I couldn’t stand up for the songs, and this time this time I stayed for the sermon, which I just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to the feeling—and it washed over me."

And she was healed. Right then, right there, in this little predominately black church, this smart, oh-so-smart, but very sick woman, washed clean, healed, restored, saved. (From Willimon, Pulpit Resource 2004)

Everyone is broken. Everyone is empty and lost and afraid in some way. You are to bring the peace they need to get well. Jesus needs you to do go out and do it.

Now. Amen.