The “A” Team

Pentecost 6C 7/4/10

Luke 10:1-11

Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and from the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth.

Sometimes I hear a bible passage and I wonder about some weird stuff. Like I hear the story of Sampson, who lost his great strength when his girlfriend Delilah cut off his hair, and I think, “I wonder if you made a wig out of that hair and you put it on—would you be super strong?” Could be a whole new charity—instead of Locks of Love, it could be Manes of Muscles, or, Curls of Clout.  Hmmm, I wonder.

I hear the story of the feeding of five thousand, and how a couple of fish and some loaves of peasant bread was enough to feed all those people with twelve baskets full of left overs, and I think, “I wonder where they got the baskets from? If these people weren’t packing a picnic in them then what was in them? What got dumped out to make room for the leftovers? Laundry? Stuff to keep the kids occupied? Trash? Hmmm, I wonder.

And how about today’s gospel reading. Isn’t there something in there that just makes you say, “Hmmmm, I wonder.”? Of course there is! What is it? No, it’s not dancing with the snakes and scorpions. I don’t wonder at all about that admittedly “way out there” statement. Because I know Jesus wouldn’t want us to squash snakes and squish scorpions underfoot – not for real. Primarily because they are a part of the creation and Jesus wouldn’t ever trample one of his creatures, just because he could. And he wouldn’t want us to do that either.

Jesus is simply going along with the excitement of the moment as the seventy return, bubbling over with stories of demons being forced out by the droves. Jesus exuberantly exaggerates the scope of their power to hail their accomplishments. He speaks metaphorically, saying in effect, “nothing can stop you now!”

But that’s not what I was wondering about this passage. I was wondering this: Those advance teams that Jesus sent out, 35 of them (2 people each team), just what would they arrange for him? I mean, this is first century Palestine—what kinds of deals were they setting up? Securing a venue? “So it’s agreed, we can use your farm field for our Jesus event. Thanks Jacob ben Yasger.” Arranging security? “Yeah, check to make sure there’s no cliffs nearby. We don’t want another Nazareth on our hands!” What do they do? It intrigues me. So is it weird to be thinking about that?

Maybe it is, but why not focus on the “mission” of these 70 unknown men (and perhaps women—the text doesn’t specify gender). After all, who are we most like in this story? Jesus? Good try. Fully half of Sunday School questions can be correctly answered Jesus. This isn’t one of them. Are we like the people in the villages waiting for Jesus to get there? Somewhat. But since there’s a whole crew of people who are well-steeped in Jesus’ teaching and well-versed in the logistics of a Jesus event, those people are the ones who best represent us in the story. We are the ones familiar with Jesus and his intended audience. We’re the ones selected to be on the ground ahead of him, in the communities surrounding us—checking out the venue, making connections, determining the people’s needs, testing the receptivity of the community. The advance team. The “A” Team. We’re the A Team.

Do you remember that television show? I think there’s a movie out now based on it (surprise surprise). That’s the show that starred Mr. T, whose famous tagline was, “I pity the fool,” or just simply, “Fool!” Also George Peppard as the leader of the team, that helped people get justice. His tagline came at the end of every show, as all the bad guys are defeated and goodness prevails. He would say, “I love it when a plan comes together.”  I don’t know what brought that up—just another weird wondering of Pastor Tom.

The A Team we’re a part of isn’t quite as flashy or heavily armed as the TV team. But that’s okay, Jesus wanted it that way—as we can tell from his instructions to the original A Teams. In fact, if we look at the intentions of Jesus’ instructions, we can determine about what we should be doing as his advance team today. And how we should be doing it.

First of all we have to understand that the mission is urgent, dangerous, and we’re understaffed—so don’t be distracted. Don’t concentrate on baggage—supplies and conditions that need to be met before we can go. (Remember last week’s sermon—it’s always the right time and never the right time to answer Christ’s call to follow.) Don’t worry about funding, live off the land, so to speak. The danger in our work is that we forget we are lambs, and act like wolves. Our mission is not to divide and conquer, but rather to unify and offer the gospel to all in a gentle way.

Indeed, Jesus insists that we bring his peace to all. And  his peace is so much more than “Peace!” It’s emotional well-being, it’s good physical health, it’s spiritual strength, it’s justice for the downtrodden and oppressed, and it’s forgiveness and mercy and grace. We are to offer the way to a new life in a transformed world to all who would receive it. We are to spark interest in people’s hearts and minds. An interest in the one who cares about them so much that he sent us to prepare them for the magnitude of what Jesus will bring them. So that they might be open and ready to hear the Spirit calling them into relationship with God.

Yes, but how do we actually do those things? Do we set up and organize and promote big revivals a la Billy Graham or Luis Pulau? That’s one way. But it’s not by any means the only way. And maybe not the best way for us and for this community. Jesus tells us how to properly prepare the community for him. Cure the sick who are there.

Now I interpret “sick” loosely. When Jesus told the first A Teams to cure the sick, he meant heal those with infirmities and diseases. Which they did through the power of God. For our time, I consider the sick to be all who suffer—from sickness, from hunger, from homelessness, from racism, from addiction, from unemployment, from bullying, from loneliness, from all sorts of physical, mental, or spiritual unrest.

Who are the sick in our communities? That’s part of our mission—to find them and help them. How do we do that? We keep our eyes and ears open and away from distraction so that when a need presents itself, we know it.  And then we can do something about it.

And when we do something about curing the sick in our community, we do it in the name of Jesus Christ. We do it as Messiah Lutheran Church. We say, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” To all. Even to the ones who don’t listen to us and thereby reject Christ. (Pity the fools!) And yet the kingdom has still come close to them, and it will again. And maybe then they will respond.

The last thing to remember as members of the A Team is that we are merely the advance team. We’re not the show. So, our shortcomings can be forgiven and our success rate isn’t the point. Because we simply prepare the way. We do the sound check, but it’s Jesus in concert. It doesn’t depend on us. Jesus will handle the cross and tomb. We’ll take care of cooking meals at the Anne Marie House. For what truly is important is that we are loved by God, and that God invites us to help him bring others into that love. It’s a good plan.

And I love it when a plan comes together!  AMEN