The Chosen
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 10) - July 13, 2003
By
The Rev. Linda Yeager,
Deacon
- Amos 7:7-15
- Psalm 85 or 85:7-13
- Ephesians 1:1-14
- Mark 6: 7-13
(From The Lectionary Page)
We are chosen. You and I have been chosen by God to be recipients of spiritual blessings. The beautiful opening passage of the letter to the Ephesians explains the blessings of God's call to us. Our past failures are forgiven; we are granted God's grace, a gift beyond measure. Have you ever been overwhelmed at the magnificence of a glorious sunset or the majesty of a roaring river or the soft breath of a tiny baby? At moments like these we experience breathtaking gratitude. Our response to the gift of God's grace and love is to live in praise and thanksgiving. In the acceptance of the spiritual blessings we are freed to take advantage of the wisdom God supplies, to understand that there is a Source in whom all created reality finds its center. Paul Tillich has said that the word "God" translates as the depth of our life, the source of our being, and our ultimate concern; what we take seriously without any reservation. And God has given us blessings which we could never attain on our own. It is God, indeed, who gives the only true meaning to our lives.
Being chosen can be exhilarating, like being selected first in the pro football draft...or for a neighborhood softball team. It can also be intimidating, like being asked to speak before Congress...or our local PTA. There are some calls that we can turn down, like being told by a telemarketer that we have been awarded a free trip to Branson. There are some calls that we, on the other hand, can't turn down, like being called into active duty in the armed forces. If we think that finding meaning in life, that responding to being chosen by God is going to be constantly comfortable, we will be disappointed.
Consider Amos, a very unlikely prophet. He had no family history of prophesying nor any training for it. He was minding his own business, tending his sheep and trimming the sycamore trees -- which involved opening the fig-like fruit on the sycamores to rid them of the insects that infested them -- when God chose him to prophesy. God sent him four visions, the third of which we hear in today's Old Testament reading. Amos speaks in the first person of these significant events in the shaping of his life, of that which took place between God and him. The first vision concerned locusts and their devastation of what was left of the fields for the people's consumption after the king's mowings; the second showed a fire devouring both land and sea. A later vision regards a basket of summer fruit, the end of the growth, the harvest time. The vision that we read of today concerns a plumb line. A plumb line is for testing how vertical, how straight, how unswerving an entity is. In this vision, God holds a plumb line in his hand and sees a sagging wall. So the Lord uses this as an object lesson, saying, "I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by," and God predicts doom for his sagging people.
Most people don't like to hear bad news. But Amos had been chosen to speak out against the social ills of his day. Hardly anybody in Israel wanted to be told that the sanctuaries of the land would be laid waste, or that the house of the king Jeroboam, which was extremely prosperous at that time, would be wiped out, least of all Amaziah, the priest, who charged Amos with treason and ordered him to go home and leave them alone. Amos and Amaziah show us two extremes of being chosen: the difference between acceptance and rejection, faithfulness and unfaithfulness, humility and arrogance.
Today's gospel passage from Mark also talks about being chosen. This particular passage follows immediately last Sunday's gospel about Jesus being rejected by those in his hometown. Following this experience, Jesus decided that he needed to send out his faithful 12 to be not only hearers of the word, but doers also. The disciples who had been chosen to come to Jesus were now being asked to go. They who had been learners were now to become teachers, to spread the message of repentance and love. Jesus gave them specific instructions. They were to go out two by two--perhaps a suggestion to us that faith comes in community. They were also to take very little with them, to go in simplicity and trust and with only the clothes on their backs. There were not to ask for anything in return, but they could expect to receive hospitality.
Jesus' rules were probably prudent practices that he himself lived by. Neither he nor his followers were to have the trappings of the usual itinerant preacher. At that time, wandering preachers each had his own bag of tricks or enticements to people. Not unlike the medicine show barkers of our country's frontier days. Although these preachers may have had a few good thoughts, their primary purpose was to make money. Even today we have this kind of preacher and this kind of church. Always be wary of the church that has THE answer, of the message that comes with a price tag. I always worry, too, when information disseminated about a church includes a large picture of its pastor. Hmmmm. This is not how Jesus preached nor how he sent out his first teachers.
Not creating any message of their own, the apostles were to present Jesus' own meaning of life: conversion of heart, a total and radical reorientation. This was disturbing to some--to turn away from self and in the direction of service in behalf of God and others.
Now, about that shaking the dust part. This would have been a familiar phrase to the Jews of Jesus time. You see, any land in which Gentiles (non Jews) lived, was considered unclean. So Jews who had been in a Gentile land for some reason were to stop at the border before entering Palestine and shake every particle of dust off their feet. They were not to bring anything unclean into their lives together. This "shaking off the dust" was a symbolic act, disclaiming responsibility for the actions of those who refuse to welcome the gospel of salvation. When you get the cold shoulder, shake your feet. Then get on with your work. The apostles were held accountable for their own actions, but not for the response of others to the gospel.
So the disciples were to take the message of Christ and share it, to spread it among those who had not heard the message. Jesus, remembering what had happened to him in Nazareth, was trying to prepare the disciples for the world.
So what does all this mean to us who have been chosen by God to be the recipients of spiritual blessings? We, too, are responsible for sharing our faith, for working in community, for giving our heart and life to living the gospel message; however, we will not always succeed.
We can't fix everything. Sometimes we have to let go. For a nation of fixers, I think that this is a difficult message to embrace. Many of us began to be fixers when we were children. Perhaps there were parts of our family life that needed to be fixed, so we tried and tried to make things better, and perhaps we blamed ourselves when we couldn't repair those situations. Then we grew up and got jobs and became parents. Surely we could fix the problems of our children. But no, we discovered, sometimes we couldn't heal their bodies or their hurt feelings or their disappointments. All we could do was be there for them.
But it serves to show us that we can't fix everything. And sometimes no matter how hard we try, we have to let go. Sometimes we will fail. Sometimes we will get the cold shoulder. Nobody is always successful. When we fail, we need to shake the dust off our feet and get on with our calling from God. We don't stop responding in praise and thanksgiving for the great gift, but we do move on when we must.
There is someone in my life that I would very much like to see come to faith. I'm sure each of us has someone or some ones like that. I have tried very hard to share the gospel message with this person -- both hard sell and soft sell. But I have received the cold shoulder. Still, I am responsible for sharing the good news, but I am not responsible for the response. That part is between God and the person. This piece of information is both liberating and limiting. I must respond to God's great gift, but sometimes I also must let go.
The question remains, of course, when is it time to let go. Well, guess what? I don't have that answer. I have one person that I talk to frequently about God and she has many questions about her life. She recently told me that I should have a sign on my door that says, "I don't have all the answers," because that's what I often tell her. But I do know that with prayer and meditation and trust, God will help us let go when it is time and let us hold on when we must.
We are all chosen. But we can be like the holder of the winning lottery ticket who fails to check the numbers. We will not respond to the gift if we don't recognize its reality. Life has the potential of being overflowing with meaning. Actualizing that potential can unlock the vast untapped resources for good in all of us. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined. Everyone who takes seriously God's spiritual gifts as described in today's portion of the letter to the Ephesians, who comprehends the example of Amos, and who understands the transaction between Jesus and his apostles will have plenty to think about in discerning life's meaning. Our hands, our feet, our tongues, the help we offer is the way God has of reaching others. Jesus wants us to share the faith with others through the community of the church, and that is our mission: simply to share. We must leave the outcome to God. It is our responsibility, as with Amos, and the author of the letter to the Ephesians, and Jesus and his first apostles, through our words and actions to make God's great gifts, to make life's meaning, known and understood.
