Building Relationships

June 12, 2005 (Fourth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 6)

By The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean

- Exodus 19:2-8a
- Psalm 100
- Romans 5:6-11
- Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-15)

(From The Lectionary Page)

Last month, President Bush addressed the graduating class of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In his opening remarks, Mr. Bush said, “I bring a great message of hope and freedom to Calvin College Class of 2005: There is life after Professor Vanden Bosch and English 101. Someday you will appreciate the grammar and verbal skills you learned here. And if any of you wonder how far a mastery of the English language can take you, just look what it did for me.” (Read the entire speech or listen to it in MP3 format.)

Humor has legitimate power. It can assist in building relationships. Humor can ease tensions and make institutions more accessible, and make powerful and famous people seem thoroughly human.

There are few things that I enjoy more than healthy humor, especially healthy humor with a bite. Bill Tammeus included one in his Star column a few weeks ago, which I heard this way:
A man is rescued from a small island where he had been the sole inhabitant for years. Before leaving the island, he showed his rescuers around, and they were rather impressed upon seeing four small huts. One was his living quarters, he said, and another was where he stored gathered fruits. He pointed to the third hut and proudly said, “That is my church.” After that, the man said he was ready to go.

But his rescuer asked, pointing to a fourth hut, “And what is that building over there, across from your church?”

The man snorted, “That’s the church I used to belong to.”

But it is also important to know your audience, as some jokes fall flat. At an gathering of Anglicans and Roman Catholics discussing ecumenical ventures, a Cardinal was asked, “Your Eminence, how many Episcopalians does it take to make a Roman Bishop nervous?” The answer: One – if she’s a woman priest.” Some jokes cut the tension, some take tension to a whole new level.

Those with a good sense of humor tend to embody the wise saying: Take what you do seriously without taking yourself too seriously.

Take your mission seriously. In our first lesson, through Moses God speaks to the people of Israel, freshly delivered from slavery. He says: Be my priests, live as holy people. And God gives them the means to carry out their work: the 10 Words, the Commandments as expressions of what God believes is central to life. And God also gives them Free Will, the choice to become such faithful priests.

In the Gospel lesson, Jesus tells the Twelve to take their mission seriously. He gives them responsibility for his own agenda. And gives them authority, the power to carry out this mission.

There is a graduation imbedded in this Gospel passage. It is subtle. In the first half of the passage twice Jesus speaks to the ‘disciples,’ but later, we are told the names of the Apostles, and the shift is monumental. As disciples, they have followed Jesus, have learned from him as students and apprentices. An apostle is one who is sent, to share what has been learned, and as the lesson says, to have authority over unclean spirits, to cast such spirits out, and to cure every disease and every infirmity.

But most of all, what we find in this commencement speech of Jesus is more than doing good works. In their commission, Our Lord tells the apostles to enter into relationships. They are not to take a “hit and run” approach to healing, but to commit to as much time as is needed, until their welcome is worn-out as it were.

You and I, as baptized people reborn in Jesus Christ, we are to invest ourselves in the lives of individuals, in the lives of the people of this city, in the lives of those who live wherever we are sent.

At every baptism, when we welcome the newly baptized, we end by sharing “share with us in Christ’s eternal priesthood.” God has called us to be priests, not in the ministerial sense of holy orders, but in the sense that is far more important. All of us as priests are to offer spiritual sacrifices, seeking to please God with lives marked by the choices we make, the deeds we do, the lives we touch, and the commitments we fulfill.

Here in Founders’ Hall this Thursday evening at 6:30, a local doctor committed to the work of seeing that more healthy babies are delivered and more mothers survive child birth in Haiti, will make a presentation and talk with us about that work.

Our lessons today require that we see this work as one way we might respond to Jesus’ commission that we be committed to healing every disease and infirmity. Philanthropic efforts and providing humanitarian aid should be foremost in everyone’s world view, but on top of that, for us as baptized people, healing is central to our ministry, it is part of what Christ has sent us to do, be it in Kansas City, in our several communities, in Haiti, or anywhere else.

I think at Calvin College last month, the President of the United States, with his joke about his mastery of English, showed much more than the fact that he has clever speechwriters. He found a way to make a connection with his immediate audience. His humor caused me to read his speech, which in part advised the graduates to take responsibility for their neighbors.

As the Twelve moved from being disciples to apostles, Jesus told them to be about work that is quite personal and immediate: cure the sick, cast out demons, make the lepers whole and part of the community, and give life where death now reigns. It is all hands-on work. [and notice how conveniently I avoided the admonition to do so without expecting any pay!] (See! Humor is effective!)

Dear people of God, the Lord of the Harvest has someplace for each of us to be. May we never stop being disciples, but let us also be ready for the apostolic mission, to be sent into new relationships. Let us take what we do seriously, let us laugh at ourselves often, and use our gifts to create relationships and avenues where grace can make a difference, for God expects nothing less from his royal priests.