'And Then…' by Rev Allister Lane

3rd July 2022

Luke 10:1-5, 17-20

Galatians 6: 7-16

Jesus calls us to join him in God’s mission;

God’s purposes for the world.

This is something we have discerned matters for us, as we feel God leading us forward with a fresh Vision for St John’s in the City.

We are being called to join in God’s mission.

In today’s Gospel reading we hear of a specific time in the earthly ministry of Jesus where he engaged his followers in God’s mission.

And there are four points I want to highlight from this account.

1)    PRAYER - subtle but crucial call to prayer:

“The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few;

therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.” (v2)

Note: it’s not a direct call for more labourers. It’s a call to pray!

(in a lean labour market, prayer is probably one of the better recruitment techniques!)

When it comes to being part of God’s mission, prayer clarifies who is in charge and under whose authority one works.

2)    PEACE – the mission is to bring wholeness where it is needed:

“Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” (v5)

We are to share the peace that Jesus has given to us.

Peace is what characterises the way we are to live.

3)    PAIN - The mission is tough:

“I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves” (v3)

The purposes of God will challenge the power some cling to, and the reaction will be hostility, resentment and violence.

Though not directly referenced here, we know there is a Shepherd who promises to care for us.

4)    PERSPECTIVE – Jesus’ followers are jubilant at the ‘success’ they experience. But Jesus says:

“do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’

Jesus is less interested in us focusing on the successes of the mission, but on our identity of belonging to the God of the mission.

Jesus wants us to see the Big Story we are part of.

This relates to Paul’s words in our other reading – that he does not boast in anything but the cross.

“May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v14)

This is our identity.

This is the purpose of the mission.

This is the story we are part of.

"The task of theology, is the linking of individual story to the biggest story we can imagine.

If the biggest story we can imagine is about God's loving and redemptive work in the world, then our lives will be shaped by that epic. If the biggest story we can imagine is something else, like religious nationalism, or "follow your bliss; or "he who dies with the most toys wins," then our lives will be shaped by those narratives instead.

Let me share with you what Rachel Held Evans wrote in her book Inspired.[1]

My sister-in-law, Maki, has the kind of laugh that will carry a mile. You hear it booming from her large kitchen, where a gaggle of friends, family, and neighbors always gather, snacking on appetizers and sharing stories as Maki shouts above the sizzle of some savory masterpiece brewing in her frying pan. If you come for a visit, you will stay; there's no sense in leaving your shoes on. Gregarious, entrepreneurial, and whip-smart, Maki is the only person on the planet to successfully convince me to try karaoke. She has a way of coaxing the Beyoncé out of even the stodgiest introvert.

She's also the best listener I've ever met. I've watched in wonder as otherwise standoffish family members divulged their innermost feelings over chicken and rice, as the shiest neighbor on the block suddenly commanded the attention of a room with a hilarious tale of a blind date gone wrong. With Maki's encouragement, the most mundane recounting of your day at work will blossom into a tale of intrigue and surprise, all thanks to the magic she gives two little words:

And then.

Make an offhand comment about getting stuck in traffic on the way over, and Maki will reply, "And then?"

Tell her you sat for half an hour next to a guy in a station wagon who was clearly listening to the same radio station as you.

"And then, and then?"

Commence with a dramatic impression of the flamboyant driver and his impassioned lip sync of Adele's "Hello," which only drew a chuckle from you at the time, but which now has a room of twenty laughing hysterically, as Maki continues to urge,

"And then? And then? And then?"

Everyone knows and loves Maki by what has become her signature linguistic tick. I suppose this is why you always leave her house feeling both fuller and lighter.

Think about this pattern in the Big Story of the Bible:

‘There was light and then God saw that the light was good and then there was evening and then there was morning, and then and then and then'

Not only do the Bible's "and thens" work within particular narratives to move from one event to the next, but they also work to move along the larger narrative.

Genesis and then Exodus.

Abraham and then Isaac.

Israel and then Jesus.

Christians believe we live in the "and then" after Jesus resurrection and before his return.

We live inside an unfinished story, a story that began with the Spirit of God hovering over the primordial waters at the beginning of time and which took a dramatic, climactic turn two thousand years ago when that same God became human, lived among us, and beat death once and for all.

We share this story with Mary Magdalene and the apostle Paul.

We share it with Saint Augustine and Julian of Norwich and Desmond Tutu.

The stories we tell with our lives, then, aren't meaningless absurdities, tragic in their brevity, but rather subplots of a grander narrative, every moment charged with significance, as we contribute our own riffs, soliloquies, and plot twists to the larger epic, the Holy Spirit coaxing us along with an ever-ebullient, And then? And then? And then?

In explaining the significance of the resurrection life we live, N. T. Wright put it like this:

“What you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that's about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that's shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that's about to be dug up for a building site. You are--strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself-accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God's new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one's fellow human beings and for that matter one's fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up

the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world--all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.”

Imagine if you believed this. Imagine if every day you behaved as though this were true.

[1] (215+ in Inspired by Rachel Held Evans)