August 3rd, 2014
Part I-Entering Houses
Luke 10:5-8
Luke 10:1-12 uses the understanding of a stranger who
receives hospitality. It’s important here that those who go two by two are the
ones who receive hospitality and the gracious goodness of those who live in
their community. Luke repeats the command to enter and stay, along with the
parallel command of eating what is set before them, indicating this entering
and eating lay at the heart of his message. Those sent are not to enter just
for some coffee and conversation; they are to stay in the same house and not
jump from place to place.
Several things seem important:
First,
understand, those being sent, in terms of our situation, represent the churches
seeking to make sense of their situation, as boundaries are broken and the
Spirit is doing things over which we have no control. In this Luke 10 setting
the location of the “church” if you will, is in the homes and at the tables of
the people in the communities, and the stance of the “church” (its posture or
position) is that of recovering her, hospitality, actually her communities that
is, gracious hospitality. (So then, what is happening here.. is at least part
of the command not to carry extra provisions that make us independent and,
then, never in need of hospitality of the other.)
Second, this is
not, it seems to me, a hit-and–run event…there is a strong sense that these
disciples stayed with the people for quite some time. Entering the house would
not carry the same meaning that it does for us (entering single-family
dwellings)….. “House” here should be understood as “household,” which meant not
only an extended family but an economic unit. The implication is that, in
some way, the “church” is to go in such a way that it enters, indwells, and
joins the social and economic rhythms of the household (so then, now we
have the meaning of the strange comment in verse 7 that the “worker deserves
his wages”) …This is so much more than a door-knocking excursion to evangelize
or invite a neighbor to a special event or service. …This is about entering
deeply into the life of the other on his or her terms, not our own…thus the ”eat
what is set before you.”
Third, these
disciples are not to run about from place to place looking for just the right
kind of people to be with. It would seem that Luke is aware of the belief that
the “grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” syndrome, which
attacks many. …But here, staying put among people is a critical element to
being a gospel people and rediscovering the gospel for ourselves. There is no
room given here for an understanding of meeting with only my own kind or being
drawn to those who share my values and my politics. Our neighbors across the
street or next door could be from any part of the world today, and chances are
they don’t share our worldview. This, right here is where we are being invited
to plant ourselves in the local, making a commitment for the long haul. This is
not a get in and get out mission in an attempt to get our kind, those who look
and think like us into our church. …And it seems to me that for Luke the long
view, one of commitment, is a prerequisite to engaging the question of what God
is doing in our world.
This is a very different way of going about discerning God’s
purposes from the usual ways where people who share all the same values, have
known each other for a long time, you know, who can finish each other’s sentences,
…there is something wildly radical and different happening here.
So, what does all this say about our local flocks and the
crisis of identity faced by so many of the churches in America? …What might be
the implications for the kind of transformation that people are eagerly seeking
right now? …Luke is reorienting the past few decades in his time to invite
these Gentile Christians into a new way of understanding and imagining the
Gospel and God’s purpose.
So, could it be that God’s Spirit is inviting us on a
similar journey? That we, Ridgecrest and all the churches in America, are being
called to reorient ourselves, to be converted all over again in a way that may
be more radical than the 16th Century Reformation. …In our days of confusion,
and boundary-breaking, we are called to practice becoming like the stranger who
needs to be received as a “guest” and welcomed to the table of others who may
be very different from us.
Our calling is to enter into their homes, dwell among them,
and stay with them for quite a period of time without any plans to take off if
they or their ways don’t suit us. This is going to mean learning how to
actually listen to people without making them objects of our goals and desires.
…It’s going to mean a readiness to inter in to a
conversation with the others in our community, seeking to listen to their
stories and conversations in a genuinely human engagement. This is going to
feel very strange and disrupting for many Christians, even, or maybe especially
those in church leadership, because it will mean we are no longer in control of
the conversation. God’s Holy Spirit is. …This kind of engagement will not be
about getting something from the other or deeming the other a potential
customer for our “holy sales pitch.” Instead they are to be the other in a
relationship with Jesus through us.
And this leads to another element of what I think Luke may
have been communicating to these Gentile Christians whose world was being
turned inside out. He wrote that part of Jesus’ instructions was to eat what
was set before them.
