The Kingdom Either Way--July 9, 2019
[Jesus said to the seventy he sent out:] "Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near'." [Luke 10:8-11]
No matter what happens, the Kingdom has come near.
No matter how we react, whether we respond with joy or criticism, the Reign of God breaks out. With our acceptance and approval or in spite of our rejection, the new reality Jesus brings is right at hand.
That's an important detail to notice here in these verses. I wanted to take a second look here at this passage involving the sending out of the seventy here in Luke 10, because there's more to be learned about how we are called to reflect Christ for the world around us. And above all, what we have to be clear on is that no matter how Jesus' representatives are received, their message is to be the same: "The Kingdom of God has come near."
That's it. There is no further punishment doled out by Jesus' followers if they are not well-received. There is no rage or throwing of hissyfits. Nobody goes on a Twitter rampage berating "Those dumb losers in Such-and-Such Town that didn't welcome us," and nobody makes threats or shakes an angry first. None of Jesus' people get to call names or yell profanities. Jesus does not permit them to spread rumors or tell lies about the people who rejected them, nor does he let them deny the reports that they have been rejected. No one gets to call fire down from heaven or pray for a plague. Jesus' representatives, past and present, are only directed to give people exactly what they have asked for--and if the town has rejected them and wants them to leave, that means picking up their feet, shaking the dust off, and walking out in silence. No bitterness. No haranguing. No pettiness. The protest of leaving the dust behind is enough.
Now, in truth, if you go reading on to the next verse, Jesus says that there will be consequences for rejecting the Kingdom (he even says they will be worse than the consequences of Sodom from back in the Hebrew Bible, which, curiously enough, the prophet Ezekiel says were the punishment for the city's "pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease" while refusing to "aid the poor and needy"--see Ezekiel 16:49 if you don't believe me). But what is clear is that whatever the ultimate consequences there are for rejecting Jesus' representatives, they aren't the ones who get to mete them out. The people whom Jesus sends are directed only to bring the presence of the Kingdom, not to dole out judgment if people do not respond to it. We are not even to threaten people with ominous warnings of fire and brimstone, at least as Jesus puts it here--only to embody what it looks like where God reigns, and then to say, "This is it folks--the Kingdom has come near."
Beyond that, we are to be vulnerable. Utterly rejectable. And let's be clear here--there's no other way to read this text. There is no option where we get to come in, threatening and intimidating, or getting provoked into a red-faced tirade if someone doesn't like the news of God's reign of justice and mercy that we bring. Even how we handle disagreement with others--and even their outright rejection--are a part of our witness, and there's no way around that.
Honestly, I think that just might be the most radical part of this whole passage from Luke, at least for 21st century American ears. We get excited about the idea of going out, empowered by God, and doing awesome things to impress others. We have a hard time imagining that the way we take rejection could actually be a witness to the character of Christ, too. We are lacking, these days, good role models who can give lived examples of how to deal with hostility. We have plenty of front-page illustrations of how to lash out oat people like petulant toddlers. We have plenty of examples of petty one-upsmanship. We have new material every day for how to respond to rejection with threats and accusations, with lies and name-calling. But those are not acceptable responses for the followers of Jesus. Period--full stop.
We don't even get permission to separate experiences of personal rejection from having our religious message rejected, becuase there is never a time we are not living witnesses for Jesus. There is never a time where it is OK to respond to someone else's criticism or hostility by threatening them, or name-calling, or petty bitterness. Not when someone doesn't like your faith-claims, not when someone doesn't like your politics, and not when someone doesn't like you. If we are followers of Jesus, we are always on the clock for him as his witnesses, and that means the way we bear rejection is a fundamental part of how we show love to an often loveless world. If the One we represent saves the world by being rejected by it and still loving the world all the way to a cross anyway, then our lives and actions are called to reflect that same kind of love--a love that refuses to answer evil with evil, bitterness with bitterness, unkindness with unkindness. If someone isn't interested in what Jesus has sent us to offer, we simply say, "As you wish," like Westley being pushed down the hillside by an unknowing Buttercup in The Princess Bride, and we shake the dust off our shoes to move onto offer the Kingdom to someone else.
There is, of course, a method to that madness. It's because Jesus himself shows us what the Kingdom of God is really like, and Jesus was willing to bear rejection that way, too. He was willing to accept that there would be times he offered nothing but unconditional grace and mercy, but was met with a bunch of angry bean-counters who didn't like how reckless that love seemed and whom Jesus gave it to. Jesus was willing, as he famously says elsewhere in Luke, that he wanted to gather up the wayward people of God like a mother hen gathering her brood under her wing--a willingness to take on suffering and death in order to protect the chicks from the fox or the fire--but, as Jesus says, "You were not willing." Jesus himself embodies a holy vulnerability, so of course we will be sent out with the same posture to the world.
That's exactly why at the start of this story (back in the verses we looked at yesterday, in Luke 10:1-4) Jesus sent out these seventy representatives without supplies, without weapons, without money, and without extra clothes. That's why Jesus says, "See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves." The vulnerability isn't accidental--it is part of how we reflect the Christ who saves the world from a cross, who washes the feet of his betrayer, and who lets himself be rejected by the angry mob that cries, "Free Barabas!" If we are going to be reflections of the actual, living Jesus--and not just some invention remade in our own image that we've slapped a beard and sandals onto--then vulnerability is part of what we bring to the world. We are capable of being rejected. We are capable of being turned away. That is intentional on Jesus' part.
Being rejectable is not a design flaw of Jesus' strategy--it is a feature. Indeed it is the very touchstone of how God's love reigns, because the God whose Kingdom we announce saves and rules the cosmos from a cross. To offer the world the love of God means running the risk that the world will say, "No thanks; I'm looking for love somewhere else," and still to keep loving anyway, despite the rejection, because that is how love works. The most we get to do, when we meet with that kind of rejection is to say, "As you wish," and turn away to keep on offering the Kingdom of God on the next place, and the next and the next.
And, to bring ourselves around back full circle, that's the whole point according to Jesus--the Kingdom has come either way. We bring the presence of God's Reign into the world around us--imperfectly, yes, and with our own limitations, that's for sure. But as we do the things Jesus empowered us to do--bring healing to the hurting, call out the powers of evil, and break bread with strangers--we bring the very Reign of God. If people receive it, they will see the amazing beauty of how the broken are bound up and the lowly are lifted up--and they will know that the Kingdom of God has come near. If people reject it, they will see a different beauty, but no less amazing, as we answer hostility with compassion and respect--and people will know that the Kingdom of God has been right at their fingertips.
From there, the question for those we meet will be left to them to answer: What will you do when you come face to face with the Kingdom of God? What will you do when you are offered a love that gives itself away so freely and fully--and will you still insist on some damned quest to find a "better" deal or a more glamorous looking "love" somewhere else?
We don't get to control how folks answer that. We don't have to. Ours is simply to reflect Jesus for others, and no matter how they respond, at least they will know the Kingdom has come near to them, either way.
Lord Jesus, give us the courage and grace to be rejectable, and the resilience to keep offering your love even when it is difficult for us.
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