DESERT PALMS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Sun City West, Arizona

An Ordinary Dozen…Or Two…Or Three…Or…

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Bernard W. Nord

June 15, 2008

(The Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Matthew 9:35-10:23

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;

38 therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” 10 Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John;

3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him. 5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. 9 Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10 no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food.

11 Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. 12 As you enter the house, greet it. 13 If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. 16“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

17 Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. 19 When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; 20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 22 and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

Back east in downstate Indiana, 40 or so miles south of Indianapolis, I suppose, and 20 miles, maybe, north of Bloomington, there’s a little crossroads town where State Route 135 and Gatesville Rd. intersect called Bean Blossom.. Bean Blossom’s in the middle of Brown County, one of the prettiest counties in the state, in my opinion, but also one of the poorest.  But every summer about this time, there’s an event that goes on there about a quarter mile east on the Gatesville Rd--on the drag racing track there and in the fields that surround it – called the Bean Blossom Boogie.

The Bean Blossom Boogie is a gathering of Harley-Davidson motorcycle enthusiasts, owners, operators, riders and sidekicks – from all over the Midwest and beyond. There are thousands of them, long pony-tails held in place by leather caps – some genuine, some fake (the ponytails, not the caps) -- beards, leather chaps, leather boots, tattoos on both the men and the women--some genuine, some fake or let’s pretend for the weekend -- and tight black tee-shirts and purple halter tops--some genuine, some fake, some just let’s pretend--all of them with grease in their hair and dirt under their fingernails. Harley-Davidson engines take a lot of looking after. It’s the Bean Blossom Boogie, a gathering of some of America’s ordinary people, actually, some of them hard-living, hard-loving kinds of people, the kind that theologian Tex Sample talks about in his books, but also some of them sophisticated and button-down--through the week LaSalle Street lawyers and executives who simply want to have the wind in their hair on the weekends. So in its wonderful diversity the Bean Blossom Boogie is a slice of Americana but also illustrative of the kind of people that made up the church that the Gospel of Matthew describes: ordinary people, a dozen at first, but then dozens and dozens and dozens more as it grew--all of them ordinary people.

When I first read the Gospel lesson for this Sunday a couple of weeks ago, the Bean Blossom Boogie came to mind. Think about what we have here in the first twelve disciples, the church. What a bunch! Simon Peter and three others, fishermen; tanned, bearded, and surly, I imagine; Matthew, a tax collector in a day-to-day job he couldn’t get out of and I presume must have hated because he worked for the Roman occupational government and his own people would have hated him; Bartholomew; Judas Iscariot; Simon the Zealot. Give me a break! Why not “Slasher,” and “Peanut,” and “Big Wally” -- Bean Blossom Boogie guys? The point is it wasn’t a group of people you’d think likely to be invited to join the leadership team that created an institution that would evolve into the largest, longest-standing, most effective, maybe, most controversial organization in all of human history. The White House, Congress, Parliament, schools, universities -- none of them have ever been able to hold a candle to the human institution known as the church, history’s oldest gathering of ordinary people.

I’m just impressed that this institution of which you and I are now a part -- and means more to us, by and large, than any other organization we’ll ever be a part of -- was and has been led throughout a lot of its history, not always by wise, worldly, erudite, sophisticated and beautiful people, but by Bean Blossom Boogie women and men with lots of dirt under their fingernails and lots of grease in their hair and lots of profane, selfish thoughts in their hearts...thoughts that hold youth and vitality and freedom to have the wind blow in your hair without a crash helmet if you want to…as precious...and to hold those thoughts up like gods and goddesses, even, while they hold their partners up, male and female, as objects to be used...and abused. I’m impressed by that. I’m impressed to think that the church was started and led a lot of the time by people who maybe were like that. Astonished is a better word. Know what I mean? Isn’t it surprising?

Now please don’t misunderstand me, and don’t be alarmed. I won’t hold up the Bean Blossom Boogie boys and girls, either the weekend warriors or those with tattoos and ponytails and lifestyles permanently affixed, as models for us or anybody to ever emulate. (Although, I have to say there’s something appealing there. I’ve always wanted a motorcycle, I have to admit, with Alice behind me holding on tight.) But I haven’t done it and don’t recommend it. The only point I want to make is that when Jesus our Savior and Lord, put the arm on Simon Peter, his brother Andrew, James and John, two other fishermen; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas the doubter; Matthew the despised tax-collector; James; Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean; and Judas Iscariot, the one whose personality was sufficiently shallow that eventually he would betray Jesus; that when they of all people were picked, the criteria didn’t include crackling and sparkling credentials of any sort.

I only want to suggest that, in picking that motley crew, there were no criteria other than “ordinariness”...and “availability.” They were as ordinary as you and me. They had as much grease under their fingernails as the most extreme Bean Blossom Boogie guy and as much malice, lust, and avarice in their hearts -- or as little -- as you and me, and maybe more, maybe less. Scripture doesn’t say. To speculate would be to speculate. Whether the world’s most erudite Biblical scholars were to do it or you and I do it, it wouldn’t matter. The disciples were ordinary people, the first dozen, the second dozen, the third, and on and on. Yet somehow those motley, ordinary twelve and their successors built, eventually, the greatest institution of all human history. And in the process the world was set on fire. Evil was set ablaze and began to burn out. (And be assured, in spite of what we see and think we need to fear, evil is being conquered.) And righteousness and goodness began to emerge from the smoke.

But, how? What made the difference? If it wasn’t the characters of the first dozen disciples -- and they were “characters,” but we don’t know anything about their characters -- what was it? What made the difference?

I think the Gospel lesson for this 11^th Sunday of ordinary time hints at it. It was that they were called…called. The translation that we’ve read this morning, the translation of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, says “summoned,” which means called to come doesn’t it? And, they were sent, called and sent with particular, distinguishable tasks to do -- cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the unclean, and cast away the demonic -- and whisper in every ear that the kingdom of heaven is near.

Now, I believe those twelve disciples and all of their successors ever since, including you and I, have been able to do the tasks we’ve been sent to do, we’ve been able to them best -- curing, raising, cleansing, and punching evil in the ear and casting it away – when we and our ancestors in the church have heard well the whispered word of the Lord Jesus that “the kingdom of heaven is near.” Whenever the church has heard that well, and has believed it – the kingdom of heaven is near --  the church has been most effective at doing the other parts of the assignment -- curing, raising, cleansing, casting evil out. Whenever the church hasn’t heard that proclamation -- the presence and peace of God and God’s community in our own midst and time – we haven’t done the tasks of curing and cleansing, and raising from death, and casting out evil -- nearly as well. We have focused, rather, on seeking profit and glory and fame and fortune and advancing our own causes, because we haven’t heard and believed the soft but sure whisper that the kingdom of heaven is near.