July 4, 2010

I’ve never really been a big fan of the 4^th of July. I’m not that patriotic in the first place–maybe it’s because I graduated from high school in 1976 and we had to wear red white and blue graduation gowns. Over the years I’ve come to think that the primary purpose of the 4^th of July is to provide sales for fireworks vendors. I’ll be curious to hear what it sounds like tonight. In fact, growing up, the main reason I looked forward to Independence Day was that it was a day off of working for my dad building and renovating houses, and on my summer calendar on which each day of work was marked off, it meant I had made it through one full month and only had two more months to go.

It’s always a sensitive issue about whether, or how much, to focus on the national celebration in our worship; but it’s even more curious when Sunday falls on the 4^th as it does today. In fact, there’s a temptation to conflate Christianity with patriotism. I’m sure it happens here in Wisconsin, too, but churches in the South would advertise their patriotic celebrations on the Sundays closest to Memorial Day and July 4, promising visits from armed forces color guards, patriotic music, and the like. There was one Baptist Church in Greenville that lined its property from one end to another with a display of American flags.

We won’t have any of that, you can be sure, as long as I’m at Grace, but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the traditional rituals of barbecue and fireworks. I certainly will later today. But that’s for then. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with giving thanks to God for all of the blessings bestowed on our nation over the centuries, for the freedoms we enjoy and for the lives we live. But that’s only part of the story. As Christians, we need also to acknowledge that God’s favor is not unique to our country. Moreover, while I’m no fan of the Freedom from Religion folk, I agree wholeheartedly with the ad I saw on the side of a bus this week. It was a quotation from President John Adams (who was a Unitarian, not a Christian, by the way). It said something to the effect that the US was not founded as a Christian nation.

This morning, let’s keep our focus on the scriptures that were put before us. I hope that as you listened to the first lesson, the story of Elisha and Naaman, you were intrigued by the way in which this story deals with questions of nationalism and religious identity—questions that come to the forefront on today’s national holiday.

Aram and Israel were neighbors. Occasionally they cooperated with each other to repel common threats; often, though, they quarreled with one another. The story suggests that Israel was weaker than Aram. The story plays off of ancient near-eastern assumptions about the relationship between religion and the state. Even at this stage in Israel’s history, few people believed that their God, Yahweh, was the ruler of the universe. Instead, their God was their God, while other peoples worshiped other gods. Religion, nationalism, and ethnic identity were all bound together. So Naaman’s arrival in Israel constituted a foreign-policy crisis, evidenced by the terrified response of Israel’s king.

Still, Elisha is able to extricate the king from the quandary by offering to heal Naaman. Naaman comes to him, but instead of doing what prophets do, namely make a big show of their power, Elisha simply instructed Naaman to wash in the Jordan. Naaman’s response is typical of a patriot—aren’t our rivers better than yours? It’s only after further persuasion from his Israelite slave girl that he accedes to Elisha’s commands, washes and is cleansed.

Although the reading this morning ends there, the story doesn’t. Naaman returns to Elisha and proclaims his faith in Israel’s and Elisha’s God: “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.” He wants to give Elisha a reward, but when Elisha refuses, asks that he might take two wagonfuls of earth from Israel so he can worship God on the holy land of Israel. He also asks pardon in advance for having to worship the gods of Aram with the king of Aram.

The mention of taking dirt to Aram underscores the connection in the ancient near East between the land and the gods. But it’s not just the biblical tradition in which that connection is made. Other religions do the same. Most of the world’s religions have a profound sense that there is some sacred ground. It’s no accident Israel is called the Holy Land by many Christians. It’s also no accident that Muslims, throughout the world, pray in the direction of Mecca, and have as a life goal making the haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Even Hinduism has something similar. There’s a story about one of the leading princes of India who was invited to attend Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, celebrating her 60 years as queen. He came, but he had to bring with him his yacht, on which was brought enough soil from India that he would not have to risk impurity by walking on English soil.

This tendency is not just, perhaps not primarily religious, although as a former scholar of religion, it galls me to say that. There is something deeply human about our connection with the land, be it the land of our ancestors, our family property, our nation. We imbue it with sacred significance. We ourselves are rooted to that land, rooted in the land, even if we have never owned a piece of it ourselves.

How very different is the attitude expressed in the gospel today. As we have already seen this summer, Jesus has set his face to go to Jerusalem. He and his disciples are on the way, on the road, from Galilee to meet their uncertain fate in the capital city. There is a sense of urgency in that mission, in that journey, and in today’s gospel, we see Jesus extend that sense of urgency from himself to his disciples.

In fact, this is one of those scriptural passages over which scholars have had sharp disagreements over the years. Many think that this commissioning of the seventy cannot be traced back to Jesus himself, but rather reflects concerns and strategies of early Christians in the first generations of the faith. There are strong parallels in early Christian literature to the exact instructions Jesus gives his disciples here and they reflect many of the concerns in early Christianity about the lifestyle and support of itinerant missionaries

The instructions Jesus gives are quite austere. He stresses the danger and urgency of the mission: “See, I am sending you like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals and greet no one on the road.”  The seventy are to accept the hospitality of towns and people who receive them, but they are also to dramatically reject those towns that reject them; symbolizing that rejection by shaking the dust from their sandals.

It’s an interesting juxtaposition, isn’t. Naaman, who wants to take some earth from Israel with him when he goes home, so he can worship the God of Israel, and the seventy who are instructed to rid their sandals of earth from those villages that reject them. Both are natural human tendencies and we can imagine ourselves, perhaps, doing something quite similar; in the one case holding on to something that has deep emotional ties for us, in the other, dramatically symbolizing our break with relationships or places that no longer nourish us.

But there’s something else to which we should attend and in a way this leads us back to where we began, reflecting on our national celebration. The sending of the seventy is not just a story about Jesus commissioning the disciples, although it is that. It says something about the way we, as his disciples in the contemporary world, should live. We tend to imagine that what Jesus had to say was meant only for those who walked with him, even the twelve. But for Jesus, for Luke, for the early church, all of those who followed Jesus were his disciples. All were called to make that journey and that idea continues to challenge us to look ahead, not back, to act with urgency. As humans, our very natural tendency is to stay in our comfort zones, to make a life that is safe and secure for ourselves and our families. But Jesus calls us to move out into the world, to take the message of the good news of the kingdom of God into the world, to travel with no purse, no bag, or sandals.