2nd Sunday after Pentecost

 

Gospel: Matthew 9:35--10:14

Have you ever laughed at God?  Not laughing with God, like “Oh God!  There you go again!”  or with jokes like this, “Want to make God laugh?  Tell him your plans.”  Have you ever laughed because God told you God’s plans and they were so far from what you were experiencing in the moment, all you could do is laugh?  This isn’t a tickled my funny bone laugh or an isn’t that silly laugh.  This is a disbelieving, incredulous laugh.  In today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, Sarah did laugh when God said she’d have a baby in her old age.  It was an “I’ll believe it when I see it laugh.”  And Sarah did come to see it.

The disciples, too, are laughing an uncomfortable laugh.  It is one thing for Jesus to cure and cast out demons and raise the dead, but they are going to do the same?  It’s laughable.  They can’t even walk 10 steps without arguing and doubting and coming up short, and here’s Jesus giving them this assignment, this vision of what will be.  And it’s not only the 12 disciples, but you and me.  This is the assignment that Jesus gives all of us disciples and I don’t blame you if you laugh uncomfortably when Jesus tells you to cure every disease and every illness and cast evil spirits, the spirit of evil that comes between people, the demonization we do to each other.  You may laugh to yourself, or say, “We called a pastor to do that for us.”  And that’s where I laugh, because we are all disciples together with different gifts. Just because I studied a little bit more doesn’t mean I do all this as your representative.  We are following Jesus together and I am laughing just as much as you that I will raise the dead or cure anybody. 

There are others who laugh this disbelieving laugh these days.  My friend Craig has been released from the hospital after being intubated in ICU with Covid-19.  A very small percentage of people have survived being intubated with Covid-19 .  Now he has a 3 month recovery period.  God has promised him breath and new life.  Maybe that seems laughable and 2 weeks ago that would have seemed nearly impossible.  For those who have died of this terrible virus, God promises them new life, as well, and to be near to God.  Those who are grieving may not be able to manage a laugh, but nonetheless God is with them.

My friend Bonnie expressed her laugh of disbelief.  She was recently ordained as a Deacon in the Lutheran Church.  Bonnie is excellent at bringing people in neighborhoods together to talk about their real concerns and then do something about it.  There was a terribly dangerous crosswalk that many kids had to cross each day to get to school.  The bus ran along that street and cars would zip around the bus without seeing who might be in that crosswalk.  The people in her neighborhood were terrified to send their kids walking to school and there were many close calls over the years.  If you had told these neighbors 3 years ago that the city would respond and put in a flashing yellow sign to warn drivers and that safety would significantly improve, they would have laughed in disbelief.  If you told them they would know their neighbors by name and know their worries and stresses and joys, they would have laughed in your face.  But they do now and it is a serious matter, a beautiful matter.  And it is all thanks to Bonnie getting everyone together to work on it.  And Bonnie told us this week of her own laughter.  She said that if someone had told her at 12 years old that she would be doing this kind of neighborhood work, ordained in the Lutheran church, accepted and honored for her gifts, she would have laughed in your face, because 12 year old Bonnie was just realizing that she didn’t fit in the dominant culture, that she was not attracted to men and she could barely even imagine getting from one day to the next, let alone the future she lives in now, married to her spouse Amy for almost 25 years and raising 2 kids, and serving God and loving her neighbors.  Bonnie may not have raised the dead, but she may well have prevented loss of life and she brought new life to her neighborhood.  It suddenly doesn’t seem so laughable.

Many people are becoming aware of the treatment of black and brown people in our country.  They have seen brutality.  They have experienced brutality.   This week we commemorate the 5 year anniversary of the murder by a white ELCA Lutheran man of 9 African American people at a Bible Study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.  How does someone from our denomination learn to hate?  Some say it is an isolated incident.  Some say it is a symptom of something deeper in this, the whitest Christian denomination.  I come from a family where my dad served 4 years in the US Army and then was done, because he didn’t want me to go to school with black people or God-forbid to marry one.  But my parents also told me I was lucky to be born white.  They named early on that I have an advantage simply because of the color of my skin.  It would be easy to think I deserved my station in life, but I was handed so much because of an accident of birth.   Because of my skin color I do not have to teach my child to fear the police, I do not get followed around in stores by employees expecting me to steal, I can easily get a call to a congregation, I am not discriminated against in housing. This is an injustice.  And to continue without correcting our course is not what God has in mind.  I hope we don’t laugh when God tells us this vision of all people having what they need and honored for who they are, where there is opportunity and hope for all people regardless of the color of their skin.  But sometimes it seems so far away that it’s laughable—equality, an end to brutality, for love to replace fear, love based on respect and really hearing what people face each day.  God has promised that it won’t always be this way, even when it feels like it will.  God has promised new life and breath to God’s own children and it will be.

In the midst of these impossible visions in scripture, that Sarah is to conceive, that the Disciples are to do miracles, there is naming.  In case anyone is saying, “Who me?” folks are named.  Do you know how few women are named in the Old Testament?  But these three strangers, God in 3 persons, ask for Sarah by name.  They know her name, they know her concerns, they know the sound of her laughter, they know her despair.  But still she is swept up in the vision of abundant new life and blessing that God is overflowing with.  And the Disciples, too, are all named in the Gospel, in case one of them tries to get out of it because of feeling inadequate, not up to the task.  In our baptism, we are named before God, and put to work in God’s mission, working toward God’s vision.  God gives you authority to cast out evil spirits and cure every illness and disease: It might seem laughable to you, but Jesus isn’t laughing.   He’s serious.

The first thing we can do is look for God in the here and now.  There are glimpses of the Kingdom of God breaking in and transforming our world.  Conversations are beginning to happen and relationships form that lead to deeper change.  We can see God’s saving action in our own families and among our friends.  We can feel God causing us, too, to long for that vision that seems so far away.  We experience moments of healing or insight or understanding.  We find ourselves with the compassion of Jesus for the harassed and helpless. We find that God won’t let us stay the same.  From this moment of noticing and listening, we will swept up in the movement of the Holy Spirit.  God’s reign is coming.  Laugh if you want, but it is unstoppable, and God will use even little you and me to do great and powerful things, to bring in the Kingdom.