Sermons

Fifth Sunday after Trinty

Sunday 8th July at 10am

Simon Cowling
Readings: Isaiah 66. 10-14; Luke 10. 1-11 & 16-20

Journeys are much on my mind at the moment. Of course I'll soon be taking a journey with my family forty miles down the M1 to live in Sheffield; but more on my mind are journeys of faith. Two weeks ago we celebrated together here at St Edmund's the sacraments of baptism and confirmation, with Bishop James presiding. The water of baptism and the oil of anointing were used plentifully and we heard moving pieces of testimony from two individuals about their journey of faith - from Charlie, who was one of our confirmation candidates, and from Ikuko. It's Ikuko who provides the link to the next journey I've been thinking about. Last Sunday all of us at St. Edmund's were supporting Ikuko as she was ordained deacon along with eleven others in Ripon Cathedral. Some of us journeyed to be there in person, while others were here in St. Ed's. Wherever we were, our prayers were especially with Ikuko as she began a new phase of her faith journey, travelling mainly with new friends in a different part of Leeds. A third person's journey I've been thinking about is the journey of another of our confirmation candidates. In a meeting that Lesley and I had with our candidates this past week, we were sharing in the chapel here what we had felt about the confirmation service. The person I'm thinking about spoke of the moment at which the Bishop laid his hands on each of the candidates and prayed for the Holy Spirit to strengthen them. "I didn't want him to let go", she said. I was really struck by that comment. 'I didn't want him to let go.' I wonder what that might have meant in the context of a journey of faith….

I hope that today's Gospel reading from St. Luke will begin to help us with a possible answer. First of all some context. The story of Jesus sending out the seventy-two - or seventy, depending on which translation you read - comes from the central section of Luke's Gospel. Much of the material in this part of the Gospel is not found in any other Gospel - it's special to Luke; and the material is set in the context of a journey. On one level, the journey is simply an actual, physical trek, from Jesus' native Galilee, in the north of Palestine, to Jerusalem, some eighty or so miles to the south - the last part of this journey, incidentally, is literally uphill. On the course of the journey, Jesus tells some of his best loved stories - the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, Dives and Lazarus, Zacchaeus climbing a sycamore tree to see Jesus. Perhaps it's because he knows we'll get so taken up with these stories that Luke reminds us twice in this part of his Gospel that Jesus is travelling, that he's on journey.

On another level, the journey that Jesus is taking is of a different sort altogether. It's a journey to death, for that is what awaits him in Jerusalem. As Jesus begins the journey, Luke talks about the time drawing near when Jesus will be taken up to heaven; in a sharp exchange with some Pharisees en route, Jesus declares that "it is not right for a prophet to be killed anywhere except in Jerusalem"; and in a time alone with his disciples, Jesus spells out the reality of what will happen: in Jerusalem he will be mocked, insulted and spat on; he will be whipped and he will be killed.

So it's in the sombre context of this journey to death that Jesus sends out seventy-two of his followers on their own journeys into various towns and villages. Notice two things that Luke tells us: that Jesus sends his followers out two by two; and that they are sent on ahead of him. In other words, each person has a companion for their journey and the journeys have a particular purpose: to announce the nearness of the Kingdom of God which Jesus has inaugurated through his ministry of teaching and healing and which will find its ultimate fulfilment in his suffering, death and resurrection.

Companions and purpose. Those are what the seventy-two whom Jesus sent out had, and we need them no less in our own journeys of faith. None of us may thrive in isolation. All of us need the companionship of others. They will not always necessarily be the same people. Listen to what Bishop David Stancliffe writes about a pilgrimage he did with Sarah, his wife, to the shrine of St. James at Compostella in Spain. "Some (fellow pilgrims) we met only for one evening, as we shared a hostel dormitory; others we walked alongside for days, until finally we or they walked just that bit further one day, so fell into company with another little group." The point is not we have particular companions - but that we have companions.

What about purpose? The purpose of the seventy-two in our Gospel is clear and unequivocal: they are to travel, announcing the nearness of the Kingdom of God, not wasting time on those communities who do not welcome them. Travelling hither and thither may not be the means by which all of us are called to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom of God, but proclaiming it must surely be at the heart of all that we seek to do as we journey in faith. Sometimes we may proclaim in words, for instance by speaking to others of how we understand God to be at work in our lives and thus challenging others to look at their own lives as well. At other times our proclamation might be through what we do, showing others through our actions that we are motivated by a love of Jesus Christ and a desire serve the Kingdom that we are proclaiming.

Finally back to my question. "I didn't want him to let go." What might this comment of our confirmation candidate have meant in the context of a journey of faith. Well I don't think it meant walking around with the Bishop's hands on her head for the foreseeable future. But I like to think it meant a desire for the Holy Spirit not to let her go, for the Holy Spirit to be a guide and inspiration. Or to put it in the context of our thinking about journeys, perhaps our candidate was expressing a desire and a prayer for the Holy Spirit to be her constant companion on the journey, and to give her purpose in all that she seeks to do in the name of Jesus Christ, in whom the Kingdom of God is both inaugurated and fulfilled. That, to be sure, is something we can all pray for - for ourselves and for all with whom we journey. Amen.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay