I have three questions for you today - The first is what do we rejoice in - The second is what do we spend most of our time doing - what do we work at? And the third is - how Christian is our rejoicing and our work?
I suspect that for many of us today, our rejoicing, and our work or our activities, has less to do with our Christian faith than we care to admit.
For all too many people in our so called Christian churches and indeed for all too many people in the church, faith is an add on - an extra dimension to our life as it were but not really, when all is said and done, truly central to our understanding of life.
I was talking with several people about the texts that I read this morning - and I suggested to them that I might look at how some churches delight in the model of Christian obedience that is seen in Elijah - that some churches feel called to go to our rulers, as Elijah went to Ahab, and to condemn them for all the evil that they do.
Some Church people feel that this is what the Christian life is all about - that it is about bringing justice to the world by naming the social and political problems that exist all around us and warning people that if they don't smarten up that "God will get them...."
These people, I suggested, rejoice in the prophetic role - the political role - the role that legitimates confrontation with the corporations and companies and governments of our world and which - in their minds - allows them to try to impose their particular view of what is good upon everyone around them.
Others, I suggested, are somewhat more inclined to rejoice as did the disciples in today's gospel reading, in the power that has been given them to help people - to rejoice that in Christ's name they can help heal the sick and cast out demons, - to rejoice in the power that they seem to have in prayer and in the fact that they can apparently do miraculous things to defeat the power of evil that is in the world.
It was immediately pointed out to me after I said this - pointed out not just by my dear wife who often corrects me, but by everyone else as well, that such a message might well fall flat on its face - and that it would do so because all too many Christians are totally unaware of the power that God gives to them and totally uninterested in going out and proclaiming the Gospel, should they happen to know it, to the world around them.
How can you talk - I was asked - about learning to delight in the fact that our names are written in heaven instead of in the powers that God gives us in his name - when we do not delight in or exercise that power?
The whole matter my critics said to me was a straw tiger - hardly anyone realizes that they have power over evil, and still less do most people rejoice in that power, - so what sense would there be in talking about it?
It was even suggested to me that many church going people do not believe that heaven exists - so what would the point be of talking about how we should rejoice that our names are written there?
Let me tell you - it is kind of hard to have your idea for your sermon writing shot down just as you feel you are getting somewhere.
But it was helpful - because it got me to wondering about the question: - What do you - all of you who are here today - actually rejoice in? - Do you rejoice that your name is written in the book of life? - Or do you rejoice only in lesser things?
How excited are we about the life that God has given us and the life that God has promised us? A life in which his presence is all around us, to help us and lead us and guide us in every situation, until the day when we shed this mortal body and put on the resurrection body and join Christ with God in heaven?
I think that many of us have lost, if we have ever had it, the sense of rejoicing, and the sense of excitement we can have over these things.
We lost the sense of rejoicing God wants us to have and to keep because we have allowed ourselves to be distracted by the tribulations of life, by the busyness of each day, and by the worldly care that each day brings.
Most of us - if the truth be known - put God on a back burner. We rarely consult His word in the Holy Scriptures. Our prayers are neglected. And our meditation on God's goodness is simply ignored in the daily bustle of our lives.
What do we rejoice in? What joyful hope do we hold onto to get us through each day and to do so in the way that God intends for us?
What is important to us as we go about the course of each day - is it the joy of owning a new possession, or getting the highest grades at school? - is it the happiness of watching Batman destroy the criminals of Gotham City, or of forgetting ourselves in a good novel - is it a golf game or a ball game that gives us happiness - or getting a raise at work so we can spend the money on more lottery tickets or on more fish and chips and ice-cream during the hot summer days?
What do we rejoice in - what do we rejoice in while the world around us perishes?
- while children all around us starve to death emotionally because their parents are abusive,
- while our friends get divorced because one or both of them have never learned to share together and to work together and talk together about what is important?
What do we rejoice in as we see people demanding higher wages, higher profits, and greater social services while the economy slides towards the abyss?
What do we rejoice in as we see men, women and children being destroyed by fear and greed, by hate and by neglect....
Some might say at this point that for us to rejoice at all in the face of the kind of problems that I have just listed is wrong - but this view is wrong - God wants us to rejoice - indeed he commands us to rejoice and be happy - to rejoice and be happy in Him and in His will for us.
My friends - it has been God's purpose - since Adam and Eve first disobeyed his law, to get people to see that a different kind of life is available to them; and that the life that He offers to all who believe in him and follow him is rich and full and good, that it goes on into eternity - getting ever better and more fruitful as the days and the years pass prior to our going to Him.
If God is for us - then who can be against us? What situation can cause us to be hurt and to perish?
Rejoice says Jesus - not in your power over demons, which indeed you do have when you have faith in God, but rejoice rather that your name is written in heaven, that God has chosen you and has promised to protect you and help you through every danger.
Rejoice - that through Christ God forgives you your sins and calls you to repentance and new life in him, a life in which - as you strive to do his will - more and more goodness flows.
Which brings us to the second question of the day - what is it that we work at? - what do we strive at?
This question can be asked in another way by asking - who is it that we work for?
I suspect that most of us work for ourselves - and strive for our own happiness and contentment - rather than working for God and doing the works of God - the works in which love and care and justice and healing predominate.
I say this my friends because I know that often - without thinking - I do this.
Often in fact I work harder at ensuring that I am comfortable and that my needs are being met, than I do at serving God and helping others in the way that he commanded.
I think we all forget at times whose we are and what we are here for - we forget that we are cared for and worry more about ourselves than about anything else.
We shut our eyes to the troubles around us and focus instead upon our own problems.
We seem to forget that God - who knows our every need, carries us in the palm of his hand, and blesses all those who call upon his name and walk in his path.
Jesus commissions us all - as he commissioned the 70 disciples in today's gospel reading to go forth and proclaim the peace of God to every place that we enter - to bless those we meet - and to heal those who are around us and to proclaim to all that the Kingdom of God is near to them.
The Harvest is plentiful - he said - but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the Harvest to send out labourers into His harvest. Go on your way - see I am sending you out like lambs in the midst of wolves -
Jesus instructed the 70 disciples to take nothing with them when they go to do the works of God - no hat or coat, no purse or sandals - no item that a man may trust in - but rather to go with only his word as their tools and His presence as their protection.
This is our calling and our commissioning to this day.
We are called to proclaim and to show the healing love of God, to go house by house, work site by work site, camping spot by camping spot, village by village, and town by town, and to reach out to anyone who will listen and tell them the Kingdom of God is near; to reach out to all those around us and show them by our healing and tender care that the power of God is at hand.
There is a great need my friends for people to feel the power of God in their lives - and to hear that the Kingdom of God is near to them and its resources are available to them in their daily lives..
There are people everywhere looking for that hope, people everywhere who need the healing that the word we bear can provide them, that the word we are entrusted with can give to them.
Jesus sent his disciples out to do this job of witnessing to God's love and care without human tools, without human protection, and without human security because this is the only way in which the job can really get done.
It is only as the labourers in the harvest really trust in God that they have the power to heal others, to cast out demons, and show that the Kingdom is at hand.
It is only as the labourers in the field themselves rely upon and trust God that they can show others that God is in fact present and a real help in times of trouble.
Three questions today for us think about my friends -
What do you rejoice in?
What do you work at?
And how Christian is it?
Ask yourself this and ask - I am doing the will of God? Is my life in order? My soul right with Christ?
Let us not grow weary in doing what is right - for - as Paul writes - we will reap at harvest time if we do not give up.
Praise be to God - AMEN
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