Proper 9 C, July 4, 2010

The Fourth of July fell on Sunday in 2010. In this sermon I explore what brings someone to, like the seventy Jesus sent out, go out and tell others, or like the founders of our country put their lives on the line for something they believe in.

Proper 9 C

Transcribed from a sermon given on

July 4, 2010

By the Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Galatians 6:1-16

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

I’d like you to imagine in your mind that you live in village in Africa, a village that is way off the beaten path. To get to your village here are some ruts that a car could go on, but vehicles can only go on it at certain times of the year, and it is not easy. This is a village where there is no health care, where there is no nurse and no doctor. Imagine that you see the people around you suffering. You see people who get fevers and burn with a fever and often die from it. You have an uncle who is gradually losing his vision, and you yourself have a wound that isn’t healing. Then one day, when it is in the dry season and they actually can drive into your village, up comes a red cross van, and in it are doctors and nurses and medicine. There is a doctor that removes the cataracts from your uncle’s eyes, and he can see again. There are antibiotics that are given to the people with fevers, and they become well again. And there is ointment for your arm, and it is healing. Not only have these people come into your village and healed your physical illnesses, but they have given new hope to the people who live there. They have provided a sense of a future for the people of the village. Farmers who couldn’t work before are able to farm again. Life has changed, and it is good. You are excited. Your whole life has changed, and you feel that sense of hope, and you feel a sense of purpose, and you feel meaning back in your life. You are so excited by what has happened in your village that you can’t hold it in. You can’t keep it to yourself, so you have to go out to the other villages around and say, “The doctors and nurses are here. Come to our village and get better. Change your life. Come! We’ve received something wonderful and I have to share it with others. I have to tell others.”

That is what happened for these seventy in the Gospel. They have been touched by Christ. There lives have been changed, and they had to go out and tell other people. It wasn’t easy. Jesus told them that they would be like sheep among wolves, not to take anything with them, that sometimes they would be rejected. But in their hearts they knew what they had received, the healing of not just body but of spirit and mind. They new of a new life, a new creation as Paul calls it. And they risked everything and tell others about it.

Two hundred and forty-three years ago today a group of men gathered in Philadelphia. They were doing well. They were all wealthy. Most owned land. Many had families. They were respected in their communities. They had it all. And yet they had a vision for something more. They had a hope that their country, that where they lived could be more, that people could know freedom and hope. They got together and we are all very familiar with the words the wrote. “We hold these truths to be self evident. That all men are created equal and they were endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” These are our founding words. They actually aren’t the beginning to the Declaration of Independence, there is another paragraph before that, but these are the words that we all remember because they sum it up. This is what those people cared about, and they cared about it so passionately that they got together to do something. They didn’t just write about it. What you may not remember is that the last sentence in the declaration of independence says, “and for the support of this declaration, with the firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” The ones who signed the Declaration of Independence were ready to put their lives on the line, their fortunes on the line, their honor on the line because they cared so deeply and passionately about what they believed in. They had such a great hope for the future.

Fifty years ago, at his inaugural, John F. Kennedy had an interesting and memorable line that we all will probably remember, “And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” It was a call for people to not put themselves first, but to put something else first. It was a call that in many ways our culture has lost. We tend to live in a culture that is consumer oriented, where people look for what is good for me and what will satisfy my needs. But we all know, we all know that real peace, and real happiness, comes not when we are putting ourselves first, but when there is something else that is more important. When we put ourselves in service of something greater.

Those who have ever helped at People’s Kitchen know how rewarding it is to feed someone. Those who work at the Thrift shop know how good it feels when you have been able to help somebody. Those who have led Sunday School know what it is like to see a little mind opening to the idea of God. Those who have helped at Habitat for Humanity or done any of the many things that people in this congregation do, know that it is when we give of ourselves that we really feel hope and joy.

The church is really made up of two different groups of people, although we go through times when we are either one. There are those who are here, who come to a church, because they need healing, because they are hurting. They may not need physical healing, but they need healing for their minds and for their souls. They need to know that they are loved. They need to be in relationship with God. They need to find hope in their lives. They need to discover the new creation, and they are seeking it. They need a community of faith to tell them that they are loved and that there is hope.

Then there are the Christians who have experienced that. Who have experienced that new life, who have felt forgiven, who have known that they are loved, who have felt their lives turned around. People who know the feeling of the presence of God and how God works in their lives, who know what it is like to be healed, wo know what it is like to be free from addiction, who know what it is like to be freed from guilt. They understand what it means to have new life and to feel that joy and that new creation inside, and who because of that can’t stay still. They have to share that with others. They know that they have received so much from God that they have to tell other people. They have to share it with others. They have to go out into the world. They have to go among their friends and proclaim the wonderful news of God’s love. Because when you have experienced it, when you’ve known it, it is hard to stay still. It is hard to be quiet. When we have received such a precious gift how how can we not want to share that gift with others? How can we not want others to know the love and the peace and the new life that we have found in Christ?