July 7, 2019 - Fourth Sunday After Pentecost - Touched and Joined in the Movement of the Body of Christ!

At yesterday's worship the last verse of Bob Dylan's Hard Rain came to me during the reading of the Gospel:

And what will you do now, my blue-eyed son?
And what will you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-going back out ’fore the rain starts a-falling
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where the souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it, and speak it, and think it, and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking
But I’ll know my song well before I start singing

There is a relentless commitment contained in these lyrics that reminds me of Jesus setting his face to Jerusalem as last week's Gospel reading described. I imagined Jesus sending out the seventy with the words in today's Gospel and one who was chosen being asked "And what will you do now, my blue-eyed son? And what will you do now, my darling young one?" and this stanza is the answer being given as it is being lived. Knowing the song well before it is sung is the way to shake off the dust of indifference and where no hospitality is received.

As Pastor Ray preached the sermon I thought that seventy is around the number of people that attend Creator on an average Sunday and I wondered where we are in our ministry. Are we telling, and speaking, and thinking, and breathing and reflecting from the mountain so all souls can see? Or are we still learning the song?

Jesus sent the seventy ahead of him. His followers were not physically "following" him at this point but were reflecting, even being, the body of Christ where they were sent. We do not need to be timid or wait for certainty in what Jesus is calling us to do.

We pray to God we can be and do precisely that work in the world.  It is so easy to lose sight of the inherent motley nature of our band of seventy and to lose focus on the good news.  Some can be passionate in changing the world for the better or some can be indifferent to life on earth.  It is easy to live our lives and ignore the gospel.

As we engage, or refuse to engage, through our love in action, and in our conception of who we are, we rarely follow what Jesus learned, taught or commanded.  Nothing, however, excludes us from being part of the body of Christ or followers of Jesus.