Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20
July 7, 2013
You ever have that dream where you’re in a play
but you don’t know the script?
Or you’re taking a final and you have no memory of taking the class.
It’s a horrible dream. It’s a nighmare even.
We don’t like being un prepared, not knowing what to do.
I did improvisational acting when I was younger for many years.
There are classes for it, you don't just start out improvising.
But the classes were mostly about not being prepared.
the main objective of improvisation classes are to unlearn the need to always being prepared.
Keith Johnstone – one of the originators of imrpovisational theater
has some favorite sayings:
Don’t think ahead. Dare to be dull. and Don’t be afraid to fail.
It’s about making a deicision in a split second,
trusting it and commiting to it and not worrying if it’s wrong.
It takes a lot of work to do this.
Sometimes Church seems sometimes to be the opposite of improvistation.
We have liturgy that’s been around for thousands of years.
Some people would never think of going off the book for anything.
We have processes and constitutions and old buildings.
it takes us sometimes years to makde decisions.
Pastors study for four years, we teach our children, we teach ourselves.
We think ahead on everything, sometimes 50 or 100 years ahead.
We are prepared.
Sometimes seems like we couldn’t possibly
go out there and do the work of God without being prepared.
But here is Jesus.
He sends out 70 apostles with nothing. He says,
"Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals."
They have nothing. No long seminary education,
probably no education at all. They don’t know the bible front to back.
They have no robes or buildings or constitutions.
They don’t have a list of plans or instructions for every occasion.
But still Jesus sends them out. Jesus trusts them.
Jesus knows that something will happen.
They must feel like we do in that dream.
Like lambs in the midst of wolves.
From this we know:
That Jesus sends people out without years of preparation.
Jesus doesn’t’ send out churches, Jesus sends out people.
And he even sends them out with a plan to fail.
“If no one welcomes you, wipe your feet off and move on
don’t get stuck on it.”
Jesus lets us know that we don’t need anything
more than our mouths and hands and feet
to go out and do what needs to be done.
To spread the love of God, to work for justice.
All we need to do God’s work is just ourselves.
About six years ago in Austin, Texas
a man named David Morales was beaten to death.
The car he was a passenger in hit a young child
He got out to check on the child and a few angry people beat the man.
The child survived with a few injuries, but the man was killed.
David happened to be latino and the people that killed him
happened to be African American.
There was a lot of tensions between the two groups previous to this.
Everyone tried to make a huge racial war out of it,
the media, the police, even pastors were
exaggerating numbers, trying to bring long histories of struggles up.
It seemed inevitable that something bad would happen.
It was tense to say the least.
But two days after, the murder
In the height of all the tension when it could go one way or another.
David Morales family stood up, against the advice of their lawyers
without consulting anyone, without years of study, without publicists
and they talked to the media, the churches, the community leaders
and said to everyone, “As the murdered man’s family,
we are here to tell you, this was not a racial crime.”
“This was a terrible act of a few people
and not a war between two racial groups.”
They said that David Morales was a man of faith,
a generous man, a kind man who believed in forgiveness
and who would want forgiveness and not vengence for his death.
Everyone needed to let it go.
And everyone did.
With just the words of their mouths and their actions,
David’s family declared “Peace to this house!”.
and just like that there was peace.
They were’t trained or prepared.
They didn’t have years of seminary education.
They knew what they needed to do
and they did the work of God. And just like Jesus said.
Satan fell like a flash of lightning.
Now, we might never have
a profound opportunity like they did,
but don’t we all have arguments that we can diffuse?
Don’t we all have people who need to hear about God’s love.
Don’t we all have someone who needs to know we forgive them.
Can’t we show that the church and the people in it
can be kind and forgiving and generous.
Doesn’t peace need to be declared on someone’s house,
in their lives, in their hearts?
Jesus sends us out, just like he sent the 70 out.
We are actually at our best when we are unprepared
when we lose our defenses, our agendas,
our programs, our pre-concieved notions.
When we come together, person to person and really listen to one another.
When we come to our neighbors with empty hands
and ask, “what do you think we should do now?”
When we bet our lives on the movement of the Spirit
When we trust the forces that are within us that God has given us
and say yes to the Spirit’s call.
Kieth Johnstone the Improvisation person said:
Those who say “No” are rewarded by the safety they attain.
Those who say “Yes” are rewarded by the adventures they have.
We don’t need anything more than our mouths and hands and feet
to go out and do what needs to be done.
We can say YES to the adventure God has put in front of us.
Because our trust is not in our own preparation or abilities.
Our trust is in God.
CHeers...
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