Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Will you pray with me?
Dear heavenly Father, thank you for never stop calling us. Thank you for calling us at all times. Thank you for showing us new things you want us to do. Open our ears as you give instructions to your disciples and to us, and give us the strength and the will to follow your calling. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
We're reading from Luke ten, the first twelve verses, the mission of the 72. After this, Jesus appointed 72 others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. I'm sending you out like lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say peace to this house. And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest in that person, but if not, it will return to you.
Remain in the same house, eating and drinking. Whatever they provide for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you. Eat what is set before you. Cure the sick who are there and say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you. But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this. The kingdom of God has come near. I tell you, on that day, it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town. This is the word of the Lord.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Thanks be to God.
Good morning.
[00:02:19] Speaker C: Well, friends, I have an addiction that.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Many of you share. I know the addiction is books. It's like a disease. I can't seem to shake it.
[00:02:31] Speaker C: So I try to be thoughtful of which new drug that is book I will take up. And one that I tackled recently was Octavia Butler's celebrated novel, parable of the sower. Have others of you read that book?
All right, a few have.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:02:48] Speaker C: I had read glowing reviews of Butler's work and heard she was a former Pasadena resident, a neighbor. I had also attended an event hosted by Cevitas. That's a Pasadena civic organization that our own Andy Wilson co founded. And this particular event of Sevitas was featuring a talk about Octavia Butler and her work. And it took place at Octavia's bookshelf that is named after Octavia Butler, and it's a new independent bookstore located just down the street from me. And I was eager to buy a book from that shop when I talked to a woman who worked at the store as well as our presenter and asked them, well, which of Octavia Butler's books would you recommend? I start with?
[00:03:35] Speaker B: They both said, oh, parable of the sower.
[00:03:38] Speaker C: And if all that wasn't enough reason alone, I'll sometimes ask high school students or college students who are taking english classes if they have a particular work of fiction that they've run into that was significant. As an english major, I love hearing what people are reading today. And Tammy's daughter Anya said, oh, parable of the sower. And finally, as if all that wasn't enough, I met with brothers K. And that's one of the book groups at this church. If you're interested in being a part of that men's book group, let me.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Or another of the members know.
[00:04:11] Speaker C: And we met to vote on what would be our next book. And lo and behold, the winner was.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: Parable of the sower. So I had at it. And lord, it was tough going.
[00:04:25] Speaker C: Griffin, I don't know if you struggled with it, too, but man, it was hard. And it wasn't hard because the book was not well written. It was, wasn't hard because the book wasn't powerful or convicting.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: It was. But what was really tough is the portrait of the world that Octavia Butler painted.
[00:04:46] Speaker C: It reminded me a lot of the experience I had reading a book by Cormac McCarthy entitled Blood Meridian. Both that novel and the parable of the sower are celebrated books. They've gotten great reviews. I'm grateful to have read both novels.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: But both depict a bloody and brutal.
[00:05:05] Speaker C: And deeply unsettling portrait of the world and of the human race as a whole. So be forewarned on this front, should you choose to pick up either novel. Okay, don't go and say, oh, my pastor recommended this and not know what you're getting into.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: You've been warned.
[00:05:22] Speaker C: Blood Merinian is historic fiction, telling the story of american scalp hunters who massacred American Indians in the United States Mexico borderlands from 1849 to 1850.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Horrific stuff.
[00:05:36] Speaker C: And part of the power of that novel is that it's based on real violence unleashed on indigenous peoples in our history.
The parable of the sower is not historic fiction, but rather speculative fiction or science fiction. Its power lies not in looking back, but in looking forward.
Parable of the sower was written in 1993, and it imagines a world just 31 years into the future. That year is, guess what?
[00:06:03] Speaker B: 2024. Our year. Yikes.
[00:06:07] Speaker C: It's like reading 1984, as I did way back in high school, in the. It's a grim, brutal world that butler portrays in 2024. The protagonist in the novel is named Lauren Olamina, an african american teenager, and.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: She lives in a walled community in Robledo, California.
[00:06:31] Speaker C: Her father is a pastor and a leader in this community, and the reason that they have a wall surrounding them is because homelessness, hunger, theft, drugs, and.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Violence are rampant just outside those walls.
[00:06:46] Speaker C: Public services like the police and the firefighters, they're unreliable and out for their own gain. Climate change has ravaged the environment. Water is scarce, clean water even more scarce. And as if all this isn't bad enough, we read in the novel of.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: Things going from bad to worse.
[00:07:06] Speaker C: Eventually, thieves start to break into this walled community in Robledo. And then there is a new drug that is starting to spread around the country. That drug is called pyro, and it makes the user of this drug get a high from watching things burn. Some of the users of this drug eventually break into Robledo and set the whole community afire.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Lauren is the only one of her family to survive.
[00:07:34] Speaker C: She connects with a few neighbors, and then they set out on a journey.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Through a wasteland that is California in 2024.
[00:07:45] Speaker C: Well, sounds like a great, uplifting read, doesn't it?
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Joyous stuff. Now, this work may be fiction, but the fear it portrays, the anxiety it.
[00:07:59] Speaker C: Communicates that things are going from bad to worse.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: That's not fiction, is it?
[00:08:03] Speaker C: It's something we find ourselves confronting every.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: Day by simply reading the news.
[00:08:10] Speaker C: You don't have to imagine. It doesn't take much to conjure an image of rampant homelessness when you can go down to skid row, or, as several of us did this just last month, you can walk along the streets.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Of Colorado Avenue here in Pasadena and meet, as we did, some of those experiencing homelessness.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: Butler may be writing fiction when she warns of the ravages of climate change, but scientific journals are doing the same.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Thing, especially when they tell of the.
[00:08:41] Speaker C: Impact on the earth, should it warm.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: Just two degrees celsius above preindustrial levels. And in terms of violent, bloody images.
[00:08:51] Speaker C: That might greet our senses, the present.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: Gives us plenty of those.
[00:08:55] Speaker C: Doesn't it?
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Just read the news about what's happening to the people of Gaza or the people of Ukraine.
[00:09:04] Speaker C: We read of authoritarian dictators who rule a huge swath of land, and we fear, justifiably, for the future of our world. No wonder so many face mental health issues today or wrestle with anxiety or despair, not just in fiction, like the parable of the sower, but in the news.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: There's good reason for fear, for there's much bad news.
And it is in such a world.
[00:09:32] Speaker C: That you and I turn to scripture as we do this and every Sunday.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: And we say, God, please give us guidance. Give us hope.
[00:09:41] Speaker C: Tell us what you are up to in this world of bad news, what you want from us.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: Give us a word. We look to you, God, for your word.
And in the pages of scripture, we're.
[00:09:54] Speaker C: Reminded we are not the first to.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Face a world of bad news.
[00:09:59] Speaker C: The four gospels direct our imagination back to just one such time, a day shortly after a republic called Rome had become an authoritarian dictatorship under Octavius in 27 BCE. He would go on to be named.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Caesar or emperor Augustus.
[00:10:18] Speaker C: It was he we read in the second chapter of Luke's gospel, who had the power, who had the control to be able to force people to relocate in order to be registered.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: That shows the power of Rome over the jewish population of first century Palestine.
[00:10:34] Speaker C: The presence of roman soldiers reminded the local population who ruled their land and how we know that Rome collected taxes.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: That were onerous and burdensome to the jewish community.
[00:10:46] Speaker C: And we know that Rome had a particularly brutal form of punishment that it exercised, especially on those who questioned or challenged the power of Rome to rule over all things, to decide who was.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: King and who was not.
[00:11:03] Speaker C: We read about that form of capital.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Punishment in excruciating detail in the four.
[00:11:09] Speaker C: Gospels, and we read of how placard was put up on the cross where.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Jesus was crucified that read, this is the king of the Jews, as if to mock anyone who would pretend to be king. When Rome ruled the day, there was much in the way of bad news. Historians will tell us it's as if.
[00:11:33] Speaker C: That wasn't bad enough, as if the rule of Rome was not oppressive enough.
That we also know that the jewish.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: Leaders of that time were also a challenge.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: Jesus will criticize them for caring more about privilege and position than they did.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: About justice or obedience to God's commandments.
[00:11:56] Speaker C: We know that the tension between the jewish population and Rome would, in fact, grow so great that Rome would destroy.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: Jerusalem and their great temple in 66 to 70 AD, or of the common.
[00:12:12] Speaker C: Era, they killed, expelled, or enslaved much of the jewish population. This was the grim future that loomed.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Ahead at the very time Jesus taught and healed.
[00:12:24] Speaker C: The time of which the four gospels.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Speak had plenty of bad news. Roman rule, and then not only jewish.
[00:12:34] Speaker C: Leaders, but jewish kings. You remember King Herod, a supposedly jewish.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: King who massacred children just because he.
[00:12:42] Speaker C: Feared a child might be born who'd threatened his rule. He had John the Baptist, a prophet, beheaded.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: These were tough, grim, dark times.
But then we read, then we read in Luke of the remarkable message that penetrated that time and place, first century Jewish Palestine. And that speaks to our time and place today.
[00:13:10] Speaker C: The greek term for the message to which I'm referring is Yuan Galidzo. And in the Bible, it's sometimes translated as bring good news or announce glad tidings. When we read that legend in greek tradition of how back in 490 bce, a runner was sent from marathon to announce to Athens that the Greeks had won a battle over the Persians that some 26 miles run that we commemorate with marathons. The message that that runner brought, you.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: Could say, was Yuang Galidzo. Good news, announcement of victory.
[00:13:50] Speaker C: There's an inscription found on a government building in modern day Turkey that dates back to just nine years before the common era. And it tells of how the birthday.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Of the divine Caesar now marks the beginning of the calendar year.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: For he, the inscription reads, was sent.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: To us as savior.
[00:14:08] Speaker C: He's put an end to war and.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Has set all things in order, announcing.
[00:14:13] Speaker C: A world changing event, like the birth.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Or rule of an emperor or a.
[00:14:18] Speaker C: Great leader enthroned to bring peace. That was Yuan Gildzo.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: Well, according to Luke's gospel, that is precisely what an angel proclaimed to some shepherds in Bethlehem.
[00:14:32] Speaker C: It was not the good news of Emperor Augustus.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: That would not be good news, we.
[00:14:38] Speaker C: Presume, to those in first century Palestine.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: To those in Galilee or Judea. But this was the good news that was proclaimed.
[00:14:49] Speaker C: The angel said, I bring you good news of great joy for all people. To you is born this day in.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: The city of David, a savior who is the Messiah, the Lord. And this will be assigned to you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger.
[00:15:06] Speaker C: The verb for what the angel does.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: In that great Christmas passage is proclaiming good news.
[00:15:17] Speaker C: And then in Luke's gospel, as we read on, we get to actually see and hear what this good news is all about. It didn't look like the pox Romana or the peace of Rome, a peace enforced by military might, by imperial domination. It looked like unclean spirits being cast out.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: It looked like those who were cast out brought in, sinners forgiven.
[00:15:42] Speaker C: It looked like those stricken with leprosy or paralysis being healed.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: It looked like a great wedding banquet.
[00:15:49] Speaker C: Where all were invited, food was shared.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: God was praised. Community was known.
[00:15:57] Speaker C: It looked like the high and mighty being brought down, and the lowly and persecuted lifted up.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: It sounded like a call to love one's enemies, to love even those who persecute you. To be merciful, as God in heaven is merciful. It sounded like forgiveness.
[00:16:16] Speaker C: It looked like a person who was beaten and lying by the side of.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: The road receives care and hospitality by the hand of a samaritan.
[00:16:26] Speaker C: The kingdom of God has come near. That was the crux of the message, the good news that this rabbi and healer and itinerant preacher called Jesus proclaimed.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: God's wondrous and loving and healing work in the world had come. That was good news penetrating a world of bad news.
And then, in today's passage, Jesus commissions people to be emissaries of this good news, to engage in this work of Angolizo, that is, of proclaiming good news.
[00:17:05] Speaker C: He makes them each into marathon runners sent out to proclaim good news to some new place, to proclaim victory over.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Sin and over all those forces that.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: Would oppress, dehumanize, and enslave. Jesus says to his disciples, they're like.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Farmers being sent out into the harvest.
[00:17:24] Speaker C: He also warns them, they're like lambs being sent out among wolves. There are dangers out there. There is bad news out there.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: But go, Jesus says, in peace, go with good news.
[00:17:37] Speaker C: He sends them not one by one. He sends them two by two, as.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: If to say, this isn't a solo venture. This is a group project.
[00:17:46] Speaker C: This is a community endeavor, that part of our witness is that Christ is at work.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: When two or more are gathered, when two or more are sent, Christ binds.
[00:17:57] Speaker C: Us together, and proclaiming good news is.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Something we do in community.
[00:18:02] Speaker C: He sends them out with no purse, bag, or sandals, certainly no weapons, as if to say, this kingdom and this message you are bringing has nothing to do with power of domination, the kind of power you might see in a roman soldier or the jewish population would.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: See in a roman soldier. This kingdom, Jesus says and shows, is about the vulnerability of love. It's about peace, not one enforced by above, but birthed from below, as people step out in love and open themselves to community with one another by the power of God at work in them.
[00:18:41] Speaker C: Jesus has his followers both heal people and proclaim good news, as if to say, proclaiming good news involved action and word.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: So how many did Jesus commission as.
[00:18:56] Speaker C: He gathers these people and sends them out? Well, I can't tell you for sure, because there's some argument on that. Some will say 72 others will say 70. If you look in your pew bibles, it'll have some kind of reference that other ancient sources have.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: The other number.
[00:19:12] Speaker C: Some say 70, some say 72.
[00:19:15] Speaker B: So which is it, and why does it matter? Well, if it's 70, 70 points to that community of elders.
[00:19:24] Speaker C: Remember that back in the book of numbers, Moses gathered at God's instigation. God said, I'm going to send some of the spirit I placed on you and put it on these elders, these 70 elders, so that they too can.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: Share in the leadership of the people of God with you.
[00:19:41] Speaker C: So it's not all on your shoulders.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: The spirit of God is spread.
[00:19:45] Speaker C: That symbolism of 70 may well be the original 70 or number that shows.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Up in this text.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: However, over time, scholars think what may have happened is a scribe may have changed that 70 to 72. Why? Well, 72 has some pretty cool imagery, too.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: 72 is six times twelve and twelve. That's a pretty biblical number, isn't it?
[00:20:11] Speaker C: It points to the gathered people of God, the twelve tribes of Israel. The twelve disciples points to the very.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: Nature of being the community of God. So maybe a scribe changed that. We aren't sure. I leave you both numbers as an image for what this community that Jesus.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: Called together and then commissioned might have looked like. We do know that it was at.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Least two, probably 70 or 72.
[00:20:41] Speaker C: And I invite you to keep that image in mind. And whatever number this conjures in your mind, whether 72, 70, or two, as.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: We today commission, we install and ordain elders and deacons, that is, those who will be assuming a leadership position in this church.
[00:21:00] Speaker C: The task of leading God's people, the gift of God's spirit, empowering a people in leadership.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: That call to Yuan Galidzo to proclaim good news.
[00:21:09] Speaker C: It's not just on one person. When we ordain and install elders and deacons, we remember Jesus sends the disciples out two by two, calls them into community together.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: We bear witness that even in a broken, hurting world, even in a day.
[00:21:26] Speaker C: When there is cause to despair, good.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: News has infiltrated our day. There's good news to proclaim God drew near in Christ. To heal, to feed the hungry, to comfort the afflicted, to show the world that life could be. That life was one great banquet, if you have eyes to see it, God's goodness is all around. God's graciousness is visible in creation. The wonder of community, called together in Christ, is right there for the taking.
[00:22:04] Speaker C: Together as 72, 70, or just two, we're all commissioned to share good news.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: In a world of bad news.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: We empower some to be leaders among us in that task. But it's a spiritual practice, sharing good.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: News for all the people of God and friends. What a vital task today.
[00:22:26] Speaker C: To my reading, it's even a task Octavia butler ultimately lifts up in her novel parable of the sower. Now, I want to be careful not to give away the ending of that book, but lest you think it's all.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: Gloom and doom, there is hope. There is hope in this novel, and.
[00:22:42] Speaker C: It'S based, as you might imagine, around a kind of spiritual center and the.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: Coming together of a community that then begins to grow.
[00:22:51] Speaker C: Now, when Octavia Butler was asked about the process of writing this novel and.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: How to speak of this dystopic future and present hope in it, she said.
[00:23:00] Speaker C: She felt she needed to create some.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Religion that could be the new center for a cause for hope and a new community.
[00:23:11] Speaker C: Now, the actual religion she creates, it's not super impressive. It looks a lot like early 20th century process theology. That didn't grab me, but the notion.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: Did grab me that the center of.
[00:23:24] Speaker C: A new community, the center of good.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: News, a basis of hope, is grounded in the ground of being, that it's.
[00:23:33] Speaker C: Based on reality, ultimate reality, the creator of all reality, that one we dare called God.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: It has to be grounded right for it to truly be hope.
[00:23:44] Speaker C: Octavia Butler realized that.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: And as christians, we don't need to.
[00:23:48] Speaker C: Create some religion to have that cause for hope.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: We have it in Christ. And in grabbing it, we've grabbed hold of a promise that has been passed down for centuries, even millennia. The people of God bound together in Christ. That is good news. That reality broke in, and we get to share it. And, friends, as long, as long as there are at least two messengers, two.
[00:24:17] Speaker C: Gathered together in some plot of earth.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: At some place, there's reason for hope, because that message is alive. That message, the kingdom of God as we know it in Christ, has come near.
[00:24:34] Speaker C: A week ago last Saturday, I got.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: A glimpse of a whole lot of.
[00:24:38] Speaker C: Such spots on earth, more than I.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: Had recalled existing in our fair city.
[00:24:44] Speaker C: I saw a host of places to which Jesus had once sent his disciples two by two, and that now shared good news in and outside of their church walls. All sometimes participate in a clergy procession for the Pasadena black history parade, which our city proudly proclaims as Southern California's.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: Largest and longest running black history parade.
[00:25:09] Speaker C: Two leaders in the clergy procession were pastor gene of the community Bible Church and Kerwin Manning of Pasadena Church, both prominent black christian leaders in our city and members of the clergy community coalition.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: Of which this procession was sponsored by.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: And if you haven't been to Pasadena's.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: Black history parade, it's a lot of fun. It's not the rose parade by a long stretch.
[00:25:35] Speaker C: How many have been to that parade, by the way? Not the rose parade, but the black history parade.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: A few people. Thank you.
[00:25:41] Speaker C: I saw you over there, Justin.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: It's a blast if you haven't.
[00:25:45] Speaker C: It's not like this put together, really well fashioned or big production enterprise, but it's powerful.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: It's like a community gathering.
[00:25:57] Speaker C: There's a procession from Octavia E. Butler Magnet school. Marching bands from local schools are a big part of the parade, as are local community groups. And it was fun to see some families I'd known from Knox and other.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: Congregations out there in the neighborhood with their kids.
[00:26:15] Speaker C: People in rehabilitation centers had been wheeled out or brought out along with their caregivers to watch the parade as it.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: Went down Fair Oaks Avenue. And cars like this one featuring the NAACP drove by.
[00:26:31] Speaker C: And what I found most powerful this.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Year as I walked down the street is seeing all the little churches along Fair Oaks Avenue and noting how their.
[00:26:43] Speaker C: Leaders and members were sitting in front.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Of their church buildings to watch as the parade came by.
[00:26:49] Speaker C: Jill shook, who's preached here before, who's been active in housing justice, would head out. She knew many of these pastors and would go to greet each of them.
[00:26:58] Speaker B: And as she did, I would just marvel at so many of these little outposts, you know, that were down there along Fair Oaks Avenue, places where a couple people had gathered years ago, sent by Jesus. And we're still gathering today in the name of Jesus Christ, the same thing we're doing here on Hill and Del Mar. And as we head out into the world, we engage in Juan Galidzo. We share good news.
[00:27:30] Speaker C: Kerwin Manning, as he went down, would be saying through a loudspeaker as we went down this chant, we need love in our city.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: We need hope in our city.
[00:27:39] Speaker C: We need God in our city. And we'd chant back, and the other clergy and those on the street would chant back that was proclaiming good news.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: But so were each of those communities sitting on the street in front of those church building things, saying with their.
[00:27:55] Speaker C: Bodies and their words each Sunday and throughout the week. Love is here in our city.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Hope is here in our city. God is here in our city. Thanks be to God. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, amen.
