7th Sunday after Pentecost- Proper 9C

7th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 9C July 3, 2016 I have spent a great number of hours this week on a project for the diocese. Through my work with the Commission on Ministry, I have been working with a small group to revise and overhaul the discernment policies of the diocese. So we’ve been working with the process that the local churches and the whole diocese uses when an individual wants to discern or test a call to ordained ministry. This document spends a great deal of time and energy explaining that for Anglicans, (that means us!), individuals don’t just hear a call on their own, head off to seminary and then get ordained. Rather, we do our discernment work in community. A group from the person’s local parish or mission is formed to help listen and discern, and then there are others in the process, the bishop, a diocesan committee, even mental health therapists, that also do this work of listening for call in an individual’s life. I think so much time and energy is spent in the document in explaining this work of discernment in community because it is foreign to us, even in the church. As Americans we value our independence; we value the fact that people can be self-made, not having to rely on their families or tribes in order to be successful. We value the fact that a person can decide what he or she wants to do and then go and do it. But our church is telling us that we hear call in Christian community, and our system is set up to honor and promote that. I’ve really been struggling this week with how and what to preach today, so I’m just going to lay my dilemma out there for you. All over the country folks are celebrating the 4th of July—our Independence Day. And yet, our readings for this Sunday give us a dramatically different picture. In fact, our readings for today seem to promote interdependence in the way of faith, in discipleship, and in the Christian life as opposed to independence. In the Old Testament reading, we see the very powerful Namaan trying to find a way to heal his own leprosy. But healing leprosy is something that is beyond his power. Finally, he takes counsel from one of the most powerless and dependent—his wife’s servant girl, and he heads to see the prophet Elisha. But when Elisha gives him the treatment, Namaan thinks it is all beneath him and prepares to go away angry and insulted, until some more powerless, dependent servants once again intervene and ask, “What’s it going to hurt to try it?” Namaan is healed, and he gets converted to following Yaweh in the lines just beyond today’s passage. In the reading from Galatians, Paul makes it very clear that the Christian community must rely on one another, offering hospitality and pastoral care to each other, “bearing one anothers’ burdens”. And in the gospel, we have the sending out of the 70 to spread the good news. Jesus commissions them, giving them very specific instructions. Go out in pairs. Don’t take anything extra with you. Stay with whomever offers you hospitality on your way; don’t move from place to place. If someone rejects you, don’t react in anger or force. Just move on. And spread the good news of the kingdom of God. This is a picture of discipleship that is very uncomfortable to us. It is a picture of vulnerability. It is a picture of non-retaliation against enemies. It is a picture of reliance upon the hospitality and generosity of strangers. It is a picture of interdependence and dependence. So you see my dilemma this week, and I’m afraid that I have more questions for you than answers. We value the freedom that we have as citizens of this country. But how do we faithfully practice independence, when Jesus clearly calls us to interdependence? How do we live out this tension between being a person of faith who is called to this interdependence when our country continues to grow more and more polarized and invulnerable to strangers and folks who hold “the opposing view”? How do we live and move within this society and culture that practically worships independence, while practicing the faithful discipleship that is rooted in vulnerability and interdependence?