This is the sermon I prepared for Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, July 4, 2010.

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Readings

Isaiah 66:10–14
Psalm 66:1–9 (antiphon v.4)
Galatians 6:1–16
Luke 10:1–11, 16–20

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Prayer

Bless us with the strength of your Holy Spirit, gracious Father, as we journey like lambs amid wolves, telling others that the kingdom of God comes to us all in Jesus Christ, your Son and our Savior. Amen.

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Message

We have an innate sense—
a vestige of our animal selves—
that alerts us to danger.

It’s the tingle that runs up our spines when we hear a shuffling in the dark.
It’s the primal fear of danger
that filmmakers and novelists plumb with abandon
when they create horrors seen and unseen—
forces with blade and muscle,
both machine and beast.

Perhaps the experts might trace this sense
to the survival instincts of our ancestors
who huddled—naked and hairless—
in caves and crooks of trees,
while greater, stronger creatures ruled the night.

But whatever the sources of our fears,
the wellspring from which flows our sense of threats,
we know the truth of this world that the strong vanquish the weak,
that the powerful overwhelm the impotent.

And it really doesn’t matter whether we are talking about
animals running wild on the prairie or in the woods
or about people running wild on the streets of our cities
or on the sidewalks of villages.

In both cases, the law of the jungle seems to hold.
That’s why the phrase, “red in tooth and claw,”
resonates with our fear of injury and death
at the hands of beasts, both human and animal.
The author of that phrase, Alfred Lord Tennyson,
captured the bloody struggle when he wrote:
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law—
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed—
Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal’d within the iron hills? (In Memoriam A.H.H., Canto LVI)

It is a struggle between love and hate,
between order and chaos,
between good and evil.

And in the midst of it all,
we can find ourselves driven to despair,
which means to live disspiritedly, without hope.
We can come to believe that the best we can do
in this life—this “nasty, brutish, and short” life—
is to hold on as long we can,
to ward off the forces arrayed against us,
to postpone inevitable.

Something will get us, in the end,
something surely will claw at us, drag us down,
whether it’s disease or old age,
violence or drugs,
guns or random accidents,
terrorists or crazed vigilantes.

And with the world as scary and as threatening as we know it to be,
the last thing we normally and sanely would want to do
is to place ourselves in danger,
to put our lives at risk.

That’s just natural and normal.
This makes Jesus’ saying in today’s Gospel
all the more difficult for us to overhear
and to embrace as his word to us.
He tells the Seventy—
and by extension,
all who follow in the footsteps of the Seventy,
meaning you and me and every other Christian—
“See, I am sending you out like lambs
into the midst of wolves.” (Luke 10:3b, NRSV)

As lambs amid wolves,
we are the prey, not the predators.
We do not go with weapons, with tooth and claw,
but instead we head out on our mission
as a flock, gentle and meak, gathered and sent.

We go out only because our Lord sends us.
He sends to be witnesses to the world.
He sends us out to tell others,
“The kingdom of God has come near you.” (Luke 10:9, NRSV)

Some will hear our message,
experience our testimony,
come to know our witness,
and they, too, will join the flock.
They will become lambs with us.

When this happens to others,
as it has happened already to us,
then God rejoices,
and we celebrate along with him.
We give thanks that his kingdom has grown,
that his flock has expanded.

This is the work of the Spirit in us and through us.
This is the power of the Word
spoken both as summons and promise,
enacted both as discipline and comfort.
This is the ministry of the Father
embodied in people,
poured out in service,
and suffered in extremes of personal sacrifice.

It’s no coincidence that the Greek word
often translated as “witness” is “martyria,”
from which we get the English word “martyr.”
This reminds us that when we become God’s witneses,
we very well may also become his martyrs,
his lambs amid wolves.

But this is not the final word.
We are not doomed to die pointlessly,
torn apart by inhuman forces “red in tooth and claw.”
That’s not to say that we, as lambs amid wolves,
will escape all threats and dangers,
that we will end our days unscarred,
that we will necessarily live as unbloodied martyrs.

Instead, we can live as courageously as witnesses,
knowing that we are on our Father’s mission,
that he has sent us out in Christ’s name,
that he blesses us with the Holy Spirit,
just as he promised the Seventy:
“See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions,
and over all the power of the enemy;
and nothing will hurt you.” (Luke 10:19, NRSV)

So, does this mean that Jesus Christ gives us some sort of body armor,
that we cannot be hurt in the course of our witness?
It helps to know what Jesus means by “hurt.”
In Matthew’s Gospel, he says,
“Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” (Matthew 10:28, NRSV)

To me that means that while our witness may lead us into times and places
where we are hurt, and perhaps even die as martyrs,
we need not fear those forces,
because all they have done is “kill the body.”

At the end of the day,
we find protection in God and in him alone.
As St. Paul encourages us in Ephesians,
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power.
Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand
against the wiles of the devil.
For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh,
but against the rulers, against the authorities,
against the cosmic powers of this present darkness,
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Therefore take up the whole armor of God,
so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day,
and having done everything, to stand firm.” (Ephesians 6:10–13). Amen.