The Rev. Dan Rondeau
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
It’s a joy always to be able to address you, it’s a joy to be able to share good news, it’s a joy to look at the work that we are doing here at St. Margaret’s and see how it connects to this longer story called salvation history. And we are connected and so this morning as we consider the complaint of Naaman as we consider the urging of this slave girl, we should go into Israel, to the prophet there, as consider the wisdom of Naaman’s servants and the power of God working through Elisha; as we consider the joy of healing celebrated by the psalmist, the work and words of seventy others sent as lambs into the midst of wolves by Jesus as we consider the words of Jesus revealing God’s purpose this morning.
Let’s begin with wisdom articulated by a four year old. Four year old Jonathan Newton was trying to learn the Lord’s Prayer. Jonathan was listening attentively at church so he learned by listening at church each Sunday. And on one Sunday, his father reports, as the congregation was praying the Lord’s prayer Jonathan could be heard above all the others praying proudly, "Our Father who art in heaven, I know you know my name." I know you know my name, and there is a great wisdom in that. Do you see and hear the connection? Jesus said "Rejoice that your names are written in heaven." The Omen was known to God; His name to God, His need was known to God, the little girl captured in a raid into Israel, not named in the text of Second Kings, her name was known to God. The servants who had to serve their master in a rage looked if he told you to do something difficult wouldn’t you? So what! What’s so hard about that? They were nameless in the text of Second Kings. The names were known to God.
Whether King David wrote Psalm 30 or not that’s debated by scholars, but the author’s name of that Psalm is known to God. And the seventy others named in Gospel just that way while others are not identified any further, but be assured that God knew them by name and that Jesus knew, called them by name and sent them by name.
Jesus loved and called Him by name and so approaching the Kingdom as only a child can, Jonathan Newton teaches us that "Father in Heaven I know you know my name," as you gather this morning. God knows your name and has called you to be here.
The story salvation history as I have alluded, the story written down in the scriptures and read and proclaimed and worshiped each Sunday continues in you and me. Known by our names, called by our names and sent by name into the world to announce and to make evident and celebrate the nearness of God’s Kingdom. All of them, known to God.
Consider, as a humble and contrite heart, that the God of healing and might, working through Elisha, to heal Naaman, knows and calls you by name. The same God who became incarnate in Jesus in one day sent seventy others ahead of him to tell the nearness of God Kingdom and to do the works of healing and grace that fill that Kingdom today, calls you, by name and sends you ahead of him into every place He intends to go. Consider that the one who called and sent seventy others into the world ahead of Him and told them whoever listens to you, listens to me.
Today, 2007, in a desert hotter than we’d like, today calls you by name and sends you by name into all the places He intends to visit. As the salvation history continues and He says to you this morning, whoever listens to you, listens to me. Consider further; we as a group and as individuals Sunday after Sunday, repeatedly ask this God, our God, to send us into the world to do the work that you have given us to do. God’s history, I think you know, from the Bible and from your own experience, God’s history is to hear that prayer and to answer that prayer by calling us by name and sending us to do the work that He has given us to do.
As long as I’ve been associated with St. Margaret’s, this has been a parish where the ministry of the laity, your ministry, has been encouraged and not just through church organized activities, but in many different organizations within Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indio, Coachella and Thermal, you all have responded, you have shared your time and talent with others, not just through church ministries, but at Eisenhower Hospital, at the blood bank, as docents at the museums and at the Living Desert, with the Red Cross and many organizations, the Jordan ministries, so many. The ministry of the laity has truly been encouraged here. Many of you have been invited to work as leaders on the vestry and various ministries within of St. Margaret’s. And many more of you have been invited to volunteer your time in various ministries, committees and specific events in celebration as "worker bees" here at St. Margaret’s. Over the 14 years I’ve been here, I have heard numerous sermons encouraging each of us to take seriously the call to serve. And in this year alone, this notion that each of us indeed called, chosen, and gifted in the building up of the church, this has been a theme of my preaching. And it will continue to be so.
I’ve stood with you at baptism; I’ve stood with you and said, "Yes! With God’s help, I’ll proclaim the Good News of God and Christ by world and example." So, this is not a new theme here, but you may have begun to sense that Roger and I with the help of the vestry, seek to expand this ministry of the laity even further. We want to and we’ve begun to invite even more people into leadership. We want to invite still others to come to help in anyway that they can. We want to encourage everyone to can hear the word of God to take it seriously that they are called and chosen and blessed to use the gifts unique to them so that the whole world beginning right here at St. Margaret’s and expanding into the Coachella Valley can be transformed, can know the Grace of God and the love of God, the touch of God, we want that to happen and we are intentional about inviting some of you who have been on the sidelines to come on in, inviting some of you who have been timid, know that it’s God’s Grace that inspires you. We’re going to ask you, invite you, cajole you, and pray for you to become involved to use the gifts that God has given you. And we’re inspired to do this in the light of the Gospel stories like the one we just heard. We’ll continue to celebrate all that is done by you, The Cellar Door, Maggie’s Corner, FIND on Monday morning, the small group of men who make the church ready for worship on Sunday morning, the large group of women and men who prepare the elements for worship in the Altar Guild. We’ll continue to celebrate all that is done by you and we’re going to ask others to come and serve and go and serve.
Go back to the Gospel for just a moment and in that phrase where He sends them out, we’re told that the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of Him in pairs to every town and every place where He Himself intended to go. I want you to notice a few things about that. Seventy others, that’s all that’s described in moot, not seventy disciples, not the twelve Apostles, not the best disciples, not those who had rabbinical training, not the smartest, not the best speakers, not those thought to be healers or exorcists, plain folks, seventy others were appointed by the Lord to go ahead of Him. Folks like you and me. He sent them in pairs it says, which goes counter to the rugged independence so prized by us Americans. Jesus sent them out in pairs, mutual ministers, promoting accountability as they talked and worked with each other and more importantly sent them with a wisdom because this pair could share the burden they would encounter dividing them and making them more easily to bear. They also could share the joys that they encountered making them even greater, He sent them in pairs.
We ask you to work with others here. He sent them where He himself intended to go, the others were not the end of the story, they were only the beginning, you and I are not the end of the story we’re only the beginning, for the one whose comfort, power, and wisdom whose strength, whose grace, the one whose love we share, intends to visit and complete what we began. Now isn’t that great it’s not all on us, we’re only the beginning of the story.
I hope when you are approached by Roger or me or a vestry member or a committee chair, that you see if you can say, "Yes." If you look in the help wanted column on line or in the parish life bulletin, you’ll say, "yes, send me." I hope that you will understand that even the ministry of getting out bed on Sunday morning and coming here to join others in worship this is a ministry of value and it’s able to be used by God to change the world and reveal the nearness of God’s Kingdom.
Take a lesson from Naaman, he wanted to do something great and heroic and spectacular and Elisha told him to go wash in the river. So, maybe you want to save all of Africa or all of Asia or something but God is asking you to get out of bed, put on your clothes, and go and worship; that is simple, and you have done that! It is a ministry. I hope you understand, as Mother Theresa understood, that an act of kindness as simple as being present and smiling may open the Kingdom of God and may open the way of Jesus to visit. Mother Theresa smiled a lot. And hers was a simple ministry on one level; to be present, physically, emotionally, spiritually, be present and smile.
So let me finish with the wisdom of her prayer and the next time you find yourself fully present and smiling at another, a situation that it calls for or doesn’t call for it, believe that you are continuing to the story that begun long ago, Jesus sent out seventy others to go out where he intended to go. To keep your eyes and ears open to discover the wonder of God power working through such simple acts as being present and smiling. Mother Theresa confesses, "I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish." Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at each other, it doesn’t matter who it is, and that will help you to grow in greater love for each other. And let me finish with her prayer which is my prayer for you this morning:
Dear Jesus help us to spread your fragrance wherever we go, flood our souls with Your spirit and life and train and possess our whole being so utterly, that our lives may only be a radiance of Yours. Let us praise you in the way you love best, by shining around us, let us preach You without preaching, not by words, but by our example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do, the evidence, fullness of the love, our hearts bare to You.
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