First Presbyterian Church of Watertown

Luke 10

“Serenity Now!”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

July 8, 2007

You have to be careful with scripture. If you treat it as a blue print or as some sort of manual you can end up in all sorts of trouble. Although I swore to myself I would never reach such a place as to utter the words “Monty Python” in a sermon, they did make this very point in the movie “The Life of Brian.”

It was a spoof on the life of Jesus, where the biblical stories were taken as literal commands. This comes up when the mistaken messiah, Brian, who is not Jesus (which is made clear enough to form its own commentary), loses his sandal and drinks from a gourd. The crowd following him (which is like a parallel of the disciples and at the same time a sarcastic account of the early church) treats each thing that happens to Brian as what they too must do. So when Brian loses his sandal, the crowd shouts, “He walks with one shoe,” so everyone throws away a shoe. When he drinks from a gourd, they are compelled to do the same. You get the point.

All too literal, wooden interpretations of scripture can easily lead you to a compound in Texas where amassing weapons and wearing similar clothing makes a whole lot of sense. Yet, to jettison the basic sense of scripture is just as dangerous.

So today, as we read the sending of the seventy, it is tempting to ask: direction or description? Is this what the church should be doing or what the church did? This is Luke’s extra mission. Matthew and Mark record the twelve going out, but not seventy. The twelve were sent out to test their faith, to see the world and not become insular. The seventy was Luke’s account to challenge the church of the future. Saying as it were, “who are your seventy?”

It is to be seen as a kind of prophecy or sneak preview of the church to come. The church wasn’t to become a synagogue alternative, but to be moving, the sending of the resurrected Christ unto the world. The seventy were to represent a kind of question for the larger church. Who are your seventy and are they going forth?

Yet as much as we are involved in mission today, it’s hard for me to read this as what the church is supposed to be in mission. I’ve been on plenty a short term mission, but never have I been sent “amongst the wolves.” I am sent from this church to the church in Mexico and in Malawi. In Mexico there are red plastic ribbons you tie to your van that say, “Don’t bother these people” and you sleep in a guarded compound. In Malawi, if I have my collar on, all is good. In fact, going on a mission today is safer than being a tourist in most parts of the world.

And as for no purse or sack . . . well . . . I take my laptop in a back pack and I am loaded with cash. And for what need not be paid in currency I have the VISA card. When we get to Malawi I usually exchange a couple thousand dollars to cover expenses. Given the exchange rate, I need the backpack to carry not only my computer, but the bundles of kwacha. I look more like a bootlegger than a missionary.

Greeting no one is a strange direction that really doesn’t make a lot of sense. Since I make reservations in my name and people are waiting to greet me, it would seem strange not to respond. And although I try to group my time in one place, it seems I am always on the move from house to house, place to place, meal to meal. Now, eating and drinking what is offered . . . there is something that poses no problem for me. In fact I generally feel guilty that I gain weight in Africa. I never feel guilt about this in Mexico though.

As far as people not liking me, I am sure there were some. But missions today is so built on protocol and decorum that people never really say what they are thinking. I had to beg Grace Chuimia to tell me what, if anything, is wrong or not right with the choir. I begged because she would rather die than complain. And when I go across the globe to see the church, I am far from calling people Sodom. Instead I wonder if it’s not where I came from when I venture out that is Sodom. (Just in case you missed that, it was a pretty blunt critique of American morés today.)

Yet, the worst is this notion of peace. Bring peace? Well, I can’t imagine something I could bring less of than peace. I can bring trouble; I can stir things up; I can even whoop things into a good frenzy, but peace, no. I can’t bring peace. At least if peace is a kind of calm. When people say peace, I am cast again to the irreligious and sacrilegious. Reading over the passage this week I got as far as the call to bring peace and I choked, thinking I certainly don’t do that. And immediately I thought of a Seinfeld episode where the characters try to achieve peace by saying “serenity now” each time they were stressed or bothered.

In the end of the episode it is clear that “serenity now” actually creates havoc. Had Jesus said, "Go into a town and really whoop things into a whirling dervish of notions and directions and ideas . . . " well . . . that would be a verse I could understand. Bring peace? Can’t say that relates to my experience of mission.

In fact, short term mission creates a kind of absence of peace. If by peace, that is, we mean a kind of settled contentment. Missions have never fostered a settled contentment in me. It has always brought just the opposite: going forth in mission, the kind Jesus sent the seventy, has fostered a kind of restlessness that never finds a home. Yet, I believe there are more ways of understanding peace than complacency or serenity.

Our friends from Malawi are on a short term mission. They might not see it as such; we might not see it as such, but they are. They have landed in a strange village called Watertown. Let’s just hope Jesus is soon to follow.

One of the first events for the choir was a tour of the hospital. We walked down Washington Street and across the parking lot to the Sam Keep Home. Along the way the young men peppered me with questions of the economy, the size of Watertown, the nature of health care, whether this hospital was run by the church or the government. When I said neither, there was an I Love Lucy moment, “You’ve got some 'splaining to do.” It took a bit but we lit upon the notion of a non-profit being such so it can be a benefit to all; helped but not run by the government or the church.

Coming to the curb of Sam Keep there was a bit of pause. Everyone stopped. The city of Mzuzu, which has roughly 12 times the population of Watertown, has a few buildings that go up four or five stories, but not nine. Rev. Hara turned to me and in a moment I will never forget said, “Watertown is a big village.”

Our friends have been sent unto the village of Watertown. I am not sure that they will bring peace as a kind of complacency. In fact they might just stir up some folks. People who didn’t think of an eighteen year old African girl as their daughter and sister in Christ now do; the anonymous “African” for whom life has plenty of suffering, all of sudden has a name. All I can tell you is that once your brothers and sisters who suffer have a name, peace is no longer complacency.

Peace is not serenity, but action. Peace is the satisfaction that comes from stepping into the fray, not the calm that is unaffected.

As we walked along the way through the hospital, I had a great deal of translation to do. Dollars needed to be converted into kwacha; ratios needed to be explained. Taking malaria out of every equation took a kind of Herculean effort on their part. So much of life is filtered through this as well as AIDS. To see what a hospital looked like that wasn’t inundated with malaria and AIDS was in itself a kind of mystery.

I am not sure of this but I believe the administrators who gave the tour started to feel the whirl, the unsettling, the absence of peace that comes from mission. To have 180 doctors to help 100,000 is good; the idea of having one is disturbing. I watched their faces and wondered how peace might find a way.

The highlight of the tour was a bit of surprise. The 3.5 million dollar cancer treatment radiation machine, interesting; the machine that folds the towels, some sort of dream. It turns out the most fascinating part of the hospital was the laundry. Everyone was just enthralled. Grace has mentioned how impressed they were by our treatment of the elderly, and the automatic bed was quite a hit as each tried their hand at the buttons that make it go up and down. But I know it was the sight of the pillow cases racing through the pressing and folding that really was the highlight.

Spending each day with the choir from Malawi provided many moments of splendor. There was the first hamburger; the button on Kathy’s car that opens the side doors automatically; there was the moment when the first fireworks were lit. These were all moments each won’t soon forget.

In the same way churches hosting their concerts will never be the same. With each jump and stomp the choir made on the chancel in Canton’s First Presbyterian, with each rumble I thought this sanctuary is getting a bit of shaking. That’s a good thing I believe.

Already there are benefits to be seen. Choir members feel blessed; host families speak of them as their own children and goad me to let them stay with them again. Although they have not yet been here two weeks, there is a sense of long lasting blessing. At the Hammond Church the new pastor, who had only been there three days, was pulled up into the choir and taught the dance and song before a packed house. This was her introduction to the community. All I can say is that from now on the new pastor will be known as a woman with some moxie. That will linger.

Yet, what is coming clear is that our friends have been sent on mission. They are in our midst like the seventy. They are here just as we have been there. What will come? I don’t know. What will emerge? I don’t know. All I know is that Jesus sent the seventy in front of him. Let’s hope this is true for us as well. Let’s hope Jesus is coming to our “village.”

Short term mission today need not be the same as the seventy recorded in Luke. Perhaps Luke is an ideal to which we can aspire; perhaps it is a record of what it looked like 2000 years ago. I can tell you few takers would arise if I were to say, “Take no bag with you to Africa.” Especially since the bags we take are filled with medical supplies.

We need not use Luke as a blue print. But we should use him as a starting point. Go from here. The glory is that we are the seventy today. Just as the choir is the seventy for the CCAP, we are the seventy for PCUSA. We are the ones who are going forth. I am not sure why, but this brings me peace. Not peace as a kind of calm, but peace as the satisfaction that abides in the restless pursuit of the kingdom of God. This is a peace I can enjoy, a peace I can offer. This is what I mean when I say, “Peace be with you.” May there be a restlessness that drives you unto the cross where you are deeply satisfied. May that peace be with you always. Amen.