(By Jody)
Luke 9:1-9
For me, there is no lawn more beautiful than one with a bountiful lemon tree.
Julian and I are unworthy guardians of the large manse lawn; we barely manage to keep it mown, it is littered with toys and household items thrown from the deck, and we feel daily disappointment radiating from our neighbours who gaze, from their upstairs windows, across their own pristine backyard and garden over to ours.
However we did plant a lemon tree years ago, and every time we eat pancakes with sugar and home grown lemon juice, we congratulate ourselves and all future ministers.
It is one thing to have lemons for your own pancakes, but to live the lemon tree dream is to grow enough to give away freely: to bring a bag to church, like Betty with her grapefruit and Evelyn with her basil, to offer them to every guest and neighbour, to tell people “Oh yeah if we’re not home just pop round the back and help yourself – we have plenty.”
Abundance, overflow, unstoppable excess, is Stephen Cottrell’s view of evangelism – sharing the abundant life shown us in Jesus. Cottrell’s book “From the Abundance of the Heart” insists that you don’t start with evangelism, but with prayer, with responding to the Love of God with attention and intention. “To put it bluntly” he says “you can’t give what you haven’t got. How stupid of us to think that we could ever be effective in evangelism unless it arose from an authentic and lived spirituality.” (p3)
Not: “How can we evangelise? How can we convince people to believe Jesus is the Good News of God’s love? How can we get more people to join us and reassure us we’ve picked a good path and help pay our bills?”
But: “What is Good News in your own life and in our life together? How is Christ shaping your life, your awareness, your way of being human in this world? Can you imagine telling anyone anything about it?”
Evangelism is meaningless apart from lived knowledge of the love of God, spilling out from you and me.
Sharing from overflow might sound unbiblical – what about the impoverished widow who gave away all she had, not just what she had left after she’d met her own needs? (Luke 21:1-4.) What about Jesus’ command to“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10.27) – not bask in God’s love and nurture yourself, then see if you have something excess for your neighbour?
It is a paradox. Receive to give, give to receive.
The text in Luke invites us to the heart of this mystery, the heart of Christ Jesus who set aside divine privilege in order to seed the kingdom of heaven.
The extraordinary possibilities of an open hand and open heart – to give and receive, and to change the world.
When Jesus sends twelve close friends out to proclaim the Reign of God, he equips them with the power to name and denounce evil, and to heal.
But he insists they go otherwise empty-handed.
Nothing to ease their journey.
Nothing sensible travellers carry – no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no change of clothes.
No cumbersome luxuries; and no basics either.
Just them; in need of hospitality and excited about what Jesus’ presence has meant for them.
George Wieland Baptist article: There is a deep‑rooted assumption in many of our church mission efforts that we are in the role of hosts. We invite people into our space, we extend hospitality, and we are willing to share our resources with those who come in. But we hold the power, we exercise control, we are the generous givers and they are the needy recipients. What if we were to act not as missional hosts but as missional guests? The question then is not how to persuade people to accept our invitation to come into our space but who will welcome us into their space, share what they have with us, and in return receive what God gives us to take with us as we go?
The disciples received, with limited understanding, the seed of kingdom of heaven among and within them. The Reign of God, a new way of seeing and being in the world, focused on divine love and possibility. They are to proclaim it while completely dependant on the people and communities they encounter, at the mercy of the welcome or rejection they receive.
Their need is no Trojan horse, hiding an aggressive gospel until doors open and hosts relax. Their need shapes their message with the truth that they are not rulers or colonisers or prosperity peddlers, but seekers of the bread of life sharing what they know with anyone else who recognises their own hunger.
Herod has a cameo role after the story of the twelve going out. Full of his own importance and reckons, he stands for power that only knows how to subdue and dominate. He cannot fathom the power of openness, and he cannot see Jesus.
Richard Rohr comments Jesus’ intentions are very clear. He wanted his disciples—then and now—to experience the value of vulnerability. … We should stay in their homes and eat their food! This is a very strong anti-institutional model. One can only imagine how different history would have been had we provided this initiatory training for our missionaries. We might have borne a message of cosmic sympathy instead of imperialism, providing humble reconciliation instead of religious wars [and murder].
Faith shared makes no sense unless it has its source beyond us. Or rather, it makes sense as a project of insecurity and assimilation, to prop up our club and our clubhouse.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that prayer andevangelism came to the top of our lists of priorities last year.
Any chance of flowing out will come what is going on in our own lives. And it is not something we can cultivate alone; we need God and each other.
To receive the love of God, to know we are loved and belong, to be formed and reformed in an environment of healing and hope… this is the life giving abundance Jesus speaks of in John’s Gospel (10:10), and this is what we have to share without arrogance or guile.
So how are we putting ourselves in the presence of God? How are we letting the love of God nourish us and shape us? In the places we stop, in the stories we listen to, in the actions we undertake, in the protest we join, in the seedlings we care for? And in prayer, alone and together, eyes open or shut, words flowing or silence. How are we cultivating our knowledge of God’s love, of abundant life not content or able to stay hidden?
Luke 9:1-9
For me, there is no lawn more beautiful than one with a bountiful lemon tree.
Julian and I are unworthy guardians of the large manse lawn; we barely manage to keep it mown, it is littered with toys and household items thrown from the deck, and we feel daily disappointment radiating from our neighbours who gaze, from their upstairs windows, across their own pristine backyard and garden over to ours.
However we did plant a lemon tree years ago, and every time we eat pancakes with sugar and home grown lemon juice, we congratulate ourselves and all future ministers.
It is one thing to have lemons for your own pancakes, but to live the lemon tree dream is to grow enough to give away freely: to bring a bag to church, like Betty with her grapefruit and Evelyn with her basil, to offer them to every guest and neighbour, to tell people “Oh yeah if we’re not home just pop round the back and help yourself – we have plenty.”
Abundance, overflow, unstoppable excess, is Stephen Cottrell’s view of evangelism – sharing the abundant life shown us in Jesus. Cottrell’s book “From the Abundance of the Heart” insists that you don’t start with evangelism, but with prayer, with responding to the Love of God with attention and intention. “To put it bluntly” he says “you can’t give what you haven’t got. How stupid of us to think that we could ever be effective in evangelism unless it arose from an authentic and lived spirituality.” (p3)
Not: “How can we evangelise? How can we convince people to believe Jesus is the Good News of God’s love? How can we get more people to join us and reassure us we’ve picked a good path and help pay our bills?”
But: “What is Good News in your own life and in our life together? How is Christ shaping your life, your awareness, your way of being human in this world? Can you imagine telling anyone anything about it?”
Evangelism is meaningless apart from lived knowledge of the love of God, spilling out from you and me.
Sharing from overflow might sound unbiblical – what about the impoverished widow who gave away all she had, not just what she had left after she’d met her own needs? (Luke 21:1-4.) What about Jesus’ command to“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10.27) – not bask in God’s love and nurture yourself, then see if you have something excess for your neighbour?
It is a paradox. Receive to give, give to receive.
The text in Luke invites us to the heart of this mystery, the heart of Christ Jesus who set aside divine privilege in order to seed the kingdom of heaven.
The extraordinary possibilities of an open hand and open heart – to give and receive, and to change the world.
When Jesus sends twelve close friends out to proclaim the Reign of God, he equips them with the power to name and denounce evil, and to heal.
But he insists they go otherwise empty-handed.
Nothing to ease their journey.
Nothing sensible travellers carry – no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no change of clothes.
No cumbersome luxuries; and no basics either.
Just them; in need of hospitality and excited about what Jesus’ presence has meant for them.
George Wieland Baptist article: There is a deep‑rooted assumption in many of our church mission efforts that we are in the role of hosts. We invite people into our space, we extend hospitality, and we are willing to share our resources with those who come in. But we hold the power, we exercise control, we are the generous givers and they are the needy recipients. What if we were to act not as missional hosts but as missional guests? The question then is not how to persuade people to accept our invitation to come into our space but who will welcome us into their space, share what they have with us, and in return receive what God gives us to take with us as we go?
The disciples received, with limited understanding, the seed of kingdom of heaven among and within them. The Reign of God, a new way of seeing and being in the world, focused on divine love and possibility. They are to proclaim it while completely dependant on the people and communities they encounter, at the mercy of the welcome or rejection they receive.
Their need is no Trojan horse, hiding an aggressive gospel until doors open and hosts relax. Their need shapes their message with the truth that they are not rulers or colonisers or prosperity peddlers, but seekers of the bread of life sharing what they know with anyone else who recognises their own hunger.
Herod has a cameo role after the story of the twelve going out. Full of his own importance and reckons, he stands for power that only knows how to subdue and dominate. He cannot fathom the power of openness, and he cannot see Jesus.
Richard Rohr comments Jesus’ intentions are very clear. He wanted his disciples—then and now—to experience the value of vulnerability. … We should stay in their homes and eat their food! This is a very strong anti-institutional model. One can only imagine how different history would have been had we provided this initiatory training for our missionaries. We might have borne a message of cosmic sympathy instead of imperialism, providing humble reconciliation instead of religious wars [and murder].
Faith shared makes no sense unless it has its source beyond us. Or rather, it makes sense as a project of insecurity and assimilation, to prop up our club and our clubhouse.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that prayer andevangelism came to the top of our lists of priorities last year.
Any chance of flowing out will come what is going on in our own lives. And it is not something we can cultivate alone; we need God and each other.
To receive the love of God, to know we are loved and belong, to be formed and reformed in an environment of healing and hope… this is the life giving abundance Jesus speaks of in John’s Gospel (10:10), and this is what we have to share without arrogance or guile.
So how are we putting ourselves in the presence of God? How are we letting the love of God nourish us and shape us? In the places we stop, in the stories we listen to, in the actions we undertake, in the protest we join, in the seedlings we care for? And in prayer, alone and together, eyes open or shut, words flowing or silence. How are we cultivating our knowledge of God’s love, of abundant life not content or able to stay hidden?
