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When the
streets are callin’
whatcha gon’ do with it
no more sleepin’
betta holla, holla
hear your people fallin’
whatcha gon’ do for ’em
it’s your business
betta holla, holla, yeah!
—The Neville
Brothers
Hopefully,
“Streets Are Callin’” from The Neville Brothers’ new
CD, Walking in the Shadows of Life, gets us in the mood
for our scripture today. Growing up in tough, urban New
Orleans, the streets were the place of dangerous enticement
for the brothers Neville. But in their later years, they felt
called out into those same streets. Healing the people on
those streets became their aim, and that goal coalesces in
this funk song on this funk CD.
This
song invites every listener to recognize the cramped and
narcissistic reality of living like your influence for good
and for God ends at your own doorstep. The song lays out
stories of what is going on “out there” in those streets.
What is the experience of those persons living between
lamppost and park bench, park bench and lamppost? It beckons
listeners to come out to help. “When the streets are callin’, whatcha
gon’ do with it?” it asks. “Hear those
people fallin’, whatcha gon’ do for ’em?” As I was
sitting in my office pondering over the scripture text,
reading it and re-reading it, I happened to have “Walking in
the Shadows...” by the Neville Brothers playing on my
laptop. So I was reading “the Lord sent them on ahead of him
to every town and place...” while humming along to “the
streets are callin’, whatcha gon’ do with it, no more
sleeping, betta holla, holla.” Then I was reading “cure
the sick who are there and say that the Kingdom of God has
come near” while humming “you’ve been waiting for
answers to just fall from the trees, you’ll find cures for
this cancer in the souls that you feed.”
I'm
not sure just how long it took my slow brain to figure out
that these brothers of the funk music establishment were
singing about the Great Commission as understood through Luke
10. But
eventually I got there.
By
the way, I want to confess that my habit of finding helpful
insights for our Christian journeys in popular media is not
exactly conducive to, say, successful banter at a party: “So
how do you like that new album? Pretty funky, huh?” “Yeah,
and its commentary on the Trinitarian hermeneutic is totally
rad!” On the other hand, every time I listened to “Streets
are Callin’” this weekend, I did feel a certain
satisfaction that I was actually hard at work, “putting the
finishing touches on my sermon.”
Like
the Neville Brothers’ question, Jesus calls his followers
out into the streets, reminding them of the sick and the lost
in our midst, of those that we pass—and depending on how
we’re feeling on that day, whether we pass them on this or
that side of the road. Jesus calls out all of us, his
followers, asking: “Whatcha gon’ do for ’em?” If we
are truly to live as full followers of Christ, we can no
longer simply live as receivers of this promise and the
promises of redemption for ourselves. It seems that the
scripture is telling us today—and the echoes of the
scripture singing to us from the Neville Brothers CD is
saying—that we must spread the news and this hope for
redemption out into all the world, onto all the streets, to
all the persons.
As
we turn to the text today, watch for how
counter-contemporary-Christian-cultural this text really is.
The disciples are not told to attend a training on
faith-sharing before they go. They are not required to get
certified in church budgetary development. None of them went
to the Christian bookstore to pick up a “Jesus Is My Homie”
wristband or hot new inspirational punk rock CD. What is
required of them is their whole selves, which in reality has
so much more capability for evangelism than the thin veneer of
Christianity that many of us don every day. “Whatcha gon’
do for ’em?” Whatcha gon’ do with it?
I’m
struck, in Luke
10:1, that Jesus sends the disciples on ahead of him, in
pairs, to every town and place where he himself intends to go.
It seems that in their very organization, they communicate the
presence of the new community that Christ proclaims. These are
not hotshot preachers looking for a speaking circuit or radio
deal or a contemporary Christian service to preach at on
Sunday nights at 5 p.m. These are pairs. These are friends in
Christ, co-workers for Jesus and his Kingdom. And they don’t
go around announcing that with them and their
witness comes the Kingdom. But they come announcing that
Jesus will come. The disciples announce that the Kingdom
today, in this experience with us, is the Kingdom drawing
near, leaving open the possibility that soon the Kingdom will
arrive in all its splendor, that Jesus will arrive and appear
in all his personal glory.
I
think it’s 10:3, though, that worries me the most, and
probably should worry any person hired by any church in all
the world. For this is where Jesus sends out the disciples,
“like lambs into the midst of wolves.” No money, no stuff,
no shoes, no purse (“Don’t take a purse, don’t take any
money.”) How many times have we postponed ministry due to
tiny budgets? How many times have we postponed our
participation in church because of our skimpy salary or our
two jobs to feed the family? Or our over-expenditures in other
areas? And what does Jesus ask of his disciples in this story?
He tells them, “Don’t only leave your change at home, but
leave the purse to carry it in, as well!” This ministry of
sharing the gospel is not dependent on money or finances. Let
me say that one more time: This ministry of sharing Jesus’
gospel is not dependent on money or finances. Sure, the
disciples enjoy the meals that the receptive community
provides, but Jesus Christ won’t abide by the Budget Line
and its false doctrine of “not enough cash!”
And
no stuff, either. No stuff! No bag! We gotta have stuff. I
love stuff. I really love stuff. I’ll be honest. I think the
stuff in the Pit—all those games and cushy couches and ice
machines—are great! I love “ministering to the youth of
our church” on Monday and Thursday afternoons because I
really try to put that stuff to good ministerial use. “Hey,
Joe, come over here and play X-Box with me. How’s it
going?”
But
you know, I have also had this experience. One summer, instead
of getting a real job or getting an internship, I was going to
go out on tour. So I packed away everything in my apartment
that I thought I needed to put downstairs in the storage area,
just leaving the stuff out that I needed for the ministry of
going on tour….computer, guitar, tuner, some clothes,
toothbrush, a blow-up sofa. I started packing, and it took me
hours and hours and hours to get everything in the car. By the
time I was done, the Taurus that I was riding in was going
down the road with the back end about two inches off the
ground. I had too much stuff. I didn’t even use most
of it. I was going to sing the songs of evangelism, telling
the story of the gospel in my life, and I thought I needed a
wireless modem.
And
no sandals. To tell you the truth, I don’t have any idea
what that means. I don’t know what sandals were for the
folks back then. I can’t imagine going out without shoes on
now. I can’t imagine impressing any of the big-business-type
folks that we tend to want to impress in order to bring their
money to church without wearing a nice pair of wingtips. Jesus
doesn’t even let the disciples take this basic unit of
transportation. It seems like having some good ol’ boots
that were made for walking could get the disciples to farther
places and spread the news faster. But maybe that is the
point. Is this message—the gospel, the redemption, the
promise of Jesus Christ—one that can be dropped off by
disciples who are little more than ecclesial singing
telegrams? Maybe
this is a process that claims time, just like it claims lives.
Maybe it requires growth in the Word and in the promises of
God and in the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Maybe it operates
more like plants growing in the garden than like billboards
racing by on the freeway.
And
in 10:9—after they are sent out with no shoes and no bag and
no money, but with just the radical promise of the new
community of Christ, the new community of the receivers of
Christ’s peace—the disciples and the need of the world on
the streets come face to face. The disciples are charged with
curing the medical and political cancers in our world. In
faith and in the power of the Holy Spirit, they go to new
believers one by one, calling them to lives of holiness and
casting out the sicknesses that have invaded their lives. And
in their new community of people who share what is needed and
give what is not to those who are in need, the disciples and
those that follow them and those that follow Christ are giving
the cure for the political cancers that grow amongst our
cultures all the time—our cultures of big wallets, of
self-preservation, of nations that fight (not to protect the
least of these, but to protect themselves and their
interests).
And
what about those who, even in the face of the curing and the
sharing, scoff at this message and this promise, who keep the
disciples out in the street to collect dust on their bare
feet? What of them? We can pass them by, right Jesus? You’ll
get them. You’re better at that. We’ll just leave them be,
won’t say anything to them. Not quite. Some people’s dust
may get on you, but is that cause for withholding the promises
of Jesus? Probably not. In the scripture it says that the
disciples are to give the very same announcement to those who
receive as to those who do not receive. “Listen, the Kingdom
of God has come near. It doesn’t come with us. It comes with
Jesus Christ who comes after us. We offer a healing that we
can bring, but we do not offer the full healing that Jesus
Christ brings.” And whether you hear it or not, whether you
receive it or not, whether you take the disciples into your
house and feed them and provide for the sharing of this
ministry or not, the Kingdom has come near and the Kingdom
will come. Come with us. Be part of the healing. Travel along
these streets with us, with what looks to the world like no
resources, no capability, no promise of affecting change. Come
with us.
My
friends, the streets are callin’. And it’s your business,
whatcha gon’ do with it? Will you just remain receivers of
the promise without becoming the sharers that God calls us to
be? Will you trump your plans for going because the budget
just isn’t there? Will you turn back and withhold the
message of the nearness of the Kingdom from those who are
unreceptive? How about this instead? Go tell everyone you know
that Jesus is coming. Go tell everyone you know that they can
be healed. Go tell everyone you know that the Kingdom of God
has come near. It’s not an option, for living the life of
the full and engaged Christian happens in that sharing. It’s
not dependent on your ability to pay, for the promises
engender a giving and hospitable spirit in those who do
receive. This is a sharing that can heal the cancers of this
world, medical as well as political. And for those who don’t
listen, they need to hear the promise anyway. For the Kingdom
of God will leave none untouched!
My
friends, the Kingdom of God is your business. The minute you
step out that door and step onto the streets that Jesus calls
us to, it’s your business, you betta holla!
Amen.
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