“No More Normal: Serve”

Reading: John 13:31-35; Luke 10:1-24

Written and preached by Luke Richards

        Can I be honest? I really didn’t like my sermon last week. It was just plain hard. I like my stuff and I like being comfortable, just like everyone else. But one of the things we’ve got to get into our heads is that it’s very, very normal to be curious about the kingdom of God and to like the promises that come with the kingdom but reject or ignore or downplay the hard stuff. Normal people like Jesus for the most part and ignore the parts they don’t like. But going beyond normal in our spiritual lives means accepting the whole package. Going beyond normal means realizing that, in fact, the whole package is best, even though it’s harder.

        The method that we’re following during these few weeks is to look through the history of God’s work with His people and notice some of those places where God has taken some action or characteristic of someone and used that to do something far beyond normal. Last week we looked at that encounter between Jesus and a rich young man interested in eternal life, and Jesus called that man way beyond normal by telling him that he needed to learn to put God first to such an extent that he even needed to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor; he needed to rely on God completely. And the challenge for us was to simplify our lives, to make a tactical withdrawal from those things—good things, even—that ensnare us and keep us from fully following Christ. Today’s focus is on another time in Jesus’ ministry when something out of the ordinary happened, and in fact it’s so abnormal that it’s even hard to explain what exactly happened.

        The story is told in Luke chapter 10. Jesus has come to a point in His ministry when He has proclaimed that the kingdom is at hand and He has explained some of the meaning of that kingdom, and now He has raised up a group of followers who are mature enough to start taking part in that kingdom. So He sends out seventy-two (or seventy, according to some manuscripts) of these disciples to spread the word about this kingdom. He’s pretty specific about how to proclaim the kingdom, too. They’re not supposed to take the usual traveling gear and provisions; they’re supposed to trust that God will provide for them. They’re not supposed to greet anyone on the way; they’re supposed to stay focused on the mission. They’re supposed to heal the sick, physically and visually demonstrating that, as they were instructed to say, “The kingdom of God is near you.” And in those places where they are rejected, they are instructed not to retaliate, because judgment is up to God.

        These seventy disciples go out two-by-two and do what Jesus tells them, and they come back full of joy because they have caught a glimpse of this kingdom, and the kingdom is so powerful that even the demons submit before it. And Jesus makes this very odd statement: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” I’d say that definitely fits the bill as being an event that is beyond normal, but what does it mean? Satan being knocked out of heaven like a bolt of lightning is pretty dramatic stuff; what’s going on here?

        This is one of those verses that is pretty hotly debated by different interpreters. Lots of people use this verse as a piece of their own theological puzzle. But what we’re seeing here is a confrontation between two kingdoms, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, and it’s pretty clear which kingdom comes out on top. This is a victory for Jesus and a defeat for Satan because all through Jesus’ ministry there was this question of what methods Jesus would use. Would He rely only on the power of God His Father, or would He claim some power for Himself and use that power to bring about His kingdom by force? He could have very easily started a violent revolution, and a lot of us would say He would have been justified in doing so, and that is exactly what Satan was tempting Him to do: overthrow the kingdoms of the world using the tactics of the world. But Jesus refused those tactics, set aside the power of force, and relied entirely on God and the ethics of God’s kingdom. So when Jesus sent out those seventy disciples to proclaim His kingdom using the methods of His kingdom, trusting only and entirely on God for their provision and protection, that was a huge victory for Jesus and a massive defeat for Satan. When the people of God are on the march using the methods of God’s kingdom, Satan gets knocked for a loop.

        There are two things here that we need to focus on if we’re serious about going beyond normal: service and servanthood. Not only do we do something, we do it in a certain way. What was it that knocked Satan for a loop? What did these disciples do that was so unusual that it knocked the devil himself off-balance? They were active in the mission of God’s kingdom—service—using the methods of God’s kingdom—servanthood. The people of God who go beyond normal are involved in this mission and act according to the ethic of servanthood, and that can rock the world. So here’s where it gets real: our congregation averages about seventy people, give or take. If Jesus were to send us out to undertake His mission using His methods, would anything happen?

        Let’s break this down a little. The first ingredient is what I’m calling service. Am I saying that the church is just another community service organization, that all we’re here to do is help people? No, not exactly. Our service is actually a proclamation of the kingdom, as we’ll see. One of the themes running throughout the gospels is the difference between the crowds and the disciples, which is central to what I mean by service. Jesus had all sorts of people following Him around during His ministry, and at some points things were actually getting a bit out of hand. He became kind of a rock star, a celebrity, the sort of person who could draw a crowd just because the crowd wanted to see someone famous. But out of the thousands of people who came out to see Jesus, only a few remained to follow Him and become His disciples. It’s very normal and acceptable and nonthreatening to come to Jesus out of curiosity to see what He can do for you; it is very abnormal and frankly scary to most people to take the drastic step of giving up everything to follow Him. The crowds were curious; the disciples were committed to following Him. The crowds accepted what Jesus would give them; the disciples accepted the burden of taking up the cross. The crowds went home at the end of the day; the disciples were sent out into the mission of proclaiming the kingdom. What knocked Satan off his high horse was the fact that this kingdom of God was on the move: the abnormal people of God are involved in active service to their King. They are more than just consumers of what the kingdom can give them, they are participants in the mission of the kingdom.

        So one part of going beyond normal is service to our King, being active in the mission, getting off your duff and contributing to the work that is to be done, but there’s more to it than that. Going beyond normal in the kingdom is not just a matter of doing service, it’s a matter of being a servant. We are active in mission in a certain way. We live in the ethic of God’s kingdom. What’s an ethic? It’s a guiding principle, something that determines how you will act and what your priorities will be. A doctor’s ethic might be wanting to heal people, a police officer’s ethic might be wanting to protect people, and those ethics will guide their work. For example, one politician might have an ethic of wanting to make a difference in society, and that will probably be a good person to elect. Another politician’s ethic might be getting re-elected, and that’s not someone we want in office. So when we say that we must be about the mission according to the ethic of the kingdom, what we’re saying is that our actions will be guided by servanthood, which is another way of saying that we will be guided by love. That’s what knocked Satan down: a kingdom that operated according to love instead of power, a kingdom that relied on God’s strength rather than our own. That’s what distinguished the disciples from the crowds: being servants of their God and going out in love to the world.

        This is not a love that the world understands or expects. It’s not a romantic sort of love that we restrict to the people who make us all fuzzy-headed when they’re around; it’s not a sort of love that is limited to being hit by Cupid’s arrow. It’s not restricted to the people we like, the people we’re related to, or the people who think, look, act, and believe like me. It’s not a love that depends on whether they deserve it or whether we feel like loving them today. It’s also not optional in God’s kingdom. It’s a love commanded by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, a love so powerful that we are even commanded to love our enemies. It’s a love that Jesus says in John 13 will be one of the defining characteristics of the church. It’s a love demonstrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan, which, incidentally, immediately follows the passage we read in Luke 10. It’s a love demonstrated time and again in the book of Acts, when the followers of Jesus spread into the world facing danger and hatred to spread the good news to a world beloved by God. It’s a love demonstrated in the book of Romans, when Paul teaches a church split down ethnic and economic lines that they are one in Christ and are called to embrace one another, different though they may be, because Christ died for us while we were still His enemies. It’s a love demonstrated in Galatians, when Paul reprimands churches that are so concerned with their personal piety that they add hurdles and barriers to the gospel, making it difficult for the lost to respond in faith. It’s a love demonstrated in 1 Peter, when Peter encourages churches struggling under persecution that their response should be to overcome evil with good, because their response in love is powerful enough to preach to their enemies.

The ethic of the kingdom is love, showing faithfulness even to the faithless, holding out the hope of reconciliation even to our blood enemies, doing good even to those who want to kill us, blessing those who curse us, praying for those who persecute us, binding up the brokenhearted, giving to those in need, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and if we choose not to operate according to love, if we reject the commandment of Jesus to love your neighbor and even your enemy as yourself, then we are not living in the kingdom of God. If we reject this extreme love that is absolutely indiscriminate, we are not following Jesus. It’s normal to love those who love you. Everyone does that. It takes a follower of Jesus to love an enemy and pray that that enemy might one day become a brother or sister in Christ. Here’s what it boils down to: every single person you meet has the potential to have as much potential as you do in Christ. It’s our cry for God to take us beyond normal; He can take even the worst person in the world beyond normal, too. Terrorists, homosexuals, abortion doctors, pedophiles, illegal immigrants and everyone else you might have on your do-not-like list could become a follower of Jesus, just like you. They are worth braving even the gates of hell for. They are worth selling all we have and giving it to the poor. They are worth giving up our comfort for. They’re worth reaching out to.

It comes down to service and servanthood, mission carried out in the ethic of love. Both of them are non-negotiable in the kingdom, so the choice is not whether we will be involved in God’s work God’s way, the choice is whether we will accept or reject His kingdom. If we reject the ethic of love, we are rejecting the kingdom. It’s that simple, and it’s that hard.

        And it’s so easy to miss this and slip back into what’s normal for everyone else. It’s so easy to hold back some things for ourselves in our so-called love, and it’s so easy to start attaching limits and what-ifs and conditions onto our indiscriminate love. Sure, we love everyone, but we really love the people who are most like us, who look and vote like us and like our kind of music. Of course, we want everyone to come to church, but they need to get cleaned up first and come to church on our terms and behave themselves and not make us uncomfortable and really, it might just be easier if they would find another church that fits them better because we like things the way they are now. Sure, we want to minister to everyone, but I’m not really cut out for it and it would really be easier if someone else could do that for us.

        There are people in our community dying and going to hell because I am too much of a goody-two-shoe to go out there and love them. There are people in our community selling their bodies because they don’t know that there’s an alternative, because I haven’t told them, and I expect them to come to me to hear my sermon. There are people in our community lying in a puddle of their own vomit because I haven’t shown them a God who has an eternal purpose for them. There are entire communities of people who just don’t care about God because I think my job will be easier if I only have to deal with people who are like me, and I’m not sure I want to reach out to people whose culture or language is different than mine. If you and I are going to go beyond normal in the kingdom, we’ve got to get to work at the mission, not out of pity, not out of obligation, but because we truly believe God will do what He says He can do, and because we truly believe that the image of God is hiding deep within each person we see.

        If we’re going to go beyond normal and show the world a church the likes of which it has rarely seen, there are four things (at least) that I think we need to do: look up, get out, get close, and regroup. First of all, look up: spend time with God, pray incessantly, ask Him persistently to give you a heart for the people around you and the eyes to see them in love. Some people are just hard to love, and we need God’s help. Second, get out: maybe the mission is where the people are, and most of the people are outside the church building. We’d better get out where they are and meet them on their turf to understand them and how we can speak to them. Third, get close: it’s easy to write people off when we look at them from a distance, but that becomes a lot harder when we look them in the eye, when we hear their stories, when we eat with them, when we walk with them. And fourth, we might need to regroup: the reality is that reaching out in love to do the mission of God will change us and it will change our church, not always in ways we like. Sometimes that process looks a lot like grieving as we have to find our feet again in a new place. It makes us vulnerable. We might get hurt. That had better not stop us, though.

        It’s very simple. As long as we are content to ignore the mission and the methods of God’s kingdom, as long as we neglect service and only show a halfhearted interest in servanthood, we will be stuck in normal. Let’s not be content with that.

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