Sunday: The 6th Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Preacher: Kate Spelman

Last week's Gospel featured Jesus on the move, proclaiming that the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head and telling those who want to go with him that they have not even the time to bury their dead. This week, there is even more movement, as Jesus sends seventy of his disciples out on a journey. The forward motion of the text is seemingly inexorable - in Luke's words, they go out ahead. In verse four, Jesus even tells the seventy not to pause even so much as to greet those they meet on the road. Out they go!

Well, presumably. Luke, for all of his careful recording of the detailed travel plan, actually skips out on the part when these newly commissioned disciples go out and do what they were supposed to do. Instead, after all that speechifying on Jesus's part, the disciples pop right back up again in verse seventeen.

So last week a man was told that there was no time to say goodbye to his family. This week the seventy hear that they must move on immediately if a town does not welcome them. Urgent stuff. It's onward, onward, onward!
And back again.

In 2008 I was sent out from this congregation to divinity school (unlike the seventy I left with an entire U-Haul's worth of stuff) I too set my face resolutely on the road ahead, remaining in the same apartment, eating whatever my roommate puts in front of me. Out I went! Onward and onward and onward ...

And back again.

Why do we return?

For one, returning like this brings much comfort - familiar faces, old haunts. Think of that place, the one that you know by heart, the block you grew up on, the school you went to. You'd know, even in the dark, how to navigate the sidewalk or the stairs. Knowing these places and returning to the means we know and return to ourselves as well. It's the comfort of recognizing, and of being recognized.

As the Episcopal community in Hyde Park, we return like this every week to the same building. To the same stories, the same rituals. Some of you even return to the same seats, week after week - you know this place and it knows you.

As a nation, we return to our history ever year on the Fourth of July, same stories, same rituals. Knowing our history means we can locate ourselves within it,
Telling it tell us who we are.
But you know full well that to return is not always to be comforted. There is challenge in returning. Maybe the house you grew up in was demolished to clear room for a new subdivision. Maybe the school you graduated from has a new science wing, and the stairs were moved in the latest renovation. In the dark you fumble for the light switch that is not where you remembered it, and bruise your shins on a lawn ornament added since you left.

Moreover for many returnees, certainly for the seventy Luke writes about, much of the change is internal, although it might be initially hard for them to see. In their excitement the seventy returnees gush, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" And Jesus assures them that they have been given power and authority.

But Jesus, who knows the disciples more intimately than they could imagine articulates the greater change for them. Indeed Jesus challenges their entire understanding of what has transpired on their journey. Do not rejoice, Jesus says, in this outward effect, or that you have changed the course of people's lives, but rejoice in the effect the Gospel has had on you, and in the path that you have walked.

In short, it is not the submission of the enemy that is the defining triumph of the seventy, but their own personal growth towards God. It's a gentle admonition, but a powerful insight and a strong, if subtle, challenge.
In returning, the seventy are recognized and comforted. But they have also been issued a challenge: to flip their worldview upside down.

So what of us?

While we rejoice to live in a post-resurrection world we also live in a post-ascension world, and while we wait for the second coming the physical presence of Christ eludes us. What we are left with are bricks, mortar, some chairs, an organ; the muscle, blood and bone of our own body and that of our neighbor. Seemingly insignificant components, until we add them up.

In the Eucharist we are told that together, we are one body, one blood - the body and blood of Christ for the world. Thus we hold this responsibility as a church body - to welcome the returning, to give them the comfort of recognition, but also to push further. To send them back out. To continue to assert that this world's value system, predicated on the violent cycle of submission and domination, is not the only way to make sense of things. That there are more meaningful ways of interpreting the data at hand, higher purposes than worldly power to strive towards.

It's a prophetic mission if ever there was one, and an appropriate one for a national holiday.

Indeed the season after Pentecost calls the church to live into our mission as the visible presence of Christ in the world, living deeper into the life of Jesus who is calling all people to return again and again. The post-ascension church welcomes the stranger, arriving for the first time at our door, but it also welcomes back the one who returns again -- whether it's after two years of graduate school, a summer vacation, or just another six days of inexorable forward motion, pressing on ahead in the world.

As we return each week, it is not only for the comfort of the well-rehearsed salvation history, but also for the confrontation of a dynamic Gospel story that continually raises new challenges. It's a task that requires both bravery and perseverance, to return once again only half-knowing what we will find, and to offer both comfort and challenge to those who return. A difficult mission, but one we are compelled to embark upon without delay.