Written and Delivered by The Rev. Mary Phelps

Amos 7:7-15, Mark 6:7:13

Last week my dad shared a joke with me, and it went like this. Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, and Robert Schuller all died on the same day within hours of each other. As they approached the pearly gates, they joined a small line of others who were checking in with St. Peter before entering heaven. Finally the three stood before Peter who said to them, "Guys, I have quite a list of other souls I have to arrange accommodations for before I can get to you. I'm going to have you to go down and cool your heels in hell for a few days before I can get to you. I know you three will understand, and I'll call down for all of you just as soon as I can." A couple of days later St. Peter got a frantic call from the devil who said, "Listen Pete you have to do me a favor and get these guys out of here right away." Peter said, "Why, what could those three do that is causing you problems?" "Well," huffed the devil, "Billy has already converted every one down here, and Oral has cured them all. And Robert, well Robert has already raised enough money to air condition the place!"

Several days after dad told me this joke, I sat down to reflect on the Bible lessons we heard this morning to prepare to write this sermon. I thought about Amos, a poor farmer, and the twelve always slightly confused and doubtful disciples, being chosen as spokespeople for God. All of them had a mission to bring people to God, and people listened to and believed them, and were converted. Billy, Oral, and Robert, despite all the stereotypical jokes about them, feel that same call from God, and no matter what each of us thinks of these guys, we have to admit they have all been amazingly successful at bringing people to Christ. But how did they all do what they did so well?

Look at the difference between the priest Amaziah and Amos. Amaziah thought of religion in civil terms. He treated the sanctuary in Bethel as a royal palace as well as the house of God. He believed his role was to "keep up appearances" - that is to smooth things over and quickly put out fires when they arose. He needed to keep things in control for the government, and he barely gave a thought to the fact that the religion had deteriorated into an unchanging ritual of religious obligations. His services were given only to those who came to him, only those who sought him out.

Amos, on the other hand, like Jesus and the disciples, was an itinerant missionary. He was sent by God, to question and confront injustice and proclaim God's word where ever it was needed. Amos didn't ask for this assignment from God, he resisted being a prophetic voice, but it was the command and power of God working in his life that enabled Amos to do the work God had asked him to do.

In his book, The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggeman says,

The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us. Prophetic ministry serves to criticize in dismantling the dominant consciousness. To that extent it attempts, [on the one hand] to ... engage in a rejection and delegitimizing of the present order of things. On the other hand, [the] alternative consciousness to be nurtured serves to energize persons and communities by its promise of another time and situation toward which the community of faith may move. To that extent, it attempts to ... live in fervent anticipation of the newness that God has promised and will surely give.[1]

God gave Amos the words he would need to be a prophetic missionary among his people. Amos moved out of his comfort zone to challenge and energize the people of Israel to change the way they were living and return to God. In the end, Amaziah and most of the Israelites ignored Amos, and within their generation their kingdom was conquered by Assyria.

Centuries later, Jesus, like Amos, heard and responded to God's call to challenge the Jews to live lives that stretched the boundaries of their laws. To love as God loved them, to caring about and reach out to people even if that meant eating with, touching, healing, and sharing with those considered sinful, ritually unclean, and different than them. To do that often would require Jewish laws about the Sabbath, kosher eating, and other things to be set aside and dismantled to follow God's commands to feed the poor, provide shelter to the homeless, and give up some of what they had to reach out and offer God's love to people that had long been ignored and rejected. Jesus was on a mission for God, and to accomplish that he recruited and trained the twelve disciples to help spread God's message. They were to invite everyone they met to join in their community.

To accomplish this Jesus instructed them to travel with a light load, taking with no food, no money, no bag. They were not to stay at the local inn, but to accept the invitation to stay with those who invited them into their homes. These disciples never seemed to quite understand all that Jesus had taught; they never quite caught on to the meaning of Jesus mission and call from God. But they had faith in Jesus, they had seen him work wonders in peoples lives, and they accepted his trust in them that they were equipped with all they needed to spread God's mission to everyone they encountered.

Jesus, on the other hand, seemed to know that his followers would only grasp his message if they lived it out. That is, they could only create a more inclusive community by integrating their lives with the lives of the people they encountered. Without extra baggage they too would be in need, and they would have to rely on the compassion and hospitality of those they would welcome them into their community. Hospitality is an essential part of proclaiming the Good News.

Disciples of Jesus are told what to do and what not to do. Beyond that they are not told exactly how to do it. Jesus points us in a particular direction, and then lets us discover together how to get God's work done. As we are doing that, our lives become an invitation to others to join us in this spiritual journey.

Did you know that the United States is now the third largest mission field in the world? There are only two other countries, China and India, that have more self professed non-Christians. Today thousands of missionaries are coming to America from counties we have typically thought of as mission fields. They are reaching out to those who need a church home, while American churches are gathering people who are moving from other congregations.

Missionaries today go to the people and do not wait for the people to come to them. They are flexible and they are adaptable to the changing world around them. They don't lock themselves into one way of doing things, knowing what worked in the past is past, and a new vision and way of being is required for the church to be a missional and inviting community. They hear God's call, and often with very few resources spread God's word among the people they visit. Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, and Robert Schuller all had these humble starts. They also did one other thing - they work with or launched each other's careers.

If my dad's joke were a true story, I bet that is how those three drove the devil to despair. They surveyed the new landscape, put their heads together, and figured out how to answer God's call to bring new, and the most unlikely, people into God's family.

I'd like us to take a few minutes to work together and answer two questions. (Have the people gather in groups of three or four, mixing together members who have been at St. George's for over fifteen years with newer members.)

1. Many of us have heard about how St. George's was growing 15-20 years ago. What were you doing as a community that attracted new people to join this parish?

2. Why do you think that way won't work, or isn't working, now, and what new ways of attracting people can you envision us doing together today?


[1] Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, second edition, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), p.3.