Homily   

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - July 4, 2004

 

Albert Schweitzer, the Missionary Doctor and Nobel Laureate said this:

 

“It’s not enough merely to exist.  It’s not enough to say, ‘I’m earning enough to live and support my family.  I do my work well….I’m a churchgoer.’ That’s all very well, but one must do something more.  Seek always to do some good somewhere.  Every person has to seek their own way to make their own self more noble.”

 

Schweitzer reflects some of the message in our scripture for this Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.  He was born in 1875 in the region of Alsace, an area contested by both France and Germany.  He was always lured to scholarship but also lured to serving as his Father did as a minister.   He earned degrees in Theology and Philosophy while at the same time serving as a curate in a small congregation. And he kept that small ministry even when he was teaching at a prestigious university, even as he wrote a foundational work of theology, Quest of the Historical Jesus in 1905.

Schweitzer also achieved renown as an authority on the music of J.S. Bach.  Himself an organist of international repute he edited a great edition of Bach’s works and wrote a six-hundred page study of the composer.

 

And so it seems he accomplished a lot.  He was a good man and well respected and certainly faithful.  But it wasn’t enough.

 

One day he chanced upon a notice in a magazine for the need for doctors in Africa. And so he decided to leave behind all his accomplishments and answer the call. His friends and colleges thought he was mad.  As one of them put it, it was like a general deciding to take up a rifle and fight in the trenches.  But his mind was made up. 

 

He earned a medical degree with a specialty in tropical disease and presented himself to the Paris Missionary Society – and was rejected. The Society knew him for his rather radical writings on theology and thought he was just on a trip to gain attention and to impose his theology.  But he was undeterred.  He went about raising sufficient funds and underwrote his own hospital. He then presented himself again to the society – this time they accepted him!

 

He went with his wife to the area of Africa now called Gabon and designed and built a hospital. What was interesting was that he insisted that the hospital compound preserve a truly African village feeling.  Families camped out on the preserve, cooking their own meals for the patients.  Animals wandered freely among the buildings.  When people suggested it was “primitive” and complained that Schweitzer resisted attempts to modernize he insisted that the purpose of the hospital was to reduce pain and prolong life, not to create an outpost of “modern civilization.”

 

Above all Schweitzer insisted that the prime theme was “Reverence for Life.”  He tried by his work to relate Christianity to the sacredness of life in all its forms.

 

Eventually he achieved more fame – people traveled from all over to see this experiment at work.

 

But Schweitzer insisted that he had not gone to Africa to become famous or to win the world’s admiration. Rather, he said, he was motivated by the scriptural verse, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God…” It was the quest that mattered – not the attainment.

 

 

And so in the Gospel today Jesus sends out the seventy-two and gives them the map – the guidelines for the mission.

 

He tells them to go for the mission – not for what they get from it.  It is not the curing or the accolades – not the power or the welcome or the lack of it. They are to go on the mission – to carry the Word because of who they are – believers in the way.

 

You can imagine that having seen the works of Jesus and knowing the power they had as a result of their union with them that they might easily be full of themselves. They could lord it over the other and make their power felt.  They could call to task those who were not with them. They could indeed be big!

 

But Jesus’ instructions do not allow for this.

 

Don’t bring things with you he says – in a sense be dependent on the others. And if they don’t like you or listen to you or see things the same way as you – put it behind you- move on- don’t carry baggage from that. Whether they accept you or not – agree with you or not – like you or not – the kingdom is still present and near.

 

How different this posture is from the way we – and the church – and society itself functions so often!

 

It seems that Jesus as portrayed by Luke doesn’t recognize boundaries.  There isn’t animosity.  There isn’t difference. There is just the reality that God is at hand and when you see that and know that you live that.

 

And Paul in the second reading reflects the same thing. He is in debate with those who are upset because the rules are changing – no longer is Paul or the rest of the community insisting on circumcision. This was the rule that used to be important. Now Paul says that the only rule is the cross. Now Paul says that everything else falls in line behind the reality of who Jesus is and what Jesus did for us. Everything else – the ritual – the way of dressing – the place of worship – the way of worship – distinctions of sex and race and way of life are unimportant in comparison of the reality of Jesus.

 

When we realize how much we have been held and loved and nurtured by God/Jesus no matter who we are or what we have done – and this is reflected in our first reading from the Prophet Isaiah – we know that all those boundaries and restrictions and gone. We rejoice in who we are – and how we are loved and we reflect that in the way we love the others in our lives.

 

And so the amazing thing about Albert Schweitzer is not the theology he wrote or his expertise as an organist. Its not the hospital that he designed and ran or even the many he cured and saved. What is remarkable is his wisdom to know that because of who he was – the child of God and loved by God – he needed continually to proclaim that in the various ways he could.

 

You and I are missioned as well. And while we could argue the point that we doing pretty well – we’re here at church – we’re doing our best to fight the forces of evil in our lives whatever they might be – we’re kind to the neighbors and good to the kids, the Lord missions us out and challenges us further.

 

To really believe in Jesus, we are told, means that we continually look for ways to proclaim him – not just by words and quoting scripture or listing commands – but rather by loving and loving and loving. And so we, like Schweitzer, look for ways to continually respond.  We might not go off to the third world or build a hospital or even be noticed, but as we walk through this week ahead we are challenged not to rest on what we’ve done but to look for where we can be.

 

We rejoice because we are loved by our God.  We are amazed that our Lord Jesus died because of his crazy love for us. And that forms us – we go out and proclaim our faith in this wonderful God.