The Spirit of Celebration
Let God dwell within your castle.
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Text: Luke 10:1-11
When I was a young boy, my Great Uncle Raymond Stirling, a Cambridge historian and college principal, liked to drag me around to archaeological digs. He also liked to take me to ancient ruins, great castles and magnificent historic abbeys throughout the United Kingdom. As a 10-year-old, it bored me to tedium, almost to the point of causing a family revolt. If I saw one more old wreck or ruin, I thought I would have to leave this world. Since I was being taken around by an old ruin, I thought it was even worse. As I got older, I saw him get progressively younger and wiser for some reason.
Many times, I cast my memory back to those days when my uncle lovingly took me to these famous places. One of his great insights was to compare and contrast castles and abbeys. He said, “Have you noticed, Andy (he used to call me Andy - another strike against him) how castles are always inaccessible? They're in high places, often surrounded by moats, high walls, gates and ramparts. They're meant to be impenetrable, secure, sovereign presences. But abbeys have no walls or moats around them. They have welcoming canopies and doors that open wide to let the public in. They also speak of sovereignty. Not the sovereignty of humanity protecting itself, but of God, and God's open doors. In fact, abbeys usually have many doors on different wings - north, south, east and west - wanting you to come in. My uncle thought this was a powerful statement about God, as he envisioned him. He said, “God opens the doors, but we tend to put up the walls.”
The same is true, not only physically in terms of structures and buildings, but also in terms of our very existence, our very souls. Teresa of Avila wrote that we each have an interior castle. For her, the interior castle was not a walled city to keep out the presence of God, but an open place with rooms that allow God to enter. Jesus sent his disciples out, in many ways, to break down the walls of our castles which we set up as barriers between us and God. Part of the problem with our lives is that they reflect the walls of castles. We allow those who are close to us, who we like and know, within our inner castle. But sometimes we set up walls as a blockade against those we don't know or like; we build them as a form of protection and security to maintain our own sovereignty against the world around us. Very often, by erecting those walls, we also keep out God.
When Jesus sent out the 70, he sent them two by two with a very specific message, meaning and purpose. He wanted them to take his ministry into the world to break down the barriers that exist between us and others and between us and God.
Seventy is a significant number. In the Book of Exodus, when Moses was preparing the elders to go into the wilderness and find their way to the Promised Land, he chose 70 elders to go. The Sanhedrin, the famous Jewish court, was comprised of 70 people. Seventy was seen as a powerful, complete number. By selecting 70 to go forth, Jesus sent a strong message that he was going to continue God's work. He wanted these disciples to carry on God's covenantal work, to break down the walls of our castles and let the Almighty come in.
In preparation for this venture, Jesus gave the 70 some specific instructions. First, he told them to leave behind all material attachments. He didn't want them worrying about what they were going to eat or where they were going to sleep. All he wanted them to do was take a staff with them for the journey. He wanted them to travel light.
There are very few conflicts in my marriage. My wife, Marial and I get along remarkably well, considering she has to live with me. However, we do have slight disagreements sometimes, and those occur when we're preparing for vacations. I like to take a lot of stuff. I'm an Englishman. When we colonized the world, we took stuff with us. I would take a trunk with me if I could, and carry clothing for every single occasion that might ever arise. More often than not, we eat in casual places; we walk on the beach and in hills. “What do you need a three-piece suit for?” my wife says. Never the less - just in case - I feel I should have my suit and my pressed white shirt. Marial says, “Think like a deer. Travel lightly; move on gracefully.” Half the trunk of my car is filled with my stuff. Hers has a little, tiny bag in the corner. Who needs and uses all her stuff? Marial. Who uses one tenth? Me. But I still want to travel with a lot of stuff. Then again, I have to carry it, and worry about it. Is it creased? Is it pressed? Is it going to survive the journey? Then I don't use it in the end, foolish man that I am.
Very often in life, we carry a lot of baggage with us. We worry about those things and become consumed by them. Jesus told the disciples to travel light. He didn't want them to be worried about material things. He wanted them to be focused and keep their eyes on why they were going. He told them to say Shalom - “Peace be with you” - when they went to people's homes. He said to pray the greeting was returned, but if not, to move on. Jesus was preparing the disciples for rejection, because he knew that people sometimes put up walls. The castles of their souls are their own sovereign domains, and they want to hear nothing of Jesus and his ministry. When that happens, Jesus told them to shake the dust off their feet and go where they would be received. He also told them to heal, bring good news and demonstrate the power of his ministry. Then he repeated, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” I've said before, if a line is repeated in scripture, it is for particular emphasis. Jesus told the disciples to say: “The kingdom - the reign of God - is at hand.”
Jesus was not saying that the kingdom of God had not existed before. What Jesus had in mind was similar to what the Lord asked of Moses in the Book of Numbers:
Bring me 70 elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent meeting that they may stand there with you, and I will come down and speak with you there. I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not carry it alone. (Numbers 11:16)
When Jesus, like Moses, sent out the 70, he knew the Spirit of God was still at work. Jesus was not saying that God's Spirit was not at work before. In Greek, the Aorist tense of the word eggiken is used, which implies that the kingdom had come already. What made Jesus unique, and why he wanted his disciples to say the kingdom of God was at hand, was that it was now visible in Jesus' ministry. It could now be seen and understood, and that is the message the disciples were to deliver.
I liken this to an illustration I heard about a cruise ship. A cruise ship always heads off in a particular direction with a particular destination. But the people who are on board the ship live their own lives. They sing, dance, eat (usually too much,) swim, play games, are entertained and sleep. They are free to move around, but the ship is still moving them in a certain direction. That's what it's like in the kingdom of God. We have freedom, an ongoing ability to choose and move around. But let us not kid ourselves. The kingdom of God is on the move. It has a direction, and continues to proceed. Jesus boards the ship with all of these people who think they're free (which they are,) but he says, “I am now the captain, and I'm showing you the direction in which the kingdom is going.”
That is a great image, but how does it apply to our lives? If the kingdom of God is at hand, it is all around us. The Lord is always at work, and we see this in Jesus. But this also reveals how Jesus says, “I want to enter into your castle. I want my kingdom to be within your domain. I want my sovereignty to be involved in your life.” That was the focus of his ministry. We often set up walls of sin, avarice, power and control - walls of our own making - to protect ourselves from God. Jesus is saying, “I want to come into that wall. I want to come into your castle and dwell within you. To guide and direct you so you may walk in the path of the kingdom. I want to lead and nurture you.”
If this church exists for any reason, if our ministry is worth anything at all, it is to say to the world, “The kingdom of God is at hand. Christ wants to break through the walls and barriers that you have set up in order for you to experience the sovereignty and joy of that kingdom.” But to do that, he asks us first to put down the drawbridges that have been our sources of protection. He says, “I want you to let me in, and let me see you.”
I once heard a preacher compare God's kingdom to electricity. It's like God is saying, “Repent - electricity is at hand.” The power and love of God are everywhere, but you have to “turn them on” and be willing to receive them.
I must admit that, like those early disciples, I sometimes feel resistance when I talk to some people about Christ and God. It's as if they've built up their walls in such a way that God has no place within their lives. You might be like that today. You might think that God is absent. “Where is this kingdom when I need it? Why isn't it more clearly demonstrated?” Sometimes we're like two naughty boys, and eight-year-old and a 10-year-old, whose mother is nearly out of her mind with the way they've been misbehaving. It's the middle of the summer vacation and she doesn't know what to do with them. She thinks, “I've heard there's a minister who is really good. I'll get my kids to visit her and get some wise counsel.” So the minister meets with each boy. She asks the first one, “Where is God?” He thinks about it, and can't give an answer. He's distraught. She asks him again, and he runs out of the room crying and hides in a closet. The older brother comes in, and the minister thinks he might know. So she asks him, “Where is God?” He has no idea where God is, either. He goes and hides in the closet with his little brother, who says, “We've really done it this time, haven't we? God is missing, and they think we have him!”
So often it's as if God is missing. Have you noticed all the books on atheism that are on the shelves at the moment? Books like God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins are the current trend. What's really interesting about them is that they're talking about a God I actually don't believe in. I don't believe in this sort of esoteric God who is distant, remote and proven by logic. I believe in the God who has been made visible in Jesus of Nazareth and his ministry. I believe in a God whose spirit moves and lives in our hearts and lives. You can't bring down the walls if you don't open the drawbridge. I say to people who are questioning and wondering about the existence of God, first of all, just lower the drawbridge. You might be surprised to find the God in Christ who will come in.
Sometimes, our castles and the walls we build up can become ruins. I saw more castles that were just historic monuments or ruined sites than those like Edinburgh that were still filled with activity. Castles tend to be a requiem to the past, and so it is with our lives. Sometimes they are just dead, historic things. Jesus said, “If you go into a town and it rejects you, wipe the dust off your feet and move on.” Jesus wasn't being heartless. He understood that sometimes our walls are so strong that, despite his love and grace, they keep him out. Make sure, my friends, that the interior walls of your life are not so firm, strong and high that you do not find room to let God in. Teresa of Avila is right. When you let this God into the rooms of your castle, it's amazing what happens.
When Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is at hand” the second time, it was a wonderful re-affirmation of its on-going presence. In other words, there is an opportunity for our castles to become abbeys; to become places that are open to God, and to our neighbour, and sources of God's sovereignty and love. When we're willing to open up the doors of our lives, it's amazing who might come in. Sometimes you have to start by looking across the table at your own family, and open your heart to the people who are closest to you. Maybe you have to open your doors to the people across the street, to your neighbour, and say, “Look! I'm an abbey. My doors are open because God dwells in here.” Or you might have to look around the world. Lord knows, this world has built up many walls to protect its own sovereignty. Sometimes they crush, destroy and kill. How many young Canadians died recently in Afghanistan, let alone the countless others we cannot even mention by name, for we do not know them? How many people die in Lesotho or Swaziland from AIDS on any given day? Hundreds. How many people throughout the world face domestic violence, inhumanity and corruption? How many relationships are broken by envy, self-centredness and high walls? How many lives are destroyed by an obsession with work at the expense of family, neighbours and faith? The walls are high and, to use the words of a great Negro Spiritual, “they need to come a-tumblin' down.” When that happens, it's amazing what God can do.
One of my heroes is Tony Campolo. He tells the story of how his mother hired someone to take him to school when he was a young child. He had to walk 10 city blocks to get there, and she was always frightened for him. She paid someone a nickel a day to walk with him. Tony was embarrassed because every time he came to school, his walker was with him. He just couldn't face his friends. Who wants to be on someone else's hand when you go to school? Finally, his mother capitulated. Tony marched off to school by himself, and no harm came his way.
Years later, while bragging about being a survivor, he told his mother, “You know, I really liked it when that woman was no longer with me, holding my hand for a nickel.”
His mother said, “Tony, Tony, Tony. What you don't realize is that, for eight years, I was a half-block behind you every day. I wasn't going to let you be alone and get into trouble. I was always there.”
Jesus says the same thing to us. Even though we put up our walls and have our own sovereignty, the kingdom of God is always at hand. It is the kingdom of God's love in Jesus Christ, and it's always saying, “Put down your walls, open your doors and let me in, for I want to dwell in the castle of your soul.” Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.