Among Kin

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

On our vacation, Mike and I spent 10 days in Michigan, starting in Detroit, crossing the state along I-94, and ending in Three Oaks, before heading back to Detroit to fly home.  Mostly, we stayed in hotels, but the first four nights we stayed with friends.

Karen and Tom hosted us well. Before we left home, Karen had asked about food sensitivities and preferences. Supper was ready when we arrived at their home after our flights, and breakfast was a spread of our favorites and theirs. We enjoyed their favorite restaurants and home-cooked meals. They took us on a tour of the revitalization of Detroit. They treated us like family, like kin.

… The people of Jesus’ time and place knew about kings and their powerful ways. Kings had all the power and their whims were met with instant compliance. Those who lived within the boundaries of the kingdom were subjects, with limited power and control over their own lives. Often, heads rolled, or bodies ended up on crosses, when kings were unhappy.  

Today, most kings – and queens – are controlled by a congress or parliament, so heads don’t literally roll any more at the whim of the monarch. But we still envision a kingdom as a place, a land with boundaries.

In contrast, Jesus has been teaching that the kingdom of God is different from the earthly kingdom. In the kingdom of God, there are no land boundaries, because it is everywhere God is.

In the kingdom of God, all are important, all are equally children of God, equally loved and forgiven by God. In the kingdom of God, as Paul writes, there is no Jew or Gentile, no slave or slave owner, no male and female.  Jesus envisions a very different way for us to understand God’s relationship with us. Jesus wants us to understand that with God, we are all kin with each other, and through Jesus we are kin with God. Jesus is saying that the kin-dom of God has come near.

…In our gospel reading, Jesus’ ministry has expanded from the initial handful of fishermen to hundreds of followers from all over the Galilee. From these he chose 70 followers to go out and spread the good news farther than he can by himself.  They form a sort of advanced team, to discover where he will be welcome, and where he needn’t bother going.

I imagine it worked like this: Jesus anticipated that the cultural standard of warm hospitality for strangers would work in their favor. Jesus’ expectation was that the disciple pairs would be treated like kin in the homes and towns where they were visiting. He envisioned that the pairs of disciples could develop relationships with their host families, and find ways to share the good news of the kin-dom of God with them.

Mealtime is a great time for such a conversation, and so is work. As the disciples found ways to fit into the towns they were visiting, they used their own skills to contribute to the household economy, studied the Scriptures in the synagogue with the rabbi, and cared for animals and children.

Many, but not all, came to believe in what these followers of Jesus said about him, and wanted to learn more about Jesus and the kin-dom of God. They welcomed Jesus and shared the same hospitality with him that they offered to the visiting pairs.

… 238 years ago, Thomas Jefferson and others who were planning for the future of this country had a similar vision. No king would rule here. Instead, there would be a balance of powers among the president, the congress, and the court. Each would have their own power, but none would have total control.

They sought a balance of power among the states, with care for fair representation. And the people, as well as these men could imagine, were equal as well. Yes, there were still elite and poor, slaves and slave owners, men and women, but the vision for a democracy was born. Over the centuries, amendments have refined the definition of fair representation. It is still imperfect, but being a citizen or legal resident of the US does feel more like kin than like subject.

… Even so, being American is not as important as being a child of God, as being kin with God’s children around the world, with people we know and people we will never meet. The kin-dom of God is present everywhere, whether we acknowledge the kinship or not.

Like it or not, we are kin with everyone in this room, with everyone in greater Leesburg, with everyone in Florida, with everyone in the US, with everyone in North America, with everyone in the world. That means we are kin with people we don’t like, with people we don’t trust, with people who don’t like us.

It’s hard to imagine this, isn’t it? It was just as hard for the first disciples and followers of Jesus. But Jesus promised that whatever they accomplished, they did it with God’s help.

This week, I hope you imagine yourself as kin with everyone you meet, and everyone you think about. When it is hard to do, ask for God’s help. Amen