ZOMG Jesus is a beer! Wait, no not that connection. But there is a connection between Jesus and beer. Find out what it is after the jump.
Luke 10:1-11,16-20; Galatians 6:1-16; Psalm 66:1-9; Isaiah 66:10-14
On Monday, after the big church in the park event one of my fellow pastors and I went out to lunch at a local Tex-Mex establishment. He picked me up here at the church, and we were talking about how great it was that we had such a turnout in the park, and how it could be a whole lot of fun to do something like that again. But then we saw something that made us as giddy as a couple of kids who just found out Miley Cyrus is coming in concert: there was a sign in the door saying, “Now serving beer”.
Now, as usual with my sermons, you’re likely thinking, “where in the world is he going with this?” Well, since I have your attention, it’s about God, Jesus, and the Bible. See what I did there? Anyways, we went in, and immediately ordered two Modelos, one for each of us, for an important toast. Of course there were two parts to this toast: first, that Church in the Park went off amazingly well; and second, that there is another place in town where one can have beer with dinner.
Of course, being Pastors, we each thought, “How in the world can we make this into a sermon illustration?” (See what I did there again? It really is something they teach in Pastor-school.) And we started out with the wedding at Cana, remembering that Jesus first miracle was turning water into wine. But that account in the Gospel won’t happen for a while, so we thought it’d be good to find out what exactly “modelo” means in Spanish.
It turns out, “modelo” means “model” or “pattern”. And all of a sudden all the pieces came into place, especially since our Gospel lesson is Jesus sending out the 72 disciples to heal the sick and preach the Gospel.
So in the gospel for today, Jesus and those following him are hanging out on the road to Jerusalem. Now instead of going the “normal” route from Galilee to Jerusalem, along the east side of the river, Jesus instead went through Samaritan territory. I’m not sure if you remember this or not, but the Samaritans and Jews get along like two Betta fish in the same tank. So as he was travelling, Jesus had been rejected at a Samaritan village and had to press on to the next one, since there wasn’t a place to stay at the Samaritan village for a Jewish Rabbi.
Then when Jesus sent out the 72, they knew exactly how to react when they were rejected in a town because Jesus had just modeled it for them. He was their “modelo” for how to react to criticism and rejection. It wasn’t just an academic instruction to “go into [the town’s] streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: the Kingdom of God is near.’” (Luke 10:11), Jesus had likely done something similar earlier on their journey.
In the same way, when Jesus sent them out and said, “When you enter a town and are welcomed… heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The Kingdom of God is near you’” (Luke 10:8a,9), it also wasn’t just instruction out of nowhere. For the whole of Luke’s gospel, Jesus had been doing exactly that. In Luke 4, Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah and says, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19) Later, he says, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21b). Jesus’ whole ministry was to heal the sick and preach the Word. He drives out evil spirits, he proclaims that the Kingdom of God is near. He models for the disciples exactly what it is they are to do, so that when the 72 are sent out, they know exactly how to act because Jesus acted in that way.
It’s really quite convenient for us that Jesus models all of this, because we’re not lost in the details this way. Sure there are plenty of situations we may find ourselves in, but Jesus has been our example for a whole lot of them. He’s been persecuted, rejected, arrested, tempted, and invited over for dinner. He’s been a teacher, a criminal, and most things in between. When he says in the sermon on the mount, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matthew 5:44), he lives that out as he is hanging on the cross and says, “Father, forgive them they know now what they do.” (Luke 23:34) And, even when an exact situation isn’t modeled for us, He gives us a pretty good idea.
Towards the end of the service, one of the prayers we sometimes pray is “Almighty God, you gave your Son both as a sacrifice for sin and a model of the godly life. Enable us to receive him always with thanksgiving and conform our lives to his.” The question then for us, is how well are we following Jesus’ example? Are we conforming our lives to his model? For me, I far too often conform my life to my own model, and not to Jesus. And that’s really what it comes down to, which “modelo” do I use for my life: Jesus or something else?