[Mcgregorpage] McGregorPage #564, Pentecost 6, 7/8/07

[rmcgregoralbq at aol.com]

Pentecost 6 -- July 8, 2007


Psalm 30
2 Kings 5:1-14
Galatians 6:1-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Sales and the Marketplace

Don’t waste your time with a closed mind. Jesus sounds like a sales 
manager giving a pep talk before the dealership opens for the weekend. 
First he tells them how successful they can be (…the fields are white 
for harvest…) Then he tells them how to close the deal (…Peace to this 
house.) He also braces them against the corrosive effect of rejection, 
not to take it personally (…whoever rejects you rejects me…). Then he 
gives them the power they need for their mission (See, I have given you 
authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of 
the enemy…). Finally, in case they are tempted to get puffed up with 
power, he reminds them about the true and lasting reward. Thus the 
Christian faith entered the religious marketplace of the first century. 
It’s hard to imagine one more tempestuous than ours today, but it 
probably was.

I wanted a picture of the statue of John Wesley, founder of Methodism, 
in old town Savannah, Georgia. When I got to the square I found Wesley 
with his hand outstretched to an assembly of yellow-shirted Falun Dafa 
devotees promoting a religion I had never heard of. I had arrived not 
at a safe haven for my religious tradition but at the religious 
marketplace. Sometimes I wish discipleship were easier. I weary of all 
the effort to reach new people. I wish they’d just come to worship and 
learn. I never wanted to be a salesman. But, “sales” is not a bad word. 
It affirms people’s freedom to choose. It challenges the salesman to be 
convincing. It forces us back to the sales manager for our power and 
direction. It gives the world a chance it wouldn’t have if Christianity 
were an excusive boutique.

Does Elisha have an eye to the religions marketplace when he says to 
the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he 
may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” Paul is in open 
competition with other salesmen in Galatia, but he will not abandon the 
faithful representation of the Gospel to close the deal, “May I never 
boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which 
the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither 
circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is 
everything?” Then with a blessing much like the one Jesus offered to 
the welcoming household, Paul closes his presentation, “…peace be upon 
them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.”



May these thoughts strengthen you.

An Open Letter to Fellow Pastors
>From Roland McGregor, United Methodist Pastor
(an e-mail service)

[See Web Page address below for a Children’s Message coordinated with 
these lections.]

http://www.webspawner.com/users/ChildPage/

Multiple Sermon Starter Essays are available at
http://www.webspawner.com/users/McGregorPage/

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