You get this sort of thing after being married almost 23 years:

[captainsblog]

The readings in church continued from the Book of Depressing today. Luke 10 begins with the sending of the 70, pairs of disciples dispatched to the towns and villages destined to host all of the Lord's upcoming gigs. Roadies for Jesus, if you will.

"Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. When you enter a house, first say, 'Peace to this house.' If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you. ...Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you.' But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its 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.'"

The Common Lectionary omits the closing verse of the paragraph, which foretells the fires of Sodom to such rejecting populaces. Probably the Texas Lej had something to do with THAT deletion.

The minister then brought the kids up, and tried to explain it to them. After asking about their vacation plans, and what things they would want to bring with them, he brought out a shoulder bag and asked what they thought he had packed inside it. The cleverer ones who had heard the verse said, "Nothing!" One even noted he shouldn't even have a bag, so he tossed it aside before asking the pithy question.

So where do you think you would go for all the things you would need when taking a trip?

Eleanor and I were sitting either side of Em, and instantly we turned to each other and mouthed the same word.

Gwon. You know what it is.


Wegmans.

Comments

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

I just love the way the RCL tries to amend Scripture. They won't go as far as Jefferson, but a little trim here, a little snip there... They did their best to create a weekly single narrative from three widely disparate stories and one poem.

I preached on this reading six years ago. The seventy are significant, so much so that I strongly suspect they're a later interpolation. It's one of those Biblical numbers that represents completion or fullness. Talmudic tradition says that the nations of the world were created by Noah's seventy descendants (thirty from Ham, twenty-six from Shem, fourteen from Japheth). Seventy was also the number of leaders Moses appointed in the eleventh chapter of Numbers. The years of a man, saith the Psalmist, are threescore and ten. Seventy founders, seventy leaders, seventy years, seventy divine representatives.

Seven stars and seven stones and one white tree... Oh, wait, that's another story. :-)

I was rubbish at children's sermons, though. They never answer a question they way you think they should, and you're left backpedalling and spinning to get your original point across.