With Joy

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 and Excerpts from The Cost of Living by Arundhati

Roy

July 6, 2025

By Nicole M. Lamarche

Welcome again! I invite you to join me in taking some deeper breaths. May

we each tune into whatever message the Universe has for us today. And as

you are moved join me in Psalm 19. God may the words of my mouth and

the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our rock and

our redeemer. Amen.

It is hard to know what to do next, given the options before us. What do we

do when it isn’t clear what the next right move will be; where do we go from

here? Some of the paths that existed before, don’t seem to be there

anymore. The nets of safety are being shredded- some of what we thought

we had built to hold our lives together is falling away, driven by greed and

the need to build a world that privileges just a few. I have found that on

some days, over these months I have asked myself, “Have we found the

bottom yet?” Have we reached the ground that we might start to compost

this into something new? How far down does this great unraveling need to

go before the rising, the great turning, the rebirthing? Like many of you, I

have done what I could out of a sense of duty, wanting to be able to tell my

13-year-old that I did what I could, the propelled by a moral obligation to

call and email and show up. I was in the middle of delivering a letter to a

member of congress when I got the call that the budget passed and we

should cease our plans to visit.

This budget removes healthcare from

anywhere from 10-13 million people while Congress retains their own

healthcare of course. This budget gives more money to ICE than the FBI,

DEA, BATF, US Marshalls and the US Prisons combined. So after reading

that I am left to believe this budget is about militarizing us.

After piles of promises to protect Medicaid, to lower prices, to take actions

that create good jobs for Americans, the promises have now turned to lies.

They funded the shift toward more militarization, and defunded solar and

wind, even punishing those industries. They timed it so that the tax cuts will

happen before the pain of what they stole will be felt-that comes later. And

in the meantime, billions of wealth moved upward to the super rich,

saddling us with trillions in debt with no plan for a good future beyond the

scope of their lifetimes. They won’t be around for this hard.

It's hard to know where to go from here, what is wroth our time? What

actions we should take, what choices we can make that will matter?

And because of this uncertainty, this lack of clarity, this time of chaos, we

can easily be overwhelmed, paralyzing, stopping us in our tracks and some

are doing just that.

Last week I sat in a circle of friends getting ready to attend the Phish

concerts at Folsom Field. For those who don’t know, Phish is not just a

band, but a modern day musical religion, perhaps another manifestation of

the world the Grateful Dead built- creating a movement with shared music,

shared ideals, shared symbols, shared rituals and more. The group is

disproportionately white and mostly male, although that has shifted slightly

with time.

As we sat at our pre-show party eating watermelon and mix of barbequed

deliciousness, the conversation moved to what most of us cannot now

avoid- this moment in American politics. Nothing is apolitical. Even the

weather.

One person started to share how annoying it was to continue to listen to his

family speak in support of the administration’s actions, sharing that an

elderly relative was cheering on the steep cuts, while at the same time

lamenting the ridiculous increase in costs for hospice. Being among the

privileged and resourced, some of us inquired when he paused for a

minute, “Why do you feel like you can’t say anything to challenge this?” It’s

not the right time…he assured us. Some of us whispered that if this wasn’t

the moment to speak up, what is? When is?

Then another person shared with the group that with some of his friends,

he has basically given up. He said it was too painful and traumatizing to

hear how people really felt. He had to stop connecting with some friends

from his high school days. He is tall and was dressed colorfully, Phish

allows cisgender men to paint their nails and wear whatever they want so it

was especially telling when this large dude with painted nails got a bit

emotional, “They believe lies,” he said seeming to hold back tears.

“I hear you,” I said. It feels like we are each living in different worlds, we

can choose to tune out from the hurt of others if we want. We can opt out of

caring about the impact of any of this, or at least right now some think they

can. We can decide to listen just to the voices that see the world the way

we do.

It's hard to know what to do or where to give our energy right now.

I found myself drawn again to the writing of Rebecca Solnit who wrote a

little book in 2004 called Hope in the Dark: The Untold History of People

Power. In it she writes about what hope can make possible. But it is a hope

that is fierce, hope that is a fighter.

She writes, “Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch,

feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with, in an emergency.

Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you

have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the

earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To

hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is

what makes the present inhabitable.” 

Let me say that again, “To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that

commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.”

Hope changes not just the future but our present, how we relate to it, what

we do with it, what we see is possible or not. And here’s the other thing, I

think hope shows us the openings, it points out the windows, which also

means not everyone can be moved, not everything can be changed. Not

every situation has an opening.

This story we have in the Gospel of Luke today shows us just this very

thing. Jesus sends the followers out in pairs and those who read this writing

when it first came out would have made the connection with that number 70

or 72. There is disagreement among scholars. I guess some think that

there are 70 plus two main leaders. Well we can guess who. The Bible is

filled with number games and when you know what to look for they are

everywhere. As James Thompson points out, “Interpreters have observed

either an allusion to the seventy elders in Israel (Exodus 24:1 and Numbers

11:16) or the table of nations in Genesis 10:2-31. Despite this uncertainty,

the mission of the seventy(two) indicates the expanded scope of the

mission, foreshadowing the time when the larger circle of disciples will

bring the message of the kingdom “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).”

Luke sets up this narrative as both an event that already happened,

something that is connected to history and pre-history and also something

of their particular moment too, something they are doing right then, in their

now.

And they are told to leave most things behind. “Carry no purse, no bag, no

sandals…” And they are reminded not everyone will join the work, “the

harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few…” And they are told to be

about peace, to do their work in a way that brings peace to each

household. “Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’

Their mission is simple, but not easy: heal, “cure the sick who are there”

teach and preach ”the kingdom of God has come near to you..”, extend and

receive hospitality “remain in the house, eating and drinking…eat what is

set before you…” and finally, know where to put your energy and when to

move on. The gospel of Luke says, “whenever you enter a town and they

do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, “even the dust of your

town that clings to your feet, we wipe off in protest against you…” because

we know the kingdom of God has come, we know the truth that love is

already here, in us, among us and between us. I think this is a first century

way of saying, if your good news, if your way of peace, if your vision of

interconnectedness, and a God of wild Love does not find an open door or

an open heart, sometimes the best, most important thing we can do is to

shake it off and move on, to take seriously the places that are worth our

engagement, and let go of the ones that aren’t. Not wasting one moment

on closed doors and closed minds.

Did you hear what I said? Let all who have ears, hear!

Jesus gave them these instructions so that they could return with joy. I think

they were so filled with joy because the people and places disconnected

from God couldn’t bring them down. The people who didn’t want to hear it

couldn’t silence them, the people who said it wasn’t the right time couldn’t

stop them. The people who had basically given up couldn’t derail their own

vision.

We read in Luke that, “the seventy returned with joy saying, “Lord in your

name even the demons submit to us!” As if to say, well Jesus, we stuck to

the instructions, and they couldn’t get to us. Here we are with joy.

As we heard from Arundhati Roy who has written a lot about surviving in

Empire, part of our call right now is love and joy, promising to never get

used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around us,

seeking joy even in the saddest places in part so that we continue to be

fueled joy, so we are able to keep wielding the axe of hope. Because som

of the doors that are closed need to be broken down with the axe of hope

to save who we love.

As we heard, “to hope is to give (ourselves) to the future - and that

commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.”

It's hard to know where to go from here, what actions we should take, what

choices we can make that will move the dial so I wonder if we can right now

just follow Jesus’ instructions? First, this might be a moment to travel light,

leaving behind whatever keeps us from going forward. Remember that not

everyone will join the work, but we do it anyway. We are called to be a

peacemaker, doing all we do non-violently. Extend and receive hospitality in

all the ways we can. Help heal people however you can. Speak the truth

and point out the good news all around. Hold hope. And remember where

we do not find an open door or an open heart, shake it off and move on,

otherwise we might find we are arguing with bots! Let us continue to find

joy even in sad places, that is something we can help each other do. And

we will come back together and be able to say out loud that in the name of

Love even the demons submit to us! We thought they might get us, but we

returned with joy and we continue to return together in joy!

Communal Reflection

How can we discern where to put our energy and when to take it off and

move on?

How can we support one another in seeking joy even in saddest times and

places?

Beloved of God, where we do not find an open door or an open heart,

sometimes the answer is to shake it off and move on, let us continue to

return with joy. May it be so. Amen.