4th Sunday after Pentecost         

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

After this, Jesus appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the overseer of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But 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 our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Trolling    

In the early 2010s, I got a little obsessed with an MTV show called Teen Wolf. It was based on the 80s movie of the same name, about a teenager who finds out one day that he’s a werewolf, and how he deals with all of the complications that come from that. It wasn’t the best show in the world, but it was fun, and had an active community of people who watched it.

The social media site Tumblr was also really popular around this time. It’s still around, but it isn’t as popular as it used to be, which seems to be the fate of most social media sites. There was a huge community on Tumblr of people who watched Teen Wolf, and I was one of them. I would go onto Tumblr multiple times a day reading about the actors, reviews of the show, theories about what was gonna happen, and there was lots of Teen Wolf fanart, artwork that fans had made relating to the show.

Unfortunately, anytime an online community reaches a certain size, it will start to attract trolls. For anyone who doesn’t know what an internet troll is, it’s a person who goes into an online community for the sole purpose of stirring up trouble. Some of them are just looking to get a rise out of that community’s participants, hiding behind the anonymity of a computer screen in order to bully people without fear of repercussion. Those people are bad enough, but some trolls are worse than others. Some of them take pride in tearing online communities apart, using a few choice statements and questions to disrupt the harmony of the group, create arguments and infighting, ultimately causing that group to lose cohesiveness and eventually fall apart and disappear. They see destroying a community in this way as something to be proud of, a feather in their cap, and they’ll brag about their kills to each other in their own online troll forums.

You might think that I’m making this sound a lot more dramatic than it actually is, but cyberbullying is real, and cases of cyberbullying leading to suicide are on the rise.

Now, I willingly admit that I’m not the most Internet savvy person, but I know what internet trolls are, and I know what trolls live for. So, I came up with a slogan in order to try to protect my online community: “Don’t feed the trolls!”, meaning that if you see a person trolling, don’t interact with them. Interaction is their food. It’s what gives them strength and motivation to keep going. I even made a little picture of a troll with a red circle and a line drawn through it, and every time I saw someone responding to a troll, I would post that picture and say, “Don’t feed the trolls!”

Because, trolls aren’t there to learn or engage in in civilized discourse. They have one purpose: to cause conflict and to tear the community apart.

Now, I am the last person to suggest that we need less communication rather than more, but Jesus knew what he was saying when he told his followers to shake the dust off their feet when people refused to listen to their message. You can tell people about peace and love and hope and justice, but you can’t force them to believe it, and there are a lot of people in the world who will be open to hearing what you have to say if you’re not wasting your time talking to people who won’t listen to you, and don’t want to listen to you.

I’ve been posting all kinds of things on Facebook lately because of all of the decisions that the Supreme Court has been handing down. I have this one friend in particular who’s made a couple of comments on my Facebook page that kind of rub me the wrong way, but I’ve refrained from replying to her. She’s definitely not a troll, I believe that she’s a good person and she would never do anything like that, but we fundamentally disagree on some things, and I know that getting into an online argument with her will most likely not lead to the outcome that I want. I know from experience. These online arguments get out of hand, other people get pulled into them, no one changes their minds, and all of a sudden you have a permanent record of all of the pettiness and ugliness that humankind is capable of, and your name is attached to it.

And, I know not all of you deal with people online in this way, but it applies to real life, too. Now, most of the people in real life might not be trolls in the same sense in that they are actively trying to disrupt society, although there probably are people out there like that. But, there are plenty of people who are just not going to listen to you, no matter how calmly and logically you make your arguments, they are simply unwilling to change their minds. And, as controversial as this statement might be, I don’t think we should waste our time or energy having those conversations. You don’t need to get into a discussion about race with your racist relative at the Thanksgiving table. You don’t need to engage with the stranger butting into your conversation with your friend at the grocery store. You don’t need to approach the person holding the sign counter-protesting the event that you’re at. The Rev. Dr. Karoline Lewis, Chair of Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary, said, “The real truth is, not everyone … wants to hear that the Kingdom of God is near.” Instead of getting into pointless arguments with trolls, whether they’re on the Internet or not, we need to focus on the people in our lives who might actually listen to us. There are plenty of people in the world who might actually be willing to listen to what you have to say. You can talk about love, and justice, and the goodness of God, and if you can tell that your words are falling on deaf ears, Jesus says to shake the dust off your feet.

We have a job to do, and we can’t allow ourselves to waste our time or energy in fruitless debate. There are literal lives at stake, now. There is a very dominant Christian voice in politics and in the media right now, and it is not ours. The user Zito on Twitter posted this comment: “Nothing makes atheism more attractive than American Christianity.” Nothing makes atheism more attractive than American Christianity. We have been quiet for too long, perhaps because we’ve feared being associated with the so-called Christian message that is so prevalent in our culture right now. Shaking the dust off our feet is just a footnote. We need to get out there and share the Good News in order to get the dust onto our feet in the first place. We need to make our voices heard, in order to bring reason and love back into the discourse of what it is that God wants for us and how God wants us to treat each other.

So, what is this Good News that we’re supposed to be sharing? We talk about it every week. God loves everyone, unconditionally. That’s why Jesus came into the world, to let us know that. We are supposed to love our neighbor as ourself. That’s the only way that this world works. That’s why Jesus died, to let us know that. God is stronger than death, life and love are stronger than death, and God promises us life-everlasting. That’s why the Creator brought Jesus back to life, to let us know that. We need to remind people about what’s really important. Jesus’ message was about taking care of each other, not controlling each other, and not protecting corporate interests. You know the truth in your hearts, because Jesus is alive inside of you. Share that truth with the world, because that’s the only way that we’re going to save it. Amen.

~ Rev. Charles Wei