I went to summer camp at a YMCA camp on a lake in New Hampshire. One of my favorite parts of the camp was swimming in the lake, a large, beautiful fresh water lake called Lake Ossipee. I spent most of my free time there.

In order to go swimming, each person had to have a buddy. The lifeguards used the buddy system. Every half hour or so, the lifeguards blew the whistle and we all had to stop and grab hold of the hand of our buddy. The lifeguards would make sure everyone had a buddy as they did a quick head count. You had to stay with you buddy.

As a somewhat shy young girl, sometimes this was hard for me because I had to upfront ask someone if she would be my buddy. But without a buddy I couldn’t go swimming.   Sometimes a camp friend would agree to go swimming, to be my buddy, but only if we did crafts first, or if we left early in time to do some archery.

The buddy system was a good system for safety in the water but it was also a good lesson for life, in particular, living the Christian life.

Jesus sends a larger group of apostles out on the road. The word disciple means those who are learning. Apostle means those who are sent out. One can be both a disciple and an apostle, one just can’t focus on both at the same time.

So this group of seventy (or seventy two—the text is unclear) are sent out as apostles. They go out in pairs with very specific instructions. Don’t take extra stuff.  Stay in one place—no free upgrades to the Hyatt or Four Seasons. Eat what is set in front of you...even if you don’t like it…even if you think you shouldn’t be eating it given Jewish purity codes. It’s going to be difficult out there but if they don’t like you, no revenge, no cursing them out, just leave and your peace will be returned to you. Shake the dust off as you leave town.

But why in pairs? Jesus could have covered a lot more ground if he sent them out singly.

Why use the buddy system?

There are some practical reasons for the buddy system:

• If someone gets lost, there is another person to organize a search party.
• If you are scared, there is someone to talk to.
• If you are tempted, someone else is there to be a voice of conscience.
• If you get homesick, having someone around who knows you is helpful.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) always sends missionaries in  pairs. Why?

• For their safety
• To keep each other faithful to the task at hand
• To provide a proper witness

This last one is relevant to our apostles, too. Deuteronomy 19:15 requires that, legally, there be at least two witnesses to an event. In pairs, the missionaries would be able to give proper witness to Jesus’ message

But I think sending them out in pairs also said something about who they were to be and what they represented.

We sometimes think that Jesus and his disciples were the only so-called “holy people” out on the roads preaching and teaching. But actually the Roman Empire had dozens of religious sects, groups, wandering teachers and more. They were everywhere, especially in cities. Jesus tells the seventy to go out without a badge and bowl. Some scholars think this was to distinguish them from the Cynics.

This is not “cynic” with a small ‘c’ but Cynic with a big ‘C’, a philosophical tradition with many adherents known for their goal of living a life of freedom, a life lived in harmony with Nature.

Cynics were the precursor to Stoics, a group we might be more familiar with. The word “cynic” actually means “dog.” Cynics lived a public life of poverty. They highly valued independence and self reliance. They barked at those who displeased them, spurned standards of etiquette, and lived from nature. They refused to abide by even the most basic social conventions.

“They were known for parrhēsia, defined as free or frank speech, with its accompanying risk. Legendary examples of the Cynic’s fearlessly free speech occur in Diogenes of Sinope’s interchanges with Alexander the Great. One such example is the following: “When he was sunning himself in the Craneum, Alexander came and stood over him and said, ‘Ask of me any boon you like.’ To which he replied, ‘Stand out of my light’” (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6, Chapter 28).

“Plato saw [Diogenes of Sinope] washing lettuces, came up to him and quietly said to him, ‘Had you paid court to Dionysius, you wouldn’t now be washing lettuces,’ and [Diogenes] with equal calmness answered, ‘If you had washed lettuces, you wouldn’t have paid court to Dionysius’” (Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6, Chapter 58). The lesson of this exchange is clear: whereas Plato views paying court as freeing one from poverty, the Cynic sees poverty as freeing one from having to pay court to a ruler.

(Julie Piering, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

But cynics, though they recognized one another, lived alone, begged alone, and sought freedom alone with the goal of self reliance and independence.

Jesus, in contrast, sends the seventy out in pairs.

Going in pairs allows for:

• Accountability but no mob mentality.
• Companionship but not security.
• Conversation but not forced conversion.

And as Barbara Brown Taylor says, “at the very least, most of us need someone to tell our stories to. At a deeper level, most of us need someone to help us forget ourselves, a little or a lot” (An altar in the world, Barbara Brown Taylor, 91.)

(Going out into the world is the next step in taking up the mantle of discipleship that we talked about last week. It is accepting the power and responsibility that go with it and living by the rules Jesus dictates which are designed to help the seventy in their mission.)

Because there is not only a certain accountability in going out in pairs—getting the Message right, not sneaking off to stay in a wealthier home—but also it demonstrates the kind of community Jesus is speaking of—the kingdom of God, where the goal is not independence but care for the least of these, not self reliance but interdependence, not ultimate freedom but living as part of the covenant.

That is one defining feature of Christians. We live in covenanted communities. We come together and promise to live together, work together, see to each others’ needs and serve one another. Living in community, within the bounds of covenant, is hard. We give up things. We do not get to decide everything. We share. We disagree, but promise to abide with one another in disagreement. We seek God in our midst and where God is leading us, even into uncomfortable and challenging places.

Covenantal communities are hard. We know the disciples struggled with it. Even great Christian leaders found it a challenge. Roger Williams was a clergyperson living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony where he was finally kicked out for his desire for reform. He moved to Rhode Island and set up a new church, the first Baptist church in the colonies, later called the Northern Baptist tradition, and brought together a new community of faith. But eventually Roger Williams left that community, too. You see for Williams it was difficult to abide in a church. There was only room for one member—Williams himself. (Clearly the situation was much more complicated but it does highlight the challenge of living in community.)

Unlike the Cynics of his day, Jesus presses for something more. Not just sharing the message, the good news, but living in a spirit of communality. A faith life is not just about the self but rather the whole.

We are challenged to live in this covenanted community—that is what the church is after all. We are not here alone but two by two by three by one. As I talked with the Thursday Brueggemann class this week, being a covenanted community means we do things differently. For those of you who have come to an Annual meeting—everyone is heard and that means our meetings can be very, very long.

In our church communities the most fragile, the ones most suffering, get more of our attention not less. We all give up something when we come together in the interest of walking forward as one body. It is not about getting what I want at church, but what we can do together, which may be something else all together. Goodness knows I will have to sing some hymns I don’t like!

The Christian life is not a solitary life, which is what makes it much more challenging. I have many friends who say they are “not religious but spiritual.” And I understand that. I understand discomfort with doctrine or creed or hierarchy that is fallible at best.

But what is even harder is being a part of a covenanted community which struggles and seeks to live out Jesus’ teachings as a group, as a body, as a fractured yet faithful people living together.

A covenantal community challenges us into truly:

• welcoming the stranger, the outcast
• giving what we have to others
• listening when we would rather speak
• And committing to reconciliation when we’d rather hold a grudge

We are not here to find God for ourselves, to take what we can get and leave, but to walk together and serve one another, realizing that we sacrifice for the whole and are led into strange lands and difficult ministries beyond what we may have seen at the start.

We live by covenant, a voluntary binding together of this body of people to the purposes and vision of God. It is our greatest strength and our greatest challenge. And from here Jesus calls us out into the world two by two by three by congregation by denomination, to love and serve and proclaim that the kingdom of God is coming near.

Are you coming? Make sure you have a buddy—it isn’t a solitary road.  Amen.