Shaking off the dust

In tomorrow's Gospel reading, Jesus sends 70 disciples out two by two telling them, "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."

In an earlier sermon, this reminded me of a true incident from Georgia history. The story is of Lorenzo Dow, a famed Methodist minister and his showdown with an infamous Georgia town. I preached (in part),

When the famed Methodist preacher showed up in Jacksonborough, the rowdies in the town were pretty sure they didn’t want his tea-totalin’ ways taking root in the town. The local Methodist Church offered Dow its pulpit for the night. While a crowd gathered at the church to hear Dow, a second crowd gathered at a whiskey store. Soon after Lorenzo Dow launched into his fire and brimstone sermon, a group stormed up to the church and broke up the meeting by pelting the preacher with rotten eggs. People left in fear of the fight that was sure to follow. The mob returned to the whiskey store to celebrate their victory. Though covered with the stink of rotten eggs, Dow was unbowed. The evangelist followed the angry mob back to the whiskey store where he took up a fireplace tool and broke open a barrel of whiskey, dumping its contents across the floor.

What happened next would be unbelievable if it wasn't a fact of history. The full text of the sermon is online here: Shaking off the Dust.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor