2026.05.03 | COLLABORATION

“Collaboration”
A sermon preached at Eden United Church of Christ

in Cherryland, California,

on Sunday, May 3, 2026, 
by the Rev. Brenda Loreman
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Scripture: Luke 10:1-11

Earlier this year, the editors of The Nation magazine nominated the entire city of Minneapolis for the Nobel Peace Prize. The editors acknowledged that, “while individuals and organizations have been granted this prize since its inception in 1901, no municipality has ever been recognized. But,” they insisted,  “in these unprecedented times, we strongly believe that the case can be made that Minneapolis, the largest city in Minnesota, has met and exceeded the [Nobel] committee’s standard of promoting ‘democracy and human rights, and work aimed at creating a better organized and more peaceful world.’” (1)

Here, in part, is the editors’ nomination statement to the Nobel committee:

The people of Minneapolis have suffered countless abuses, including harassment, detention, deportation, and injury. And, in incidents that shocked the world, federal agents have killed multiple residents, including poet and mother of three Renee Nicole Good and intensive care nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti.

In response to these horrific developments, elected officials, clergy, and labor leaders in Minneapolis and Minnesota have called for nonviolent protest [...]. The people of Minneapolis and neighboring communities have answered that call with peaceful mass demonstrations that have drawn tens of thousands of protesters to the streets in frigid weather. They have coupled their cry for federal agents to withdraw from Minneapolis with chants that declare, “No hate, no fear… immigrants are welcome here!”

The people of Minneapolis have also engaged in mutual support and care for neighbors who have been targeted[...]. They have delivered groceries to residents who are afraid to leave their homes and provided financial support to neighbors who haven’t been able to go to their places of work because of the federal assault on their rights and humanity.

Through countless acts of courage and solidarity, the people of Minneapolis have challenged the culture of fear, hate, and brutality that has gripped the United States and too many other countries. Their nonviolent resistance has captured the imagination of the nation and the world. Renee Good’s widow has said, “They have guns; we have whistles.” Those whistles alert the residents of Minneapolis when they are threatened. But they have done more than that. They have awakened Americans to the threat of violence that extends from governments that unjustly and irresponsibly target their own people.

The people of Minneapolis and their elected leaders have demonstrated an extraordinary and sustained commitment to human dignity and to the protection of vulnerable communities. They have exemplified the desire for democracy and equality and the celebration of difference. The moral leadership of the people and city of Minneapolis has set an example for those struggling against fascism everywhere on the face of a troubled planet [...].

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who served as The Nation [magazine]’s civil rights correspondent from 1961 to 1966, said when he received the Peace Prize in 1964 that the award recognizes those who are “moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.” King believed that [if people of the world are] to discover a way to live together in peace, [... humanity] must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

We believe that the people of Minneapolis have displayed that love. That is why we are proud to nominate them and their city for the Nobel Peace Prize. (2)

Through their actions of love and peaceful, nonviolent resistance, the people of Minneapolis are building what Dr. King would call the Beloved Community—or what Jesus would call the Kingdom of God. And they have discovered that, in order to change the world, it takes not one person doing the work, but all the people working collaboratively to bring about that community rooted in love and justice.

Jesus himself knew that he could not build the Kingdom by himself. And so the first thing he did, in every version of the story we have about him, was to go out and find other people to collaborate with him. 

We have the most stories about his closest companions—the twelve disciples he called right from the beginning, not to bow down in worship to him, to serve him or to promote his reputation, but to walk right beside him, to learn everything he knew, to do the same things he did. He sent them out, early and often, to practice healing and teaching, just like he was doing. They didn’t always get it right. Sometimes they got busy, or distracted, or afraid. Often they forgot the instructions…in short, they were not that different from us modern disciples. And still, he said to them, over and over again, ‘You have the same power I have.’ He seemed intent upon giving them that power, sometimes more than they knew what to do with.  

But there are also hints in the text that the movement was a lot bigger than just Jesus and a dozen disciples. In our text from Luke today is one of those hints. Jesus sends out the disciples to teach and heal—not just twelve of them, but 72, six times the number of the original disciples. And these 72 were also given the same teaching and healing powers as the twelve. 

We might think that the work of collaboration is seen in the fact that no one went alone; they went in pairs. But the deeper collaboration comes in going out without resources—no money, no bag of provisions, no sandals. Rely on the people where you are, Jesus says. Give others a chance to show hospitality, to create connections with you. Then the power of their testimony and healing—the “kin-dom” building—will be much greater. The collaboration is with those whom they are “serving.” Only in this way, the “service” is mutual. Agency is multiplied when all are given the chance to offer what is needed. 

And the 72 are successful in their collaborative kin-dom-building. A few verses later, Luke tells us, "The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’” (3)

We have a tendency in our culture to idolize people who are charismatic, or powerful, or wealthy, or specially gifted, or brilliantly smart. We have even often idolized those who were leaders of movements for justice and peace, forgetting that the work they engaged in could only be successful through building a collaborative coalition of dozens, hundreds, thousands of others, all doing the work side by side and raising up new leaders who will carry on the work through generations to come.

Even Jesus was tempted towards this sort of idolization. In the three synoptic gospels, immediately after his baptism, Jesus retreats to the desert 40 forty days of fasting and prayer and discernment. And he is tempted to use his powers for personal glory rather than kin-dom building. The Temptor suggests he turn the stones into bread to satisfy his hunger. He is tempted to throw himself from the temple tower to prove his power. He is tempted to seize control of all the kingdoms of the world for his own power and glory. But he resists all this, knowing that he has not come to build a kingdom for himself, but a kin-dom of God for the communal benefit of all people.

And he knew that he could not do that kin-dom-building work alone. He needed collaborators, not only during the years of his ministry, but collaborators who would become the healers and teachers of new disciples, carrying on the work he started down through the generations.

He knew he would have to leave them, but he also knew that the gifts he gave them would carry forward. And he also gave them a ritual to remember him by. A simple ritual of broken bread and a cup of wine. Do this, he said; take my words, my essence into your very body. As if they could ingest him, as if they could carry every bit of his presence and power and extraordinariness inside of them. As if they could become him.  

The last time he was with those disciples, he said to them, ‘Now you go and do the same things I’ve done. Now you go, and be my love in the world.’ 

Jesus came to change the world. That was his work, his singular, God-given purpose. He is still changing the world. But he never tried to do it alone. Scholars of ancient history will tell you that what broke Christianity open, what made it the world-changing movement that it has been for the last two thousand years, was not necessarily what happened during Jesus’ lifetime, but what happened in the first years after he died, in the lifetime of those twelve disciples he’d invited to come with him. And in the lifetime of the 72 he sent out to teach and heal. And in the lifetimes of the dozens and hundreds that those 72 invited into the great collaborative work of changing the world.

Jesus had poured himself into them—his people. His team. That’s what Changemakers do.  People who really want to be part of changing the world—whether it’s in big ways or small ways—know that they can never do it alone. (4) Amen.

1) “The Nation Nominates Minneapolis for the Nobel Peace Prize,” The Nation online, Jan 28, 2026. https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/the-nation-nominates-minneapolis-for-the-nobel-peace-prize/ Accessed May 2, 2026.

2) Ibid.

3) Luke 10:17 (NRSVUE)

(4) Parts of this sermon are based on the work of the Rev. Kathi McShane. Used with permission.