Transcript
This morning I want to look at Luke's gospel in order to talk about sending peace and healing. In the Christian life and in Christian work, we often think about the idea of being called or having a calling. This idea is so powerful and useful that even people beyond the Christian tradition and the Christian family use this feeling called to something or drawn to something. And there are many stories in the Bible of people being called.
Moses is called to from the bush. Jesus calls to Peter from the shore while Peter himself is in the boat. In the middle of the night, the boy Samuel is lying asleep in the dark and he hears a voice calling to him. And sure, God calls us. Each of you, I'm sure, has your own calling. They're all pretty different from each other, I imagine, too. But calling and sending are different things that work together.
The idea of calling implies distance. Jesus calls from the shore. The Lord calls from the bush. But sending implies nearness, proximity, collaboration, and intimacy. Sending is where Jesus has his hand on your far shoulder and with his near arm points to a place and says, "That's where you're going." Sending is what a quarterback does in a huddle. I don't have another metaphor. You only get a sports metaphor today. But back to the text itself, Jesus has people who are close to him and those people who are his, who are his family, his followers. He sends them.
I'm sure there are people all over the world, Christians, not Christians, who experience calling. But those of us who attend Sunday worship, especially in this order of worship, experience sending from this place altogether. When Jesus sends these others out, he sends them not one by one, but two by two because he's going to send them out in peace. What's the easiest way to see peace? To see it between two people. One person might have achieved their own peace and that is great for them. But two people who have worked together and argued and discovered their differences, maybe have gotten married, maybe got into business together, maybe got into ministry together, and have made it work out no matter what. The peace that rests upon them is a an especially real kind of peace. And it's the kind of peace that Jesus sends out into the world into households and says, "This is the picture of my peace that can say peace to this house."
When Jesus sends his people out two by two in peace, he also sends them specifically to towns and places where he himself intended to go. When Jesus sends us, he only sends us to places that he intends to follow us. This is how the deal works out. After his last supper with his disciples, he says, "Behold, I go to prepare a place for you." And here's the deal. Here on earth, he sends us out to prepare a place for him. These two these these these pairs of disciples go out into the world into households where Jesus says, "I'll follow it up. You're just my opening act. So you you know your opening number is peace to this house and then I'll come and do my thing."
I'm not sure where you all have been sent, where you'll go from here. Maybe going to a family's house, going back to work tomorrow, to the abyss of summer if you're a student or a teacher. All those places to which you're being sent, Jesus will follow you there. I want to talk about being sent in peace next.
The instruction he gives his disciples first is say this. Say peace to this house. Why would Jesus emphasize saying peace to this house? Why would he say say this first? A couple of weeks ago, maybe a couple of months ago now, my wife sent me on an errand. She did not send me in twos. I went by myself like a lamb to the slaughter to pick up our order from the Amish farmer. The first time I went to the Amish farmer, I got lost because I was given coordinates on a GPS. I went there and they said, "Amber, I think you've got the wrong address. This is just the Staples parking lot." The next time I went, I realized, "Oh, yeah. They drive a bus to the Staples parking lot, set up shop there, set up the coolers." Some of you shop from the same farmer that we shop from. That's kind of fun. But I go there and I'm a new face and there's a woman there who is excited to see me. And she says,"Are are you new here?" And I respond, "Yes, I am new here." She says, "Okay, great. Do you also believe this? Do you also not do that? And do you agree that these people are the problem?" I said, "No, we like raw milk." Her face fell and she said, "Oh, I was hoping to make a new friend."
First, it was a test for alignment and then peace might have followed. The Christian order is reversed. First, you show up and say, "I have no questions for you. My first question is this. Peace to this house." That's not a question. I know. Peace to this house. Hi, good to meet you. Peace to this house. Peace, Paul had said after a passionate sixth chapter letter in short summary. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything. The new creation is everything. For anyone who follows this rule, who puts new creation first before ideological alignment, peace to that house.
In American civil discourse, which half the time just means online discourse, we don't begin our comments or interchanges with peace to this house. Online community and IRL community (that stands for in real life community) often begins with alignment on positions. We find in these communities channels for shared frustration, agreement on narratives about what's wrong, what we need, who needs to go away or be removed from power, and what has to be done instead. And those gatherings are built on mobilizing people to the accomplishment of that mission so that that vision of the world can be actualized.
Let's be honest, we all have our views. I moved into the East Rectory this past week and a woman was walking her dog past my house and she said, "Peace to this house." Just kidding. I said, "Hi, I'm Jack. I just moved in." She said, "Hello." I said, "Can I pet your dog?" which is English for peace to this house, isn't it? Kind of. And and she asked, "What kind of church is this?" And I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "Well, you know, like what side?" Said, "Well, I think we have all types here." And the miracle is we're people who are really different and really get along and we think that we're assigned to the rest of the culture around us that we can live in Christ's peace. And she said, "Okay, well, I'm still not going to tell you what I am, but it was good to meet you." And walked on. I hope she comes. Maybe she's here.
We all have a tendency to comfortably align with people with whom we comfortably align. I was however reading a Christian ethicist this week who said this anger or frustration are useful motivators. They are sparks which originate our action but they cannot be the engine which keep us going. Anger in the end cannot sustain us in the face of devastation. Anger leaves us not fed but hungry. Hungry is how we come to church. This is now the beginning of our liturgy. We come as we come victorious, disappointed, tired, what have you. And we have this wonderful space to hear words from God, to hear a sermon, to affirm the creed, to rally ourselves around a story in a world that Jesus tells us about. Then we take ourselves, our honest hearts and press them into the prayers of the people where we take our frustration with parts of the American church and frustration with parts of American politics and we pray. One person holds the microphone, but they collect our prayers for us. They say it so we can focus on what's going on in here. And we pray for the world. And then we pray about ourselves, naming our own implication in the problems of the world. We confess our sins. We make peace with God and with ourselves. And after that time of prayer where we make peace with the church, the world, God, ourselves, then the Celebrant looks at us and says, "Now the peace of the Lord be with you." And we say, "And also with you." And then comes our exchanges of signs of peace. Customarily that's a shaken hand. In other cultures it's a kiss on the cheek and we say the peace of the Lord be with you. And sometimes there's small talk. Sometimes the small talk is inane. Sometimes the small talk itself is peace to this house.
My wife and I are fairly new here. We just moved here last summer. A sign of peace that we've been given here is people saying, "Where do you swim?" And we're saying, "What do you mean?" We quickly learned that people here have their houses where they swim. If you don't have a pool, someone's got to offer you their pool. So, last week we got three offers. And we're swimming at one of them today. We're going to come and say peace to this house. You have the opportunity in these pews to give signs of peace to each other and practice the peace that we're sent out to practice at the end of the service. Jesus sends us and he sends us to proclaim peace and he sends us to heal.
Some of you have been part of Christian communities that really highlight healing ministry and they say if you pay this money, if you say this prayer, we got some blessings for you. We can heal all your diseases and if you don't you just need to have more faith. Well that's an error of overdetermination. There's also errors of underdetermination. Those enlightened Christians who say, "Well, God doesn't heal everything directly, but through medicine and through therapy, which you should get." We believe in healing, but healing comes through through the work. There's truth to both sides. But I want to ask us the question, what does it look like for us to go out in peace following Jesus's command to heal?
Well, first let's say this. Healing begins with bringing our peace into other people's homes. That itself is a miracle to some people. There are people in your life who haven't seen a happy conversation around around a dinner table. There are people who haven't seen an argument between spouses that ends with making up. Your peaceful presence in somebody else's life can heal things you didn't know were there. The text in Luke 10 continues pretty concretely. You go to the house and the next two instructions are simple. Stay there and eat what they give you. And that's a big part of healing. Bring your peace. Stay with people and eat with them.
Jesus gives these instructions after what he did to Matthew in chapter 5 of Luke's gospel. There's a story. It says, "And Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi or Matthew sitting in the booth. And he said to him, follow me. Matthew gets up and leaves and follows him. Then he gives him a great banquet in his house. There's a large crowd of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with them." People ask, "Why are you eating with tax collectors and sinners?" And Jesus answered, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I've come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Jesus goes to people's houses, looks for opportunities to heal by bringing his own presence there and simply staying there and eating. I wish some of the people who we meet IRL or online who think that there should be a questionnaire or rules about circumcision or circumcision that come before declarations of peace. I wish they would welcome us into their homes. I wish you would welcome them into your homes. Whether or not our presence fully heals the world, Jesus's will. And when we go out into the world to do the work he's given us to do, we don't go there instead of Jesus. We simply go there before him or his opening act.
As we continue our prayers this morning, know that God will hear your heart and give us his peace. He will feed us his meal here in his house. Then he will put his arm on our shoulder and send us out in his peace to the households to which we go with the knowledge that Jesus himself is coming behind us. In the name of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
