Peace to this house

 

Text: Luke 10:1-10; 16-20

What do you think of when you hear the word peace? It’s a word we encounter a lot: when someone dies, we say they are at peace. When nations agree not to make war with each other any more, we call that peace. We say that we need to find inner peace in order to keep from falling into despair when we see in the world around us the way greed, careless cruelty, and disregard for human dignity and even life have now taken hold as features, not bugs, of our policies. When we come to church we take a few minutes to say to one another “God’s peace be with you.” And as we leave this place today, we will be sent out with the reminder that although the peace of God is not something we can understand through logic or reasoning, we nonetheless are to go out into the world bearing that peace.

This is why Jesus sent the seventy out today: to be messengers of God’s peace. Just as we are sent out every week from this place to be messengers of God’s peace. And the way we are to be messengers is to be in relationship with others.  Notice Jesus’ instructions:  don’t carry a bunch of stuff; trust that others will care for you; share the message of peace and if people don’t accept it, let it go and move on  - don’t dwell on them - their unbelief cannot stop the coming of the kingdom. And don’t move about from place to place. Stay put for a while. In other words, cultivate God’s kingdom by cultivating relationship with others. This is how to share God’s peace. And the seventy come back to Jesus with joy.

The Jewish theologian Martin Buber wrote that the relationships we have with other people reveal a great deal about our relationship with God. Our relationships with other people REFLECT our relationship with God. For Buber, entering into a relationship with God is only possible when we are able to establish genuine relationships with one another. But the key word here is genuine: Buber described relationships as being either “I-You” or “I-It,” and that most of our involvement with other humans is of the “I-It” variety. We tend to interact with one another transactionally, even people we are close to. We want them to behave in ways that meet our needs, we see only parts of them and not the whole, we want them to do something for us, which shows that we see them as objects.

But God is not an It. God is a You - the eternal You, Buber says, and human beings were created to be in I-You relationships, relationships of mutual regard, of knowing and being known, of valuing others for themselves and not what they can do for us. And we show that value by how we relate to them - as equals, as unique individuals with inherent worth, as fully human just as we wish to be known as fully human.

And, so, when I encounter another human as You, that is where God is present. When I consider another human as It and treat them with disdain, then I am treating God with disdain. Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me, Jesus said.

In truth, God’s kingdom is here in this world, not somewhere else in another time, and so this world is holy because it is where we can encounter God. That’s not going to happen anywhere else, at least not in this life. And we’re not going to encounter God, the eternal You, if we only encounter others as objects or projections or stereotypes, as It.

Our kids were big fans of the Pixar movie “Up.” One of the motifs in the movie is the collection of merit badges by children who are in the “wilderness scouting” program, most of whom have never been in a wilderness. One such child comes to the door of the movie’s protagonist, a grumpy old man, determined to assist him in crossing a street or even crossing his yard or doing some small activity that will earn him a badge in assisting the elderly.   

The little boy has a huge collection of badges which he wears on a sash across his chest. He is determined to earn this one last badge, for his sash only has room for one more - and we learn later that the reason why he wants it so badly is because his father, who travels a lot, always will come to his badge ceremony and take him out for ice cream afterwards. The boy is willing to check any superficial activity off his list in an attempt to win even fleeting attention from his father.

Of course, the old man does not want to be helped. He doesn’t want to cross the street. He doesn’t even want to cross his yard. His activity for the day is to come downstairs and sit on the porch of the house in which he lived all of his adult life with his wife who has now died. He thinks he has already lived his life thank you very much, and does not want a pesky kid bothering him.  

In the end, of course, because this is Disney, the boy has an adventure with the elderly man, full of excitement and eventual success. But what this ends up leading to is not just a badge but a relationship. The two of them begin to treat one another with the kind of love that only happens when people adventure into the unknown territory of actually taking time to get to know one another and to understand how the other sees things. By the time the credits roll, during which I had something in my eye, we see photographs of the two of them going to the movies, playing bingo, bringing their dogs to visit other elderly people at a retirement home. They have developed a real relationship in real life. They bring joy to one another and to others by being in relationship, by being together, not by a transaction, “doing something” for someone. Had the little boy simply escorted the old man across the street, he might have earned his explorer’s badge, but he would not have brought new life to the man and to himself. 

This is how we bring God’s peace to to the world. This is how we experience God’s peace for ourselves. God’s peace will come when we know and love through real relationship even those whom we think are very different from us - who are of another race or class or nationality or religion or political party.  

And relationship is messy and is often fraught with goof ups and misunderstandings. We most certainly are not always going to get it right. It’s not an accident that, notwithstanding the seventy today returning with success, the Gospels often show us a generally unflattering portrait of Jesus’ followers. They mess up, they misunderstand, they don’t get it right, and we follow right along in their footsteps.  

And yet this is who God’s kingdom is made up of and this is who God trusts with the holy work of bearing God’s peace in this world and in this life.  Because God knows we need to own it ourselves. God knows we care for what we are invested in.

And so we are called to be invested in the peace of God and to be invested in being in relationship with all of God’s children, even when we don't know them personally. We are called to be invested in humanity. We are called to choose to not become wolves ourselves when we are sent into the midst of wolves. We are called to be invested in each other. 

This is how we proclaim that the kingdom of God is near. This is how we go out into the world as messengers of God’s peace.