It was about 25 years ago and I was working as a Director of Christian Education in a Presbyterian congregation. I was in my late thirties. And I was in conversation with another member, Marilyn, who was interested in teaching an adult class in the church. She had never taught in the church before. She was a clinical psychologist. She had been a member of the church for years, although not much involved. But now she was interested in becoming more involved and teaching seemed like a good avenue to her. Her reason, she told me, was that she was getting older – in her seventies, I think. And, she said, the closer she came to the end of life, the more interested she became in matters of faith.
I don’t know offhand what the average age is in our congregation, or any congregation for that matter. But I do know that I hear often about the “graying” of the church. We have more retired than working people here. We know this is largely because older folks are members of generations in which churchgoing was the norm, while younger folks are part of generations that are less likely to see the value in church attendance. But there’s more to it than that. It is also true that even older folks who have not been life-long active church members have a tendency to find their way to a church as the years go by. Maybe we all, like Marilyn, find our priorities shifting as we see heaven drawing nearer.
In the gospel of Luke, we are in a section in which, as Luke tells us, Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem. We know what this meant for him – in Jerusalem was his death, so this means he was beginning to look beyond this world. This seemed to be a bit off-putting for some people, but for Jesus it was essential.
To prepare his disciples, he began sending them out on their own, to try their hand at ministry. First, he sent out the 12, the inner circle. Their mission was to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. Later, in this passage, he sends out a much larger group to go in pairs to all the places he, himself, intends to visit. He sends them with instructions to bring peace with them and virtually nothing else – no purse, no bag, no sandals. Just peace. And healing. And the message that the kingdom of God has come near.
The kingdom of God is near. And just as it was a bit off-putting for some of the people Jesus approached, it probably had the same effect on some towns and villages the disciples entered. Jesus gave them instructions about what to do when their message is rejected. I suppose that some people didn’t understand what the kingdom of God had to do with the world in which they lived.
I don’t blame them. Sometimes, it can seem like the peace of Christ is just a temporary escape from the world in which we live.
I heard a sermon this past week that was just posted online. The preacher described hiking in the redwoods of California with his wife. It was such a peaceful experience; it felt like nothing else mattered but just being there in that moment. But then it was time to leave, and they got in their car to drive home. They turned on the radio and heard the news of the day: a mass murder. The war in Ukraine. Leaked reports from the Supreme Court. Toxic politics in primaries of one state after another. And just like that, their peace was gone.
When they went back into the world, their peace evaporated, and they wondered if what they felt was really peace at all. Or maybe just an illusion.
I know that there have always been hard times, but it does seem as though we have had more than our share of bad news in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic, a once in a lifetime experience (I hope), has been very hard. But if it were only COVID it would be so much easier.
Instead, we raise the temperature by politicizing everything – masks, vaccines, providing help to those in need. And, instead of supporting one another as we go through a hardship together, we attack one another. Our distrust of one another grows. Our distrust of our institutions grows. Conspiracy theories, accusations, and attacks are constantly in the air. It feels like our whole system is broken. And there is no peace.
The preacher went on to say that he was growing to understand that true peace is a whole lot more than just the nice feeling you get when you’re not fighting with anyone; true peace is the presence of real justice. And it seems like justice is in short supply in our world.
There are so many kinds of injustice, which are all interconnected. Martin Luther King said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere; that we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. That is to say, we are all in this together. If we try to separate ourselves from the needs of the world, we do harm to ourselves as much as to the needy. Justice is complicated. The need is overwhelming.
And so, the preacher I was listening to said, when we feel overwhelmed we might just decide to pull back. We feel inadequate to the task. Let someone else, someone better equipped, try. And when we pull back, we leave a vacuum that might be filled by more injustice, more hate, more violence. The answer, this preacher said, is for each of us to take back our moral autonomy and be a force for what is right, for justice. And in this work, we may find that ever-elusive peace.
He said a lot more, which I won’t go into, but I will tell you it was inspiring. This was not a Presbyterian preacher, though. This was not a preacher from any church, actually, or even any other religion. This was a sermon delivered at a gathering called Civic Saturday, where you find people who may not have an affinity for religion have a hunger for meaning. They come together for community, for healing, and then they go out into the world to make a difference.
They are a lot like church – without Jesus. But there may be another important difference: They are not looking for heaven somewhere down the road, pie in the sky in the sweet by and by. They are looking for that kind of peace and love right here in this world.
I’m not going to join Civic Saturday, as appealing as certain aspects are, because I would miss Jesus too much. I need church. But I also need the church to say loud and clear, “The kingdom of God is near.” And to do our very best to bridge the gap between this world and God’s kingdom, to bring the kingdom to more of this world.
I cannot think of a time when our nation has been more needful of Christians who will do this: bring healing, bring justice, bring peace.
I once asked a group of church people how they felt about the notion of being sent out into the world as Jesus sent out the 70 disciples. They all said they felt inadequate. And it’s true, we are inadequate. We are easily overwhelmed with the needs as we see them – the fighting, the toxic politics, the gross inequality, the ways we see our civic norms breaking down and raw power taking their place. It’s enough to make you withdraw into your prayer closet.
But let us remember that Jesus sent his disciples out. He sent them with instructions to heal. He sent them with peace to share. He sent them with a little bit of the kingdom of heaven, which was more than adequate.
In these days of fear and distrust and polarization, may we know that the kingdom of heaven is not for some time later. It is not for our escape. The kingdom of heaven is for here and now, and it is given to us. When you are overwhelmed, remember this: the kingdom of heaven is here. May we share it.
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Photo by أخٌفيالله on Unsplash
