Roundabout Peace

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But 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. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Two weeks ago I went to the installation of a new Pastor who will be serving both Zion Lutheran Church and Reconciliation Episcopal Church.  The two churches are dating and they’re so cute together!  Anyway, Bishop Fisher presided and Bishop Hazelwood preached and he focused on the two things that Jesus commands us to do in the very middle of this passage.  The first thing he told us that Jesus said was, “Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’” Then the bishop told this story:  He had gone to the grocery store in a terrible hurry, running around grabbing what he needed and then up to the checkout.  The cashier was a very small, 300 year old woman, who moved VERY SLOWLY.  He danced around and tapped his card anxiously on the card reader while each item was scanned… VERY SLOWLY.  Finally the cashier handed him his receipt and looked up at him and said, “Honey, whatever it is, it’ll be alright.”  That three foot tall woman had just given our seven foot tall bishop that PEACE that Jesus had commanded the disciples to give!  Bishop Hazelwood said it felt like Julian of Norwich had just been incarnated into this tiny, 300 year old, grocery store cashier to reminded him that: “all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.” 

That woman had given him peace like the disciples were told to do… without any pre-qualifications… she simply gave it to the next person in line.  At that point my brain was zooming.  You see, just the day before I had seen one too many posts on the Great Barrington Community Facebook page, raging… saying it shouldn’t be happening, that they were doing it wrong, and prophesying doom and the end of civilization in Great Barrington because of the greatest injustice of our age… the new roundabout.  I’d had enough.  So I posted this:  “I've decided to be super excited for the roundabout!  After all, nothing I say will change it at this point and grumbling about something unchangeable will just make me grouchy and that grouchy will inevitably get on my family and friends and nobody needs more grouchy.  So I've decided instead to embrace it and hope it turns out better for all of us than even the designers planned.”

I didn’t realize what I had done when I posted that, but there in the pew in that little church in Oxford I suddenly got it!  I had given the Great Barrington metroplex PEACE!  Maybe the people on that page took it.  Maybe they didn’t.  It really didn’t matter either way, because what it did do is that it changed me!  AND in that unairconditioned pew in Oxford I suddenly realized… I could do it again!  So I did!  Each day since that sermon, I’ve posted some little thing on the Great Barrington, Egremont, and Sheffield Facebook pages giving people peace.  

Some have “shared in it” as Jesus says, and some have not.  Whether people took the peace wasn’t to be the disciple’s concern so I’ve tried not to worry about that either.  Our concern is supposed to be to simply give it.  To put it out there.  To share it in our words.  To share it in our actions.  To share it with whoever is next in line and then just let it do its thing!  The other thing Jesus instructed the disciples to do was to tell the people that the Kingdom of God had come near.  He told them, some people will get it, some people won’t, but either way don’t stress about it because no matter what they do, the fact remains… The Kingdom of God HAS come near!  

The Bishop preached longer than I want to today, so I’ll just cut to the chase.  The two things Jesus told the disciples to do go hand in hand.  You see, when we give out peace, it may or may not change THEM, but it absolutely changes US.  And the way it changes us is to give clarity to our vision so the more peace we give, the better we are able to see the truth… the Kingdom of God REALLY HAS come near!  And you see, as we give out that Peace, and as our vision clears, and as we see more of the Kingdom of God come near, the more we are able to take to heart the wisdom that little old lady at the register shared when she said, “Honey, I don’t know what it is, but it’s going to be okay”…. and the better we can hear Julian of Norwich say “all will be well, and all will be well and all manner of things shall be well” and the more fully we can hear John Lennon say “everything will be okay in the end and if things are not okay… it’s not the end.”  

Both the disciples then and us disciples now live in a “lambs among wolves” kind of time, but we are far from unequipped to live in these times.  God has given us two incredible superpowers that no wolf can overcome… the gift of God’s peace to share with the world, and gift of God’s Kingdom come near.  With those two super powers there isn’t any demon in the world that has a chance in hell of hanging on to us for long.  Amen.