4th Sunday after Pentecost

What does this story have to tell us today? How does it inform our understanding of Jesus, who he was, and what he did? What it tells us is that you do not want Jesus organizing volunteers at your church. Can you imagine?  The service is over. Everybody's milling around, maybe having a cup of coffee. People are talking and laughing and catching up with each other. And then Jesus steps into the middle of the room, clearing his throat and holding up a clipboard as he says loudly:  "Excuse me, can I have everyone's attention for a minute?  I still need seventy volunteers for a service opportunity this week.  This is a great chance to go out into strange and dangerous neighborhoods and invite yourselves into people's homes.  You’ll be like defenseless lambs sent out alone into the midst of ravenous wolves.  Oh, and please remember not to bring anything that might make it easier or safer or more comfortable for you to do that, okay?  So just come on over here and we'll get you all signed up. Alright? Thanks!" 

That's no way to recruit volunteers! How does he expect anyone to volunteer for that? You’ve got to sell it! You’ve got to tell people it won't be hard, that anybody can do this! Tell them it won't take a lot of time or effort! Tell them everything will be set up for them, all they have to do is show up! You have to make it easy for them to commit, so your program can be a success. What is he thinking?

Of course, he wasn't asking for volunteers. That's a pretty important thing to notice right from the beginning. Jesus appoints the seventy and sends them out. He doesn't ask for volunteers, and he doesn't wait to see who comes forward on their own. He's the Lord, after all. He can do what any pastor or volunteer coordinator only dreams of doing. 

But still: "I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves"? This is clearly dangerous territory, and he's sending them out completely unprepared and unable to fend for themselves? And wolves aside, without money, how can they buy food or get a place to stay? Without a bag, what are they supposed to do about extra clothes if they get cold or wet or just dirty from the road? Doesn't he know they're going to need these things?

I think one reason this passage is so hard for us to understand is that it goes completely against one of the fundamental values of our culture, which is self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is so important to our sense of satisfaction that there's a whole industry dedicated to equipping us to go out and test it in ourselves. If you go to almost any sporting goods store, you are going to find everything you need to make it on your own in the wilderness. Or, at least, that’s how they sell it. High-tech boots specialized for maximum performance in different activities. Socks and clothes that keep rain out or wick sweat away from your body or trap heat in or breathe to let heat out. Shelters that can withstand gale force winds but pack down to the size of pillow. Food that never spoils and takes up almost no space: just add water. And so on and so on and so on. You can be fully prepared for any contingency you might encounter while you're alone out in the wilderness, any situation that might endanger or just inconvenience you. They make you believe you’re Wonder Woman or Superman!

But the whole point of what Jesus is doing is ensuring that he's sending these seventy apostles out completely unprepared. They are not permitted to have anything that might enable them any level of self-sufficiency. As a result of all this, they are the complete opposite of self-sufficient. Their well-being is utterly dependent on the people to whom they have been sent, some of whom will respond with hostility rather than hospitality. And you can never tell which you're going to get until it's too late.

Last week we heard Jesus issuing some harsh sounding, rather hyperbolic statements to those who were interested in following him. “…someone said to [Jesus], ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ 58And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ 59To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ 60But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ 61Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ 62Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”

It’s one of those extreme gospel passages that tempts us to chalk it up to mere metaphor or overstatement so that we can turn it into something kinder and gentler; something that’s easier for ourselves. Of course, God can and does work through people who own homes and who love their families and who attend the funerals of their loved ones. But we’re too quick to relegate this text to the back burner, because it’s inconvenient when we try to apply it to our neat, orderly, and established lives. If we wonder what all the fuss is about because being a Christian makes so little dent in our lives, then we really, really need to pay attention.

Well, guess what? Today Jesus shows us that he wasn’t kidding. The claim he makes upon his disciples is very, very real. In other words: this Kingdom of God business isn’t easy. It’s hard work. And according to Jesus, it all starts with peace.

I know that I’m hardly alone in saying that now, more than ever, the spirit of peace should be the thing that pervades everything we say and do. “5Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’” It begs the question: where is the peace of God today? I suspect that God is asking the same thing. To be clear, this is not about waiting for and expecting God to fill the void and fix the problems. This is not about God’s failings or imperfections. It’s about ours.

Our call as followers of Jesus is quite clear: to number ourselves among the seventy sent to every town and every place where Christ himself goes. To enter every house, first saying, “Peace to this house.” To be a people with hearts of peace. But we struggle with what peace means, what it looks like, and how we attain and keep it. If the events of today’s world offer us anything it’s the opportunity to rethink what peace means and to reorient our hearts.

The first thing we need to do is to change our understanding of peace! Most of us have an understanding of peace that’s too small and too narrow. We limit peace to a particular set of behaviors and usually they are the behaviors we expect or want from the other person. We think of peace as an ideal to be attained and, more often than not, we define it as the absence or elimination of conflict. We’ve convinced ourselves that peace will come when this person or that group changes or stops doing something. We condition peace on our ability to change or control others. We let them determine whether our hearts are at peace or at war. And it simply doesn’t work.

Much as we would like to believe otherwise, we don’t have the power to change others. And when we do, it’s not peace we achieve but more violence. There’s a reason we feel powerless in the midst of our world’s tragedies. We are powerless. We have no control to change someone else! The only person over whom we have any power or ability to change is ourselves. We, ourselves, are responsible for choosing whether we live with a heart of peace or a heart at war.

Just look at the mission of the 70: Jesus doesn’t tell us to go and change other people! That may be our way but it’s not his way. Jesus does, however, spend a lot of time teaching us to change ourselves and our attitudes toward others. That’s the change of heart that is at the core of peace. The struggle for peace begins not between us and someone else but within us.

What if a heart of peace is about loving our neighbor as ourselves? It means that the other person, regardless of who she or he is, counts and matters as much as we do. A heart of peace refuses to lump masses of unknown people into lifeless categories like Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, gay or lesbian, Muslim, or NRA member, and make them objects to be dealt with or enemies to be defeated. A heart of peace sees everyone as a person, created in God’s own image.

What if a heart of peace is about loving our enemies, doing good to those who hate us, turning the other cheek, giving our shirt to the one who has taken our coat, and doing to others as we would have them do to us? When you put it that way, you have to wonder whether we really want peace and whether we’re willing to pay the price. Some days my answer is yes. And other days? Not so much.

What if a heart of peace means being merciful and not judging, refusing to throw the first stone (or for that matter the last stone, or any stones in between), and taking care of the log in my own eye rather than the speck in the eye of another?

What if a heart of peace offers forgiveness not seven times but seventy times seven? Are we willing to do that?

What if a heart of peace means feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty something to drink, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned? Before we can do that, we first have to deem the life, needs, and desires of someone else as important as our own.

What if a heart of peace means choosing not to become and act like a wolf when we stand in the midst of wolves? It means we must refuse to betray ourselves and to refuse, as one author says, “to horriblize others” (The Anatomy of Peace, page 94).

Peace doesn’t begin with our behavior towards each other but with our attitude and way of being toward each other. It starts with our seeing each other as human beings created in the image and likeness of God. It’s a matter of the heart: your heart and my heart. If our hearts are at war it doesn’t matter how polite or nice we are to each other. Violence is present.

When Jesus sent out the seventy, their offers of peace didn’t depend upon who the recipients might be, their worthiness, what they had done, or what their response might be. We can’t make our offers of peace conditional, either. Some will receive the peace and others will not. Either way, “the kingdom of God has come near” if our hearts are at peace.

The peace of Christ is not defined by the absence of conflict, nor is it an ideal to be attained. It’s a practice to be lived every moment of every day of our lives. That means practicing peace with our friends and family. It means practicing peace with our enemies. It means practicing peace with the stranger, with those who are different from us, and with those who scare us.

Let’s not forget that when Jesus sent the seventy, they went without a purse, bag, or sandals. Evidently unlike them, we carry a lot of baggage. That baggage can trip us up and deny us a heart of peace. It’s the baggage of our past experiences. It’s our fears and wounds, our grudges and resentments, our pre-judgments and assumptions about others, our need to be right or better than the other, and sometimes our desire to play the victim.

God calls us to leave our baggage behind so that we can be in the world fully equipped with a heart of peace. “Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’”

AMEN