Communities of Peace

You can listen to this sermon here

Gate Pa – Year C 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, 2022

Readings:
Psalm                          Psalm 30  
First Reading:             2 Kings 5:1-14 
Second Reading:         Galatians 6:7-16 
Gospel:                        Luke 10:1-11, 16-20   

What I want to say:
Explore what Luke and Galatians might offer us as we seem to spiral down with so many issues dividing us

What I want to happen:
What do we offer all this?

The Sermon

1.     Introduction:

As I read the newsfeeds on the internet, and am bombarded on Facebook and Instagram, it feels like our world is so broken at the moment. I guess it always has been. It’s just that social media and the constant news stream makes it a lot more visible. And the issues seem more intense with passions burning bright in America around gun violence and availability of assault weapons and the decisions of the Supreme Court around that and overturning Roe vs. Wade. Not to mention the Congressional hearings around January 6^th. And through social media it’s not just over there.  We can be part of that discussion/argument too. It’s harder to stay out to be honest.

And we have our own issues. With issues like race relations at the fore, for example with Tauranga being named as racist and the reaction to that. The controversy around Bethlehem College changing it’s charter and it’s official position on gay and transgender students. Not helped by the attack on some of the students at an antibullying rally. And we have the burning Rainbow Youth and Gender Dynamix's Tauranga office at the Historic Village

Some how we Christians seem involved in some very unhelpful ways. Ways that don’t seem to line up with what we are told in our readings, especially Luke and Galatians.

      2.     Jesus’ diverse crowd

One of the obvious things when you read gospels is that Jesus spent time a lot of time with all kinds people

•      -         Ordinary people hoping for better
  
•      -         Rich and poor
  
•      -         Pharisees
  
•      -         Tax collectors
  
•      -         Prostitutes
  
•      -         Gentiles
  
•      -         Romans
  
•      -         Samaritans

Eating with some of these people, accepting hospitality from them and honouring them as he did so gets him into all kinds of trouble. People aren’t happy about it. They crucify him for it.

His followers are also a diverse bunch

• -         Zealots – being anti Roman to their core
• -         Tax collectors - Roman collaborators
• -         Pious and devout Jews
• -         Not so pious and devout Jews
• -         Men and women
• -         Wealthy and poor
• -         People of high honour and no honour

These are not people who would normally be in each other’s company. Imagine having zealots and tax collectors in the same room.

Something about Jesus; who he was, how he related to people, and what he taught, allowed them to be together despite their deep differences. If only we could learn from him.

     3.     Luke 10

And maybe today we have an example of that, of Jesus finding ways of allowing very different people to be together.

We have previously heard of Jesus sending his close followers, his disciples, out to further his ministry. And last week we heard about some of the reasons why people struggled to follow - struggling to let go of what had been of central importance.

This week is a much bigger group. I am not sure what you picture when you think about Jesus’ followers. But in Luke there are more than the 12. At the very least there are all the women who are bankrolling this affair. And this is a really diverse group. And Jesus sends out 70 or 72 of them.

The story we heard today is set as Jesus begins his journey to Jerusalem and all that means. That is an important detail we sometimes overlook. He sends them out in pairs and without their own resources. As they journey out they are now all equal, all equally reliant on each other, and all equally reliant on the welcome, generosity and hospitality  of others.

I am reading a book on Interfaith leadership, and last week read a story about a group of young people at Outward Bound in America. The particular group included people of different faiths; Jewish, various versions of Christianity, Muslim, among others. They were spending time together tramping. Before they set out they introduced themselves to each other. The very conservative Christian guy introduced himself by saying that the world was going end soon and that unless they all accepted Jesus they were all going burn in hell, the Muslims in the hottest hell. Not the best way introducing yourself to group of different faiths, including Muslims

There was no water on the track, so they had to carry all their own water. So the two largest guys were chosen to carry the water. One was this Christian guy, and another a Muslim. The conversations were pretty frosty to start with. But on the first morning, when the Muslim got up in morning for first prayers he saw  the Christian guy already up doing daily prayers. They had something in common. It allowed conversation and each grew in respect for the other. If one slept in the other would nudge them awake for prayer. They found what they had in common and left what held them apart.

I wonder if in part this is what Jesus is doing here in this story.

These are the people who will carry on the mission of God, living the nearness of the Kingdom of God after the resurrection. These are the ones who will build  new communities where the old ways that tear us apart were set to one side - some of ways we heard about last week from Debbie.

And Jesus sends them out in pairs; without their own resources, all equal, all equally reliant on each other, and all equally reliant on the welcome, generosity and hospitality  of others. That I one way to break down the things that divide us and to find what they have in common. Interestingly they don’t go to persuade people of the rightness of what they were saying. If they are not welcome and people don’t want to listen they simply leave, brushing the dust of their feet as they go, either as a sign rejection or as a sign that they wanted nothing from them in the first place.

They didn’t set out change people’s minds. They set out to create new communities by simply accepting the hospitality offered – or not. And in return they offered God’s peace, God’s shalom, wholeness, completeness.

Like the sending out of the 12, this is also as much about the shaping the 70/2 as it was about what they did. This is about them being shaped in God’s peace, so that they can gather communities based on God’s shalom in the future. It was about them learning humility to work and trusting others who were so different from them. And having the courage to keep offering communities of God’s peace even when they were rejected, as Jesus was rejected.

      4.     Paul

Building new communities is really hard to do. Most people don’t want to know. They do ways of division are too comfortable, and it is hard to imagine another way. It is especially hard once you involve people that did not know the founder first hand. It was hard enough for those first followers. Once the message gets out beyond Judah and Galilee it becomes much harder. Just read Paul. The pull of division is one of Paul’s great struggles. The constant pull back to how things were. Once again establishing rules for who is to be included and who is not to be included.

Paul was adamant that God’s love reaches out to all people without discrimination and seeks to bring them into new way of being. It is at the heart of so many of his letters. We hear it again today in his letter to Galatians. His dream of new communities of peace. Where there is no Jew or Gentile, no distinctions between male or female, no differentiation between slave or free. God’s love reach out to all without discrimination and invites all to live in this love equally.

We still struggle to find what holds us together and to let go of what separates. We struggle to live out Paul’s vision of this community. We allow what divides us to hold sway.

But imagine those kinds of communities today in the midst of these deep divisions, where our interactions are not marked by proving how right we are, but by the fruits of the Spirit, that we listened to last week. “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

I was struck as I read the passage for today by Galatians 6:2 where Paul writes, “Carry each other’s burdens and so you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

I wonder then what difference it would make if we sought to carry each other’s burdens rather than be right.

I wonder how we can bring God’s peace into so many of the divisions we ae experiencing at the moment.

What is it we can offer?