So Jesus came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2:17-18)
Peace. It is what Jesus brought to the world and proclaimed with is life.
This morning, we heard from the Gospel of Luke, of Jesus sending out seventy others in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.
He didn’t send them alone. He sent them to prepare his way. He sent them in peace.
When they came back in celebration – Jesus celebrates with them –for they returned with amazing stories. They were tasked with healing the sick and bringing peace to the houses they visited. Yet the outcome of their interactions with those they met far exceeded this for they reported back that ‘even the demons submit to us!’
Jesus is quick to remind the 70 not to take great status from their encounters and experiences, ‘do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you’, but rejoice that your name is written in heaven. This is about doing the work of God that brings a real impact to others, and also the blessing of their salvation.
Such ministry is what we are all called to do.
M. Craig Barnes, the president of Princeton Theological Seminary, visited two pastors. Both ministers had lived long, productive lives and were now in the last stages of terminal illnesses. They all knew this would be the last time they would talk, so they took their time and chose their words carefully. (He recounts the conversation with his two senior colleagues in an essay in The Christian Century [January 4, 2019]):
“As I listened to these two pastors, the most striking thing to me wasn’t their fearlessness at dying. Nor was I in awe of their amazingly sturdy faith, which was why they had so little to fear. The thing I keep thinking about is what both of them kept talking about at the end of their lives: gratitude.
“They were grateful for their families and for those who loved them through their days of faithfulness and failure over the years. They expressed gratitude to God for the grace of life. And they were grateful that they got to be pastors.
“Both of them had served several congregations over long ministries before becoming members of our seminary’s board of trustees. In their later years they became very close friends. It was almost as though they knew they would be leaving life on earth together. When our board had dinner, they would often sit together and exchange stories from their ministries. I loved listening in.
“There was nothing particularly remarkable about these stories, except the part where holiness broke through. But they were told as a way of saying, Can you believe I got to see that? At the very end these two well-worn pastors were amazed that they got to be used in God’s story with the congregations they served. That was their last sermon.”
“This is how pastors spend their lives. And at the end, this is what they remember, and why they die with gratitude on their lips. They don’t tell the stories of their successful capital campaigns or how many new members they found for the church. Nor are they particularly bothered by their ideas that failed badly and almost drove the congregation into the ditch. They believe in grace too much to care about what went well and what did not . . .
“This is what the old pastors remember, and why they are so grateful at the end of their lives. They got to spend their years functioning essentially as angels who keep saying, Behold! They knew the ground of the church was holy even when it was a holy mess . . .
“That’s the real job description of the pastor: revealing the presence of God in the ordinary life of a flawed church. Good pastors give their lives to do it again and again.”
That’s what Jesus calls the seventy — and now all of us – to do: “to reveal the presence of God” in every ordinary life, and to do so not with a sense of superiority or self-righteousness but in a spirit of gratitude and humility that we might be the means for God to illuminate and bless the life of another.
And, as we work to make a difference in our neighbors lives, we also make a difference in our own: the peace we work for embraces us and our own families, the justice we seek changes the way we see ourselves and others, the good we are able to make happen gives our lives a satisfying sense of meaning and purpose.
We can bring such joy and peace to our own homes and neighborhoods in our own response to Jesus’ call to work for God’s harvest of reconciliation and justice in the part of the vineyard God has entrusted to us.
“Today’s gospel reading is a wonderful reminder that Jesus is not concerned if we are a name that is known in the world, or a great manager, or a great anything as seen through the world’s eyes… though all these things are good in themselves. None of this is about status or power. Jesus calls us to be a disciple, to live in peace and gratitude.
It is in this discipleship that we go out and meet with others in our daily lives. It is in this discipleship that our love for Christ grows and overflows to others. It is in this discipleship that we are given the gifts and the authority to speak in the name of Jesus. In the places where tensions run high. In the places of injustice. In the places where God’s Kingdom is needed. ‘Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’” (Brec Seaton)
Amen.
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