A Peace Mission

Belfast Peace Art

June 19, 2016

Ephesians 2:11-22

11 So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision”—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— 12 remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15 He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16 and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. 17 So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18 for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; 22 in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Luke 10:1-11

10 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. 2 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. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 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. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘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.’

Sermon: “A Peace Mission”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”  It was a common enough question.  My answer in kindergarten was perhaps a bit uncommon.  I proudly said, “I want to be a missionary.”  You know you’re destined to be a pastor when…

A missionary is really all I’ve ever wanted to be.  I’ve explored that calling in many ways.  Initially, I thought perhaps it meant being a doctor and helping people physically and spiritually.  But a semester of shadowing doctors and nurses in high school showed me that wasn’t my passion (I particularly remember one experience of passing out in a patient’s room.  Oh dear.). 

Then, I went on a mission trip to Honduras my senior year in high school, and heard a priest tell us the importance of preventing illness by improving water conditions.  So, I studied Bioenvironmental Science in college, convinced that being a missionary would look like improving water quality in disadvantaged places of the world.  But several semesters of biochemistry and microbiology (and an internship at a wastewater treatment facility!) showed me that wasn’t my passion.

Finally, I went to Belfast, Northern Ireland as part of the wonderful Presbyterian mission year, the Young Adult Volunteer Program.  There, I finally discovered the mission I’d been looking for since kindergarten.  I was called to be a missionary of peace.

And I still am, hoping I live into that calling in big and small ways every day.  One of you put a note in our little yellow box of summer sermon suggestions, asking about the true nature of mission.  Here’s the best I can muster, guided by Luke chapter 10 (admitting mission is always perplexing and complicated):  mission is going to “the other” and speaking the peace of the kingdom of God.  Ada Maria Isazi-Diaz would challenge us to think, not of a top-down powerful kingdom of God, but instead an equitable family of God, a kin-dom. 

Let’s unpack my definition a bit.

Mission is going.

Luke says, “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.”

We must leave to do mission.  Now, before you think this means we need to have a passport or a suitcase to do the Missio Dei, the mission of God in the world, let me clarify.  Going simply means not staying where we are.  Not being too stuck in our ideologies or theologies.  Not being too stuck in our fears and safety nets.  In order to participate in God’s mission, we must leave our ways of comfort and predictability, and go where Christ is going.

Mission is going to “the other.”

Jesus said, “Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.”

Sometimes we’re the lambs.  Honestly, sometimes we’re the wolves.  But we’re always sent into the unfamiliar, into community that’s quite different from ours.   Which is why our ongoing mission partnership with Mercy Community Church in Atlanta is so essential.  We, the housed and privileged, go to the unhoused, the forgotten, the “other.”  Because it is only in encounters with those unlike ourselves that we can truly experience or share in the peaceable kin-dom of God. 

Orlando showed us, in the most painful of ways, what the world looks like when we don’t go to “the other,” but instead build walls of hatred and anger.  We must go to the other, because if we only ever go to those who are most like ourselves, we are building our kingdoms, and not the kin-dom of God.  We go to the other because we need conversion (or to put it in a Presby way: to be reformed and always reforming) as much as anyone else does.

Mission is going to “the other” and speaking peace.

Jesus said, “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.”

When we get the courage to go to “the other,” whether that be someone who votes differently than us, or the unhoused veteran, or the fearful gay teenager, or the lonely, forgotten older person, we do not go speaking words of judgment.  We go and speak peace. 

Our speaking peace doesn’t mean we’ll hear peaceful words spoken back to us, but that’s not the point.  We initiate peaceful communication first, and don’t get too riled up if it’s not appreciated. 

In Luke, Jesus gave us a picture of what “speaking peace” looks like.  It’s much more than words.  It looks like eating together, like we do at Mercy, eating soup prepared by unhoused people.  Speaking peace looks like receiving and giving hospitality, and letting the lines between the two get nice and muddled with grace.  It looks like not moving from house to house too quickly, but instead doing the long, vulnerable work of building relationships.  It looks like healing the sick – bringing wholeness to the grieving, the hurting, and the ailing.  This is what speaking peace means.

But we don’t just speak a human peace, a ceasefire, the absence of war.

Mission is going to “the other” and speaking the peace of the kingdom of God.

Jesus said, “Say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’   

Even if you’re not welcomed, shake the dust off your feet, but still leave that good news, that gospel: the kingdom of God has come near.’

We speak God’s peaceful kingdom – the sort of shalom that can’t be annihilated by the hateful, heartbreaking actions of a few.  This peace is the stuff of true reconciliation, what Paul spoke of in Ephesians as the whole of the gospel, “Christ is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” 

This is the peace I saw in a poor-in-things, but rich-in-spirit, gardener named J.R., determined to get fresh produce into his heroin-plagued neighborhood of Atlanta.  This is the peace of St. Patrick, who voluntarily returned to the very people who enslaved him in Ireland, to share the good news of the kingdom of God.  This is the peace we see in whole communities refusing to give in to revenge and hatred, but instead publicly uttering words of grace, forgiveness and solidarity.  We are on a peace mission our whole lives.

My mentor, Dr. Carlos Cardoza-Orlandi spent a lot of time getting us seminarians to understand the nature of mission.  And, after much (much) reading and study, he finished that class by saying, “A couple of you are really starting to understand mission, and I’ll tell you why:  you’re perplexed by it.”

Mission should always be perplexing, where the peaceful kin-dom of God interrupts our patterns of speech and behavior, where the lines between “us” and “them” become blurred, and where we can’t really figure out whether we’re the givers or the receivers.  Where we allow ourselves to be uncofortable enough to let the peace of Christ break down the walls we too often ignore, or pretend don’t exist. 

Mission is going to “the other” and speaking the peace of the kingdom of God.

Where is Christ calling you to go, to get out of your addiction to routine and familiarity?

Who is “the other” Christ is calling you to be in relationship with?

What peace needs to be spoken through your life and the life of our church?

And where is the kingdom, or kin-dom, of God near to us all, bringing hope and light and good news, in even the darkest of times?

We are all missionaries, friends. 

Jesus first sent out 70 people to start this whole adventure we call Christianity.  And look at all they did!  There are about that many of us here today.  And so Jesus sends us out again (and again and again), until there is no more “other,” until peace permeates every grieving, fearful corner of this world, and until the kin-dom of God is as near as the person next to us.

Thanks be to God!  Amen.