Two by Two

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, TX.

The lectionary readings for the seventh Sunday after Pentecost are here.

As most of you know, I recently returned from the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, the official gathering every three years of Episcopal dioceses from around the world. General Convention is the governing body of The Episcopal Church and comprises the House of Deputies, which is made up of equal numbers of Lay and Clergy from each diocese, and the House of Bishops.

This was my first time at GC, something on my priest bucket list to experience the legislative work of this amazing church that has been so life-giving and transformative for me. I can tell you I was not disappointed. Following set Parliamentarian procedures to keep things in an orderly fashion, all voices are given a chance to speak, everyone has the opportunity to be heard. It is a beautiful representation of the diversity and communion of God’s Kingdom on earth. The work that is done is done together in community. There isn’t one or two people in power telling the rest of us what we are going to do and how we are going to do it.

At GC the varied voices in the Episcopal Church discern together where and how the Spirit is guiding us in repentance and reconciliation when necessary and in peace and hope for our future following Jesus together in Love. And I believe this is The Way of doing our life together that Jesus teaches us: in which we all enable and equip each other to do the work of God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven, together, following Jesus, and with God’s help.

In our gospel story today, Jesus has returned to his home town, and although some are amazed at the wisdom and work he’s done, they are skeptical because he’s just the simple carpenter’s son they watched grow up. His ability to do Kingdom work is limited, but not because Jesus isn’t fully capable, he absolutely is. In the midst of the skeptics, Jesus is faithful to his ministry of proclaiming God’s Love. He shows us that the work of God’s Kingdom isn’t thwarted by those who are faithful to the Way of Jesus but by those who don’t believe that Love is the most powerful force in the Universe. Jesus couldn’t do much for them because of their unwillingness to change. And just as the people of his hometown were amazed at the work of his ministry, Jesus was amazed, not in a good way, that in seeing the good he did, they still chose not to believe in the power of God’s Love.

Following this episode with his hometown folks, Jesus sends his disciples out two by two to spread the Good News of God’s Love so that others have the opportunity to change their minds – which is what repent means, remember, to change our hearts and minds about what is is to have power in this world. Jesus knew that to send the disciples out in groups to do the work of the Kingdom together would help keep their individual egos in check; it would temper the human desire to have power over others for our own gain and teach them to live in the power of God’s Love that enables everyone to thrive.

This wasn’t some radical new movement but Jesus reminding us that this is the way God intended from the start. In the creation stories told by our faith ancestors, God created two people to tend to God’s creation in equal standing with each other. And the first time something isn’t good is when one of those people is alone. God didn’t create us to be lone-wolves but people in community.

Jesus sends them out together and tells them to be interdependent with others; they aren’t to be self-sufficient with what they packed in their suitcase, they weren’t to require special status because they were doing the work of the Kingdom, but to work with others to mutually meet the needs of everyone. And if the community they were in didn’t want to change their mind about love and power, they were just to move on, not harboring resentment or seeking revenge or retaliation, not trying to control the behavior of others or force their belief upon them. They were simply to keep proclaiming the Good News of God’s Love. It isn’t our responsibility to force people follow Jesus, it is our responsibility to follow Jesus well with God’s help and to the best of our abilities.

In our prayer this week, we remember that God has taught us to keep all God’s commandments by loving God and our neighbor and we ask for the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to God with our whole heart and united to one another with pure affection.

You may have heard about the The Ten Commandments in the news lately. Those who are wanting to force them on others seem to be under the illusion that these commands are some sort of magical incantation that by hanging them on a wall will somehow make us perfect by the mere presence of the translated words. But that is not what they are. The Ten Commandments are a relational covenant that God offered to the ancient Israelites to live into with intentionality and purpose – to show God’s Love to the world. And then Jesus came along and said he fulfilled this covenant and translated the Ten commandments into the Beatitudes in which the peacemakers, the meek, the humble, and the people who seek God’s righteousness are the ones living in the economy of God’s Kingdom.

Jesus shows us how we bring about God’s Kingdom on earth by loving others well – all others, even those who reject us. And this doesn’t just happen by accident and it isn’t pretending that all is well when it’s not. Loving well, remaining united with pure affection, is hard work. And the work isn’t about force fitting others to our standards but opening ourselves up to the transformational work of the Holy Spirit within us.

In one of my favorite podcasts* this week, the hosts talked about growing our understanding of sin from simply breaking God’s law to disrupting the shalom of God’s Kingdom. When we see God’s law as simply a list of 10 rules that when we break one or two we can say the right words and God forgives us so we can go on with our lives until the next time we break one, we turn our relationship with God into a series of transactions that we initiate. But if we think about sin as disrupting God’s peace among our fellow image bearers, then we are better equipped to live into the transformational, ongoing, lifelong and life-giving relationship with our Creator and all of creation.

We are all interconnected and all that we think, say, and do has an impact on others. God created us to be most fully human in our relationships with God and each other. In community we keep our egos in check. In community we learn to follow and lead as Jesus did. In community we can grow from coercively attempting to control other’s behavior into the collaborative communion of God’s Table. We come together around the Table to receive the self-giving Love of Jesus so that we can, with intentionality and purpose, carry that love into the hurting world.

When we are transformed by and united in this love, we are the most powerful force in God’s creation, living into the answer to the prayer ‘Your will be done on earth as in heaven.’ Together in Love we are God’s people called to spread the Good News that welcomes everyone into God’s Kingdom. Amen.