Abiding and Returning Peace
- Pastor Serena Rice
- Jul 7
- 6 min read
A sermon on Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
[for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by David Izquierido on Unsplash.]
Next week we are doing a “grab-bag sermon” which means that you all will get to ask me questions on the spot.
So, I thought that, as a sort of warm-up for that, I would ask you all a question today. It’s just one question, and I think there’s a good chance you may have thought about it before, so I would genuinely like to hear your answers, OK?
You all know that the name of our congregation is Abiding Peace, right? Well, my question is: what does that mean? What does it mean for Peace to be Abiding?
* * *
Merriam-Webster Dictionary actually gives as many as six different definitions for the verb “abide,”[1] but in the context of the church’s name I have always associated it with the idea of making one’s abode in a place: setting down roots with the intention of living there.
It’s a beautiful image: the idea that this is a place where God’s peace makes a home with us.
It’s also an image that, I think, pushes at the boundaries of how we usually think and speak about peace.
Because ideas do not set up house.
Intentions or attitudes do not reside in particular places.
There is a suggestion of substance in this way of describing peace as something with the capacity to abide in a place or with a group of people.
As it happens, that substance is also echoed in the way that Jesus talks about peace in today’s gospel.
Jesus tells his disciples to speak “peace” to any house they enter on their mission, but it is clear that this is about more than just a word to say.
He describes this peace as something that will either “rest” on the host, if they are a person who shares in peace, or else it will “return” to the disciples.
As if peace were a palpable reality that takes up space in one location or another.
Commentator D. Mark Davis leans into this unusual way of talking about peace in his translation of this passage from the original Greek. He renders the conditional part of verse 6 as “your peace will be settled on (the host)” as though it were a blanket that drapes over their shoulders, conforming to their shape.
In his commentary on this translation, he goes on to write:
“The reification of peace is curious language. Pronouncing “Peace” is not just speaking a word or expressing a sentiment, it is conferring a real entity that either rests on someone or returns to someone. In the story of ‘Legion,’” (which we heard 2 weeks ago), “demons also seem to be reified evil, needing a place and not just sent off ‘wherever’ when cast out. There is a sense of a closed universe, in which things like “peace” do not just ‘disappear’ but only re-locate.”[2]
And if that is true. If peace is something with substance, something that can live with us and something that we can carry with us to offer to others, then that radically changes how I read the rest of today’s gospel story.
Because always before I have read this as a story of enforced scarcity.
Carry nothing with you, Jesus tells his followers as he sends them out, no purse, no bag, no sandals…. Go out vulnerable, totally dependent on those who might welcome you but who also might reject you.
And that’s a powerful story.
It’s a story of faith, and of following in the footsteps of Jesus who was, himself, rejected again and again.
It’s a reminder that Jesus describes the life of faith as “taking up your cross to follow him,” which implies a difficult journey, likely to come with its share of deprivation and risk.
It’s a story that can inspire commitment and courage in following the way of Jesus.
But I’m not sure that it is the story that we most need at this particular moment.
Not when this moment is one where so many of us already feel deeply vulnerable, and powerless, and maybe even a bit hopeless about how impossible it feels to stop our national government’s attack on the very groups scripture in general and Jesus in particular teaches us to protect: immigrants, the sick, and the poor.
In a moment like this, I think it helps to hear today’s gospel story as a story where Jesus does NOT actually tell his disciples to take “nothing” with them.
They are not to take money, or extra supplies with them, that’s accurate.
But they are to take Peace. And that peace is, very emphatically, something.
It is, in fact, a valuable gift that they have to offer those who welcome the chance to be part of the mission.
It’s a gift that unlocks the good news of their message: the announcement that “the Kingdom of God has come near.”
Because God’s kingdom is disruptive… it upsets the status quo and challenges those in power, and even if you aren’t in power that news can be alarming because you know those in power never let go without a fight.
But God’s peace of substance, the kind of peace that settles on you can push back that fear, because it is a reminder and an assurance that God’s disruption comes hand-in-hand with God’s presence.
Abiding with you. Partnering with you. With such peace you are never alone.
This peace also wields a unique kind of invulnerability in its “somethingness.” It has substance, it has value, but it cannot be seized.
Those who oppose the work of the kingdom can refuse to offer hospitality, but they cannot forcibly lay claim to the disciples’ peace.
That peace, even once offered, will return to the disciples if they are their message are not welcomed.
It will give them the confidence to wipe the dust of the town from their feet, and to speak their same message that is good news for some as a warning to others: the kingdom of God has come near.
There is clearly an element of trust in what Jesus requires of his followers in this story, there is a willingness to let go of the normal resources people look to for a sense of security, but there is also incredible power in this commissioning.
He tells them to proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom, and then he enacts that coming in their lives, because what he sends them to do and the way that he sends them to do it IS the kingdom of God:
It is the disruption of the status quo by putting God in the center rather that human resources and power systems.
It is the experience of a substantial peace that settles on them and empowers them and teaches them their invulnerability in the things that really matter.
And, it is literally the power to rebuke evil, as we learn when the disciples return with joy reporting their triumphs.
Jesus rejoices with them, but he also has one more challenge for them: the challenge to not rejoice in the power.
They used the power that Jesus gave them for good. They played an important role in the coming of God’s kingdom.
But the power isn’t the point. Knowing that they are part of God’s kingdom work is: “rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Our context is wildly different than the context in which Jesus sent out 70 followers to prepare the people in the towns for his coming as he journeyed toward Jerusalem.
And I, personally, am very grateful that Jesus has not told us that we need to embark on our work for God’s kingdom without any provision for our physical or material needs.
But I am also grateful that this story challenges us to re-evaluate the resources available to us to face the challenges of our time.
I am grateful for the chance to reimagine the substance and the power of peace… not just in our church’s name, but in our lives and in our witness.
It is a hard time to be a person of the cross, to be a person who follows the way of Jesus that teaches mercy, and welcome, and that makes itself an enemy of empire.
But we have this peace of God, that settles on us, and makes its home with us. And no one can take this peace from us.
Thanks be to God.
