The Scripture Readings this week are:
- Psalm 146
- Isaiah 61:1-4
- Luke 4:16-21
The Sermon title is Peace, A Transformed World
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| Our reflection prompt for this week |
Early Thoughts: Peace. What does that look like? How do we get there?
One of the markers of the Reign of God/God's Kingdom (or Kin-dom if you prefer) is that this will be a time of peace and harmony. Isaiah and the other prophets point to this with images like the Peaceable Kingdom in Isaiah 11 or when both Isaiah 2 and Micah 4 talk about turning swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks and then going on to say "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more". In the Sermon on the Mount, as part of the Beatitudes, Jesus says that the Peacemakers will be blessed.
The Reign of God is also a Reign of Peace. It is a transformation in how we live with our neighbour. It is a world where all has been changed. It is a time when the hearts and priorities of humanity have been transformed.
I am one of those people who believe that peace will never come from a show of strength. It does not come from the use of force to crush those who disagree. I believe that peace comes with justice (by which I mean social justice). Unless we have a just world we will never have a peaceful world.
All 3 of our Scripture readings this week echo this call and hope for justice. They share images of release and liberation, of healing, of God's special concern for those on the margins. This is the transformation the Jesus announces at the beginning of his ministry. Jesus is, in the Gospels, all about proclaiming that the Kingdom of God has come (indeed in Mark's Gospel that is precisely how he begins his public ministry). With Jesus God is at work bringing transformation to the world.
Next Monday we are invited to pause for 2 minutes at 11:00. In that pause we honour those who have been sacrificed by a world that does not yet know what peace could be. In that pause we recognize that the transformation has not yet happened, or at least has not yet been completed. Some days it seems unlikely that the transformation to a world where peace and justice are the rule and norm could ever happen. It would be easy to write it off as a utopian pipe dream.
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| Another CHatGPT creation |
But we are called to be people of hope. We are called to remember that God is not done with the world yet, that God continues to work in, around, and through these often-flawed children that God loves. We are people of a dream, God's dream. In Scripture we see the stories of people trying to sort out how God would have them live. But we also see in Scripture a picture of what is possible. God proclaims that there WILL be a day when peace and justice are not only possible but a reality.
It will take transformed hearts and minds and souls. It will take a radical change in human priorities. It will look very different from how the world looks now. But it IS going to happen--someday. Peace will break out. Justice will flow like a river. And we shall be living in the full-blown Reign of God.
May it be so.
--Gord
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