SERMON: …the reign of peace and universal friendship…

When I was a student at California Baptist College, I hung with a pretty cool bunch of people. Sure, most of us had a reputation for being heretical or rebellious or even outright subversives, but we relished in this association. At a conservative Baptist college, being known as the “bad boys and girls” was a pretty good thing, and the worst of us weren’t actually that bad at all by the standards of the “real” world.

 

But we also attracted those who were outcast for other reasons, such as the morbidly annoying. I am thinking of one young woman, I will call her Cheri. Cheri had an uncanny ability to stop any conversation cold by the long and careful articulation of completely arcane arguments having only the slimmest relevance to the conversation at hand, if any. These would often be interrupted by a description of a recent dream, which were always fanciful in the extreme, and, at least to my ears, smacked of contrivance.

 

The point is that whenever Cheri wandered into a conversation, it was as much as over, because it would be a good five or ten minutes before anyone else would be able to contribute again, and we all knew that by that time, Cheri would be halfway around the world from where we began.

 

She started hanging out in the coffee shop that I and many of the other of the suspect element on campus spent our time, and very quickly people began to avoid her.

 

As much as anyone I had felt annoyed at her complete absence of social skills, but I also felt really, really sorry for her. She looked like the person I felt like in High School. In college I became quite big man on campus in my own small, intellectual way, but I had certainly not forgotten what it had felt like to be the unpopular outcast.

 

As I saw Cheri sitting on the couch alone, with a face drooping like a bassett hound, I made a commitment to God that I would be her friend.

 

Now, I don’t tell many stories in which I pat myself on the back, and this isn’t really one of those, either, because the story doesn’t really have much of a happy ending. Many times over the next several years did I curse myself for that decision. And yet I knew at the time—and still believe it to be now—the right decision to have made.

 

As hard as it was to hang in there and be Cheri’s friend, not just sometimes, but most of the time, I learned a valuable lesson about spiritual community from her.

 

For some people, friendship is easy. For others, it’s quite the opposite. And some people are easy to be friends with—others, like Cheri, are a challenge.

 

As anyone who has been married for any length of time can attest, love is a choice, a commitment. It is not something  that just happens to you, or that necessarily comes easily. Even in the best of relationships, it is sometimes very hard work. And in those relationships that are not the best, it is even harder.

 

And, unfortunately, it isn’t really the easy stuff that God calls us too, either as individuals, or as a community, or as a culture.

 

The vision that is given to us in our readings today is of a world that is devoid of hatred, warfare, despair, and death—and, my guess is, pretty light on adolescent ostracisation as well. It’s a grand vision and the central image that guides the eschatology of liberal Christianity and Judaism. While the Evangelicals are talking about the Rapture it is this image of the great feast at the world’s end, where none shall be hungry, where no violence mars the mood, where the veil of shame will be swept away, and death is swallowed up forever that forms our theology, our mission, and our commitment to social justice.

 

It’s a wonderful vision, except for one thing—it’s too global. It’s so global, that I have a hard time imagining what that’s like on the small scale of my daily human interactions. You tell me a thousand dollars, that that’s a lot of money, but I can get my head around it. You say a hundred billion dollars and that’s just an abstract idea—I have no idea what that kind of money is actually like.

 

I think it’s the same with what our covenant calls “the reign of peace and universal friendship.” The notion of world peace and the eradication of all suffering is too big to really grasp, but peace in the small world in which I actually live is a very desirable and inviting thing.

 

And I really do believe that this is the purpose of the local church. This community is the world in miniature. We have all kinds of people here, and we don’t always agree with each other, and sometimes we fight, and often we hurt each other. This is just normal, typical human stuff. But our faith—and our covenant—calls us to be more, to go further, to work harder towards a more sublime goal: that of real friendship.

 

Friendship, like marriage, is hard work. It requires patience, effort, and forgiveness. It requires real listening even when we feel like we have it all figured out, and self-forgiveness when it finally dawns on us that we don’t.

 

The local church is a laboratory where the experiment of world peace is practiced and perfected. Because, really, my friends, if we can’t do it here, what hope do we have of making it happen OUT THERE.

 

And the truth is, we can’t do it, not now, not yet. We have a lot of growing to do before we can perfect this practice. And that’s okay. Because it is the very effort that is going to grow our souls, that will create in us the capacity for lovingkindness and forbearance that world peace requires. Living in community gives us the tools we need up close, so that we can turn and use those tools for the healing of the world.

 

The old cliché is “charity begins at home,” and there is a lot of truth in that. The reign of peace and universal friendship begins right here, within these walls, in how we treat one another, and whether or not we make the commitment and the effort to love one another.

 

It isn’t easy, far from it, but more than any other goal articulated by any prophet or theologian or preacher, it is what we are here to do.

 

And it WILL grow us. It WILL transform us. It WILL make us better people. It WILL make of us a healing community. Not instantly, not easily, not without great aggrevation, but without DOUBT, it will.

 

This is what Jesus means when he says the Kingdom of God is in our midst. It isn’t coming in some far off time. It isn’t something that will be imposed on us from without. It isn’t something that we will awaken into after this life. The Kingdom of God is here, the moment we decide to act as if it WERE here, the moment we make a commitment to live in it, the moment we sieze the responsibility for our own spirituality, and our own community.

 

And believe me, we won’t be doing it alone. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can learn to love one another, even when we are hard to love. With the help of the sacraments we can keep our nose on course towards the true and prophetic meaning of this common table. With the help of one another, we can make this community a place where even Cheri would feel welcomed and loved.

 

I invite you, as we recite our parish covenant today, to make that commitment with me. Because if we can’t do it here, what hope can we have for the world? Let us pray…

 

Holy One, you call us to an awesome destiny,

and lay upon us a profound responsibility,

to take responsibility for peace in the small arena of our own lives.

Let it begin in us, let it grow in us, let it radiate from us,

and from the millions of other communities

that profess your vision of a transformed humanity,

that we may create peace in all the world.

For we ask this in the name of the prince of peace, even Jesus Christ. Amen.