A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus said to his disciples, as you go, make this announcement. The reign of God is at hand. And then cure the sick, raise the dead, heal the leprous, expel demons. The gift you have received, give as a gift.
As you go, provide yourselves with neither gold, nor silver, nor copper in your belts, no traveling bag, not even a change of shirt, no sandals, no walking staff. The workman, after all, is worth his keep. Look for a worthy citizen in every town, in every village that you come to, and then stay with him until you leave. As you enter his home, bless it. If the home is deserving, your blessing will descend upon it.
If it is not, your blessing will return to you. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. Praise be to you, lord. In the name of the father, of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen.
There's something about human nature, I guess it's safe to predicate it of human nature, which makes us urges us onward, both theoretically and in practice, to a state of what we call peace or tranquility or any synonym for that. Now, in most instances, if not in every instance, unless you correct yourself, that is translated into negative terms. The most obvious, the most inescapable illustration is our talk about peace. And if you ask anyone what they mean by peace, first of all, no war, the absence of conflict, struggle. Time and again I've heard people say, Oh, if I only only had one day to myself.
I said, What would you do with it? I would sit. Well, I can understand this, believe me. I can understand this perfectly. But my question is, I should like to be present when this dear person's got that whole day to sit and see how long they would sit.
Doing nothing. Doing nothing. Now if there's anything that's come through to me clearly, is this is this business about peace or tranquility or or any any synonym you want to use for this? First of all, I went into this, the the Jewish, the Hebrew word shalom, and I found instances of it in the Old Testament where it meant war, battle, fighting, killing people. That was the definition of shalom.
I mean, that's the word shalom was used for that. And when Christ talks about peace, have you ever sat down and took a little pencil in your hand and written down what Christ means when he says peace be with you? My peace I give you? Well, if you want to see a definition of peace, Christ must have known what he was talking about. Look at his life.
Look at his life. Now he's giving you his kind of peace, the kind that he had in his life. Do you want it? You're going to be extremely uncomfortable with the peace of Christ. That's precisely what he wanted it to be.
Precisely. Precisely. You cannot be a follower of a Christ and be comfortable. The very thought of being a Christian sets you in opposition to the world. Who said that Christ?
But you see, we forget these basic brutal facts. Brutal. And you come back, all of this has to do with Saint Barnabas, believe it or not. We know a good bit about Barnabas and Paul or Saul and Luke and how they operated. Now right in the beginning, Barnabas and Paul or Saul were extremely close friends.
They were good companions. They worked together. They went on the missionary fields together. They were in they were close allies. And especially in this great controversy of whether you had to be a Jew first to become a follower of Christ or practice the new way.
And Paul and Barnabas said no. And they went up to Jerusalem. There's where they had the big powwow over what did how were you to go about it. And you know how Peter stood up. He said, Nix, you don't have to go through circumcision and all that stuff to be a good to follow Christ and be incorporated in the new way.
The point is that Paul and Barnabas were very close and dear friends and working together as close allies. Then what happens? They have a falling out over Mark. Paul thought that Mark was couldn't be trusted. Barnabas said, of course we can trust him.
So they separated company, and Barnabas went with Mark. That's the very that these are we are talking about the earliest days of Christ's church. Where was the peace? Where was the tranquility? Where was the lack of opposition?
Where where where were the disciples sitting on their front porches rocking and drinking mint juleps? See, we have a conception of life. How often you hear people say, well, when my children are are in when they when they're out, I'll be so happy when my baby can walk. I've heard this time and again. The very same person, when that baby starts walking, said, my god.
I can't keep up with that kid anymore. Then they say, well, once they're in once they go to school, then they'll be off my hands and I'll then I'll have some tranquility and some peace in this house. That's what they think. Then they look back to the days that were so unpeaceful and said, I wish we had those peaceful days. You see, we we we're so twisted in our thinking about what do we want, what have we a right to expect by being followers of Jesus Christ.
Because if you make a mistake about that, it's deadly. It's like making a mistake about holy matrimony or any other important thing in life. When you make a mistake about the quality, the character, the nature of something, you are basically wrong and nothing can go right. We've got to come back to basics. Yesterday, in my well chosen remarks over there on the lecture hall, I tried to bring this thought out.
The Church of Christ is an ongoing struggle. It's in conflict and has been all down the centuries. So what? Christ said it would be that way. He said the world will hate you, hate you, and it will kill you.
Now that's pretty severe stuff. And then I quoted Cardinal Newman's wonderful, wonderful conclusion to his sermon of the second spring, when after three hundred years, the hierarchy of the Church of Jesus Christ would be had been restored two years earlier in England. And the opposition was fearful to the of the anti papalist group in England, and especially around London. And it wasn't just words, they were burning buildings and attacking people and everything else. That's the church of Jesus Christ.
They put Christ on the cross. The world did that, and Christ said, I'm gonna give you my peace. Do you want it? Do you want the love of Christ? Remember Lewis said, when you say, God, give me your love, beware.
Can you take it? In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.