Ruth Greenaway-Robbins

Sermon 3rd Sunday after Trinity Year C

Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20

May I speak in the name of the living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Each Sunday, as we gather before the altar, as we share the Eucharist, we find ourselves drawn again into the story of God’s great love for the world. We come hungry, sometimes weary, sometimes rejoicing, but we are fed and nourished. And at the very end of our worship, just before we step back out into our ordinary lives, as clergy we stand at the altar after the blessing and say: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” And you reply: “Thanks be to God.”

It’s such a familiar moment, so familiar, perhaps, that we don’t always hear just how radical it is. Because in that simple exchange, something beautiful and powerful is happening: we are being sent out. Not dismissed like the end of a meeting, but sent as the people of God into the world that God loves so deeply.

Our Gospel today from Luke reminds us that this sending out is not an afterthought, not an add-on to the real business of faith, it is the shape of discipleship. Jesus sends out seventy-two of his followers ahead of him, two by two, into towns and villages he himself intends to visit. And what are they told to carry? Not bags of money, not impressive strategies, not a store of persuasive arguments — but simply this: a greeting of peace.

“Whatever house you enter,” Jesus says, “first say, ‘Peace to this house.’” The peace they carry is not their own invention, it is God’s peace, the peace that comes with the nearness of God’s kingdom. This is their gift, their message, and their calling: to share peace, to offer healing, to say, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”

I think sometimes we make evangelism much more complicated than it really is. We tie ourselves in knots about whether we have the right words, the right programmes, the right events and yet Jesus sends his followers out lightly. They do not rely on cleverness or grand showmanship. They rely on the simple but costly posture of being people of peace and goodwill in the world.

It’s tempting to think we need to be impressive to share the gospel, to have all the answers, or the biggest crowds, or the flashiest initiatives. But if we do not go in peace and goodwill, if we do not carry the peace of Christ in our own lives, then all the snazzy evangelism in the world will be like clashing cymbals, loud but hollow.

The root of the gospel is peace. Not peace as the world gives, not a polite silence or an uneasy truce, but the deep peace of Christ, which makes enemies into friends, strangers into family, the broken whole again. And this peace is not ours to hoard, it is ours to offer, wherever we find ourselves.

At the end of the Eucharist, when as your priest’s we say “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord,” it is not just a tidy conclusion to the service. It is our commissioning, a reminder that the Body of Christ which we have received at this table is now to be carried by us into the world. We become the living Body of Christ here in Llanishen, in our places of work and our schools and yes, very much our homes.

You are the seventy-two, we all are. Each of us is sent into the places where we live and move and work, carrying the peace of Christ. Maybe that’s into a tense family relationship, or a workplace full of stress, or our neighbourhoods where loneliness and fear hide behind closed doors. Maybe it’s simply in how we treat the checkout person at Morrisons, or how we greet our neighbours, or how we listen to someone who needs to be heard.

This is the Missio Dei, the mission of God — that we are drawn into by our baptism. The mission is not ours to invent or control, it is God’s mission, already underway in the world before we even arrive. Like those seventy-two, we simply go ahead, preparing the ground, offering peace, healing, welcome, signs that the kingdom has come near.

And sometimes, like the disciples, we will see glimpses of power and wonder. We will see lives changed, burdens lifted, hearts turned toward hope. And when that happens, we rejoice, but we remember Jesus’ gentle word: “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Our confidence is not in what we do for God, but in what God has done for us. We go out not to make a name for ourselves, but to bear witness to the name above every name, Jesus Christ, our true and everlasting peace.

When we look around at the world today, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Conflict, division, injustice, suspicion, the news reminds us daily that peace is not a given. And yet here we are, a people gathered at the table of peace, sent out week by week to carry peace into a world hungry for it.

We may feel small. We may feel ill-equipped. But maybe that is exactly the point. Jesus sent his followers out lightly, so they would rely not on their own strength but on the welcome of others, and on the Spirit’s power. Paul writes to the Galatians: “Let us not grow weary in doing what is right… So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all.” We sow seeds of peace and goodness, and trust that God will bring the harvest.

But let me be real with you, because I know this weighs on many of us. We belong to a church that has wrestled with decline for so long, and fear has crept in, many of us have lost confidence in being people of goodwill and peace. But even Jesus knew this struggle: ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.’ Then and now, times are not so different – people are still hungry and thirsty for the Good News of Jesus, but we feel the weight of having so few to send. And this is the hard part: it requires trust. Jesus sent them out with nothing fancy, just as bearers of peace and goodwill. So at the heart of our evangelism, even in our fear, this is what we must hold onto.

So today, as we gather to share the eucharist, may we be fed for the journey. And when we come to that moment “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord” may we hear it afresh. May it send us out with joy and courage. May we carry the peace of Christ to every doorstep we cross, every conversation we hold, every act of love and service we offer.

For we are the sent ones, people of peace and goodwill, bearers of good news, signs of the kingdom of God come near.

So may we go, in peace, to love and serve the Lord.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.