Pastor Tom Hilter preached today. Creator posted about celebrating the Fourth of July this week, but we didn't directly acknowledge the holiday in the service.
National holidays always give me pause at church. Not because I don't love this country. I do. I’m grateful for its beauty, its freedoms, and the people who’ve shaped it. Yet, I’ve learned that love of country is a complex thing. It’s full of contradictions.
For ma July 4th is a day of national ambiguity. Particularly this year, I question: What does it mean to be Christian in a land we love, that is not our ultimate home? In today’s Gospel, Jesus gathers 72 ordinary disciples to send out, two by two, with no purse, no sandals, no security. Just peace on their lips and healing in their hands. Ambassadors of another realm.
There is no mention that these followers were scholars, or clergy, or influencers, so it may have been people who volunteered and had the capacity. There is a Bible reference that leads us to Moses and the Elders in Numbers 11:16-30, where God instructs Moses to appoint 70 elders to assist him in leading the people. If that is a significance of 72, this suggests Jesus' message is spreading to all nations. The large number of 72 becomes less surprising (otherwise, so many pairings are unwieldy to imagine). Yet what comes next is a true surprise in this story.
The Kingdom of God arrives without fanfare or force, but on foot, in pairs, with empty hands and open hearts. It is also worth noting that these pairs are not sent to the centers of power. Jesus doesn’t give them church growth strategies. He doesn’t send them with a detailed theology. He sends them as they are, to people and places they do not yet know. They announce a truth that still inspires and rings in our ears: “The kingdom of God has come near.”
Questions naturally come from that announcement: What exactly is the kingdom of God, and how near? At times, reading those words, I'm baffled as to how to answer. At times, merely vocalizing these questions aloud vibrates my soul like a tuning fork. "Commissioning" has evolved from the missions or conversions of old. Instead, for us, it's a deep spiritual transmission. It’s not doing something for God, but about becoming someone through God. A deep call that we all hear in our lives and the world.
This Gospel message isn’t about coming wars, nor reclaiming national or political power. It isn’t about a Christian nation. but a different kind of kingdom. This one arrives not with flags or borders but with peace, healing, and a welcome table for all. The 72 go out as citizens of another kind of realm that Jesus calls the Kingdom of God.
In a reflection written just after 9/11, author Diana Butler Bass wrestled with what she called the danger of mistaking one’s homeland for God’s city. That tension has become clearer and more pointed in the decades since.
Bass speaks of the old folk hymn that echoes in her heart when she hears the phrase “homeland security”:
Jerusalem, my happy home,
When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sorrows have an end?
Thy joys when shall I see?
That, she writes, is the homeland we long for. Not a political nation. Not a military base. Not a perfect democracy. But a place of rest, a land of mercy, a city of God. We are sojourners here, too.
Our congregation lives in the Pacific Northwest. We are together in Oregon, with its Douglas firs, salmon runs, and vast coastal fog. We live in a country with both admirable ideals and painful histories. And we live with a kind of double citizenship: we are Americans, but we are Christians first.
As Paul wrote in Philippians 3:20, “Our citizenship is in heaven.” And the writer of Hebrews tells us that the great saints of the faith were “strangers and foreigners on the earth,” longing for “a better country, a heavenly one.” So what does this mean for Creator now?
It means we are not simply patriots of a nation, we are ambassadors of a gospel.
What Jesus says sounds straightforward: go, take nothing extra, rely on the hospitality of others, proclaim peace, heal, and say “The kingdom of God has come near.” Behind the simplicity is a radical invocation. Do, not to undertake what is to be done in the world, but be a presence. He sends them out, “like lambs among wolves,” to be vulnerable. No backup plan, no extra sandals, no purse.
Why? The power of their being sent isn’t in the paraphernalia of preparation, as Pastor Tom pointed out today, but rather in being resonant with the moment. Being attuned to the peace of Christ, to walk in trust, and to carry not just a message but living as a spiritual coherence that opens healing and harmony in whatever house is entered.
It is tempting to become consummate "doers" in the world, rushing to fix, speak, or act louder than the many fears we harbor within. Yet we, like the 72, are spiritual beings echoing with the vibrations of the Sacred. Our presence alone shifts atmospheres. What Jesus modeled was not mystical escapism from death. Jesus embodied a new incarnation of the human spirit.
Too often, especially in chaotic times, we only trust our time and energy. We feel we should work hard. We must organize more. Our advocacy should be louder. Jesus says something else in this passage.
“Do not move from house to house,” he says, “Let your peace rest upon that house,” and “Rejoice, not that the spirits submit to you, but that your names are written in heaven.”
What if, instead of frantically searching for change, we bring coherence to those around us? To stabilize the space, not by control, but by presence? These verses speak not of what can be done for the world, but how to show up in life. Not with strategies, but with our frequency and the tone we carry. The tone of grace, calm, and clarity that we can embody when things feel jagged and anxious.
The seventy-two were not effective because they had a better plan or a truer belief than those of the towns they entered. They were effective because they carried peace. The peace that either settled into the hearts of others or returned to the pair undisturbed.
Teilhard de Chardin once said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” If that is true, then our deepest work is not acting for the kingdom of God, but embodying it. This is not done alone, but when we are paired. I've struggled with how the world thinks of individual salvation (see the blog entry about hosannas).
To be in the midst of what’s here without rushing to fix it. To listen before speaking. To bring presence, rather than pressure. This is a listening faith. Think about Jesus’ final words in this passage: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Not because the disciples shouted him down. Rather, the kingdom of fear, separation, and domination collapses every time we, paired, choose love over control, peace over panic, and being over performing.
We are sent, not just to proclaim the kingdom, but to be ambassadors of resonance. Pastor Tom, in researching the congregation, liked that we used the word kin-dom on the website. We embody a waveform, a form that is luminous. Spiritual coherence is not an option we may choose; it’s our power. It is what heals, what holds, and what changes things.
So when the world gets loud, let's resist the urge to get louder. When our world shakes, let's not react by building levels of scaffolding to support it. Let's become the still point. Rather than act on behalf of Life, let's act as Life.
When the seventy-two returned with joy, Jesus didn’t congratulate them for what they did. He rejoiced because they had discovered who they were.
Bringers of peace.
Conduits of healing.
And we, too, become witnesses of the Sacred who live in harmony as embodied ambassadors of God’s city right here in Clackamas County.
Other thoughts based on a Working Preacher video. Jesus may have been relaxing the rule of Jews eating kosher food only with commanding them to eat what the others were eating. They would have been scruffier in their appearance based on the clothing restrictions. By bringing peace they were actively bringing heaven near.
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