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When All the Rules Have Changed, Look for the Kingdom

The Reverend Canon Beth Knowlton
June 8, 2007
Cathedral of St. Philip, 8:45 & 11:15
Luke 10: 1-20

I’m not sure when I really realized that all the rules had changed.  It might have been when people started giving me unsolicited advice while invading my personal body space. 

I might have suspected it when every gift I opened solicited knowing laughter at my office baby shower.  It could have been at the hospital when we first met our daughter in the flesh.  Or possibly when I was more tired than I had ever been, yet still got up to feed her in the middle of the night. 

Yes, becoming a parent meant all the rules had changed, and I wanted the new manual.  Of course the manuals were out there.  But they quickly revealed themselves as false idols.  A monthly chart to tell me what to expect of this new life, wasn’t really much help when I couldn’t soothe her crying.

Everything I thought I knew was turned upside down. My parents seemed wiser, my mother’s provision of a nightly home-cooked dinner far more generous than I had ever acknowledged.  I wondered how I had ever taken coffee for granted.  While I didn’t want to go back, I did want to find some sense of certainty in this new world. 

I thought I knew what my feelings would be, but as the weeks and months passed I realized I was more noble and more terrible that I had ever known before.  I was more needy and more brave than I’d ever had to be in my earlier experience.  All the rules had changed.

My career changed.  It didn’t seem quite so glamorous when I entered the elevator with baby spit-up marking my designer suit jacket.  The presentations no longer seemed essential when the daycare center called and said Rebecca had a fever. 

All the rules had changed, but I still had the same old playbook.  The minute I thought I learned what worked with this mysterious creature, she’d change.  Pureed vegetables that were delicious one day, became anathema the next.  I was happy, but completely without my bearings.  It was harder and more wonderful than I could ever been told ahead of time.

I imagine it wasn’t that different than the seventy who were sent out the first time by Jesus.  They were in pairs, much like a set of new parents...but did they really know the rules?  They should have suspected something would be different.  The one they trusted said they would be like lambs in the midst of wolves.  Hardly an encouraging or motivating image. 

Their rejection would not be unexpected.  They were told to not be buffeted but to offer them a peace they couldn’t have known that well themselves.  Like telling a new mother to not show signs of anxiety to their new baby, these disciples were told to act in ways that must have felt contrary to all they knew.  Was the assurance that their peace would return to them, really a prescription for evangelism?

They were told not to act against those who rejected them.  They could not longer pursue the justice of the day.  Hospitality while expected, could not longer be demanded. 

All the rules had changed.  But were they just able to move smoothly into a new way of being?  Could they really decide advance planning was useless, travel gear unnecessary, or an extra pair of shoes truly superfluous?  I admit, I can’t really relate to these followers, if at least a few of them didn’t tuck an extra snack out of sight.  If one or two of them at least didn’t try to pick a house that looked the friendliest before offering their peace.

But Jesus tells them to try to go a new way.  The old rules aren’t going to work .  In fact, his admonishment to leave them behind makes you wonder whether in fact they would be an impediment.

But despite Jesus’ warning that everything had changed, they still kept trying to use the old playbook.  They are elated that the demons respond to them at the name of the Lord.  They miss the important fact that even the rules over evil have changed.  Satan, the accuser no longer has an audience in the court of heaven.  They are no longer in the same battle, and they have to let go of the old rules.  Victory over the demons is not the good news, but their names written in heaven.

New life can be hard to trust, especially when our safety nets are removed. 

To learn a new way of being is possible on this side of the cross, but it is certainly not easy.  It wasn’t easy for the seventy, for the twelve, or for the earliest Christian communities.  Clearly Paul’s communities struggle with a letting go of the rules, or he might never needed to pen the first letter. 

Even the law is no longer the same in light on this side of the cross.  The community in Galatia knew the rules had changed, but they didn’t know what that meant.  Paul reminds them rather forcefully that how they think they are doing, doesn’t necessarily reflect whether they are following the guidance of the Spirit.  Comparing their actions to that of their neighbor, doesn’t tell them much, but their actions still matter.

And they have to be exhausted.  They are trying to live in the new reality that has been revealed through the cross and resurrection, but they can’t help falling back on old categories.  Circumcised, uncircumcised.  Followers of the rules, or people who are just falling a bit short.  They can hear the call to only boast in the new order, but the new order revealed on by the cross can be easily blurred by their own desires and rivalry.

All the rules have changed, and again what Paul offers for the new creation is peace.
The seventy, the Galatians, and we are offered peace.  Over and over again Jesus says “peace be with you.” But peace clearly doesn’t come in a reliance on the rules and categories that applied before we started on this Christian walk.  Peace does not come in the form of certainty, new life evolves the same way a child grows before your eyes.

I’m not sure when I really realized that all the rules had changed.  Maybe it was in the unsolicited advice I got after my baptism at sixteen. I might have suspected it when my spiritual director chuckled knowingly the first time I admitted my prayer life was not what it should be. It might have been when I saw extreme poverty in Cairo and felt a connection with those eyes that met mine.  Becoming aware of myself as a Christian meant all the rules had changed.

It might have been in the halls of seminary or weeping in the midst of my first Easter Vigil.  It might have been walking into quiet room at the hospital to tell a woman that her husband had died unexpectedly, when I would have given anything to turn and run the other way. 

I can’t pinpoint an exact moment, but there has come in my journey with God a realization that all the rules have changes.  That being a Christian does actually have a profound and frankly disruptive impact on my being.  And particularly on my attachment to the rules.  Because as soon as I figure out what I think the new rules are, they change.  Like all those who have come before me, God has to be revealed over and over again.  Pleasing a finicky toddler’s changing palate is easy compared to figuring out the mystery of God.

But there grows in me at least an awareness that those certainties I seek, only serve to get in the way.  Like an overly detailed child rearing guide, or an overstuffed suitcase, they can provide a false peace.  The perfect prayer practice, retreat time, charitable giving, or mission project can quickly become idols that block the peace that God gifts us. 

How can we ever find real peace, the peace of God if we think it is up to us to generate? Or that we can guarantee a dose response to a formula we enact?  We are not promised a peace that follows the rules. 

What we are promised is the gift of a new Advocate, the Parclete, the Holy Spirit.  The wild and often unruly Holy Spirit that seems to have a very different playbook that I carry in my backpocket.  It is a spirit that makes us more gentle, compassionate, and humble.  It does not come in a burst of power or victory, but will come in the quiet realization that the peace we feel is a gift.  And it is always a grace. 

It connects us to far more people that we might first imagine will travel the road with us.  We may find ourselves in some unlikely pairings and the categories we cling to may need to be shaken off like the dust on our shoes.  Our communities become a lot more important, as rules are superseded by relationship. 

We’ll probably even feel pretty exposed, a lot more like lambs than wolves.  But when we feel that all the rules have changed and our bearings are lost, the Kingdom of God is probably very close at hand.

Peace be with You

Comments? Contact Beth Knowlton at: BKnowlton@stphilipscathedral.org

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