Sermon at Parish Mass Trinity 3 2019

Isaiah 66:10-14

Galatians 6:7-16

Luke 10:1-11,16-20

In today’s Gospel reading the mission of Jesus starts to expand, reaching out to more places and people. Jesus has already appointed the twelve Apostles, now he chooses seventy more and sends them out.

But, if you wanted a mission to be successful, is this how you would do it? Sent out undefended, like lambs into the midst of wolves. They are to take no supplies, making themselves dependent on the reception they get, which might not be friendly. Their message must always be peace, knowing that they might not get peace in return. And just two disciples to each town. Enough for company, enough to encourage each another not to turn back, but no more. Two is not strength of numbers, it is not an army. Nobody is going to be coerced into a response.

And yet this mission sent out in weakness returns with rich rewards. The disciples rejoice. Particularly they notice that the demons submit to them, and Jesus responds that he saw Satan “fall from heaven like a flash of lightning”.

“Heaven” in the scriptures refers to the unseen world of spiritual powers at work behind events in the visible world and in human lives. And the name “Satan” means “the accuser”. So, to say that Satan has fallen from heaven is to say that the invisible power of accusation, division, and violence, that has been running things behind the scenes, is now coming to an end.

Satan has fallen, and in his place is the Kingdom of God. God is not the accuser. God is not one who blames and makes victims. And God is the one who is in charge. It is God, not Satan, who reigns in heaven.

The mission of the seventy, sent out, undefended, two by two, brings this about. A mission not of force, but of peace. A mission sent out in weakness. Like Jesus himself, going to the cross, the disciples have to trust totally to their heavenly Father. They must commit themselves to the path of non-violence, the path that rejects the accusation, violence and deceit of Satan.

The Kingdom of God is proclaimed, the truth is told, from a position of powerlessness. And that makes the demons submit and causes Satan to fall from heaven. The disciples are messengers and heralds of an alternative reality, and by living what they preach they will bring it about.

This is the great sign of God’s Kingdom becoming reality: the powerless bringing down the powers that be. The weak bringing down the strong. And God continues to be at work. The signs of his Kingdom are there to see. Sometimes the Church plays an active part in this. This week General Synod is discussing turning churches into open sanctuaries as part of a response to gang culture and knife crime. Facing down the spiritual powers of violence defended by nothing but the gospel of peace and reconciliation.

But if we are honest the signs of God’s Kingdom often have little or nothing to do with the Church as an institution, and that can be challenging for us as Christians.

When the black woman Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, in segregation era America. When Ghandi made a handful of salt by the sea shore without paying tax on it to the British authorities. Acts by the powerless against the powerful that brought down the powers that be.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The Stonewall Inn was a venue popular among the poorest and most marginalized members of the gay community in New York. And when it was raided by the police, yet again, simply because it was an easy target, they had had enough, and fought back. An act of resistance that began Pride, now a worldwide movement for equality and celebration of diversity. The powerless shaking the powerful, and changing the world.

And this week there have been further hearings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, looking at historic abuse in the Church of England.

I’ve been struck reading the transcripts at the difference between the evidence given by survivors of abuse, and that given by bishops and people of power in the church. The harrowing testimony of survivors, simply and truthfully saying what happened to them, what pain it has caused them, how it has affected their lives. They were made powerless by those who abused them, and speak now, with great courage, from a place of vulnerability and risk. The powerless speaking the truth to those who have power.

Those who have power in the Church, on the other hand, speak, I am sure, with a desire to understand what has happened, and to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And yet the tone I can’t help hearing is one of evasion, excuse and fear. We followed the policies that were in place back then. I don’t remember. The records have been lost. In future, we’ll make sure there are a lot more forms to be ticked.

But in all this the truth told by the vulnerable, by the victims, by the powerless, is clearly shaking the powers that be, and will continue to do so. The spiritual power at work behind the scenes of the world, the power of Satan that accuses and makes victims, is being cast down. Even when that power is manifested in the Church. And the truth told by the victims is a sign of God’s Kingdom becoming reality.

There will be more such Kingdom moments, I am sure. In our own society, if power becomes increasingly obsessed with popularity, and turns its back on the poor and the marginalized, on the dispossessed nations, on migrants drowning in their boats, then there will come a judgement. The powerless will speak and act, and the powers that be will be cast down. This is what God does, how God works.

And we must not be afraid, if the Church in our day seems to be less like an army marching in triumph, and more like an improvised community sent out in weakness. Because that is the Church we see in the Gospels. Metropolitan Anthony Bloom once said, “the Church must be as powerless as God”. And if the Church is being purified in this way, then it is becoming more what it is meant to be, and closer to its own message, the powerless sign of God’s Kingdom at which the powers of darkness tremble.