We Can Change the World
Do you believe you have the ability to change the world?
Most of us don’t, do we? Our mornings don’t look like the opening montage of a movie showing us drinking our coffee, eating our breakfast, brushing our teeth, and then looking into the mirror, boldly declaring that today we can change the world.
I don’t know about you, but I drink my coffee, look at the morning news, and either promptly despair about the headlines clamoring for attention or wish I could go back to bed and forget it all.
I feel powerless, like a rock kicked down the road, tossed this way and that, and worn down by every foot and wheel that passes over me.
How could I, just a small rock, even begin to change the world?
In our gospel passage today, Jesus sends the seventy out into the surrounding areas to prepare the way for him. They are told to share the news about Jesus, bring peace, and cure the sick. Even if they are not well received, they are to share the news that the kingdom of God has come near.
Jesus sent them out to change the world.
We even hear their reports to Jesus upon returning that their mission was successful. Not only did they prepare the way, but they were able to accomplish more than they even believed. They changed lives, and each life they touched is a step to changing the world.
Two days ago, the United States celebrated its 249th Independence Day. We commemorate the day we declared our independence from a country and ruler who did not have our best interests at heart. We declared independence from a king, and declared our interdependence with each other. We are the United States of America—an amalgamation of states, first nations, and territories, filled with people from every country on earth, dreaming of a better life for themselves and generations to come.
Reflecting on Independence Day this year, the Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe stated, “God calls us to place the most vulnerable and marginalized at the center of our common life, and we must follow that command regardless of the dictates of any political party or earthly power.”1
Or as poet Emma Lazarus, the author of “The New Colossus” says, “Until we all are free, none of us is free.”2
When the distance between us feels so great, how do we even begin to think about changing the world?
Jesus sent out the seventy to towns and villages in the surrounding area to proclaim the good news, bring peace, and cure the sick. Judeans were no strangers to oppression, having lived under Roman rule for almost a century at that point. Jesus knew that the people they met were in need of hope. They needed a different vision of life for themselves that was more than the grind for the emperor.
The Israelite people needed the peace the 70 disciples brought on behalf of Jesus, and our world does as well.
What does it mean for us to bring peace? According to The Bible Project, “shalom”—the Hebrew word for peace—“can refer to the absence of conflict, but it also points to the presence of something better in its place. The most basic definition of shalom is ‘complete or whole.’ Life is complex, full of moving parts, relationships, and situations, and when any of these is out of alignment or missing, your shalom breaks down. Your life is no longer whole; it needs to be restored… True peace requires taking what’s broken and restoring it to wholeness—whether it’s our lives, our relationships, or our world.”3
Listen to that last sentence again: “True peace requires taking what’s broken and restoring it to wholeness—whether it’s our lives, our relationships, or our world.”
Jesus is the long-awaited Prince of Shalom, bringing restoration and wholeness into our world. Jesus charges his disciples with bringing peace, and we too are empowered in this mission. In fact, it can’t be done without us.
In our individual lives we know when we are not whole. We know when there are pieces cracked or missing from the structure of our very selves. Pieces lost through situations like illness, injury, death of a loved one, job loss, or housing insecurity, and more.
So too, we know when our society is not whole. Cracks appear and the structure begins to crumble when our society does not care for all of its members equally. The foundation erodes when we do not treat all with dignity and respect. The walls crack when we don’t protect all that should be within their care. The structure crumbles when we are pulled further and further from one another. We know when we are not whole. Our society—our world—is seeking the restoration of shalom.
Friends, what if we believed, every single day, that we can change the world? What if we believed that we can truly bring peace to individuals, our communities, and our world. Because I truly believe that if we take a look around, we’ll see countless places where we can be bringers of wholeness. Places that need us to be bearers of peace. We can tend to the places of brokenness. We can recognize what is needed to bring wholeness in another, and in doing what we can, to rebuild one stone at a time.
The small actions matter. The smiles we share and hugs we give. Anytime we truly see another, it is a step toward peace. The larger actions of serving others matter. Stepping up in our communities through local and national organizations that care for the least and the lost makes a difference. Our actions matter.
But it also matters how we show up to do these things. Jesus sent the 70 out as lambs among wolves. They are unguarded, vulnerable, trusting. Frankly, showing up without the armor of cynicism and contempt these days may be harder than showing up in the first place.
A few months ago when Tim Shriver shared the Dignity Index4 at the Cathedral, I was stunned by how naturally the language of contempt slips into everyday conversation, and just how vital it is to treat everyone with dignity. Contempt makes a handy shield because we perceive it as armor to protect ourselves from the arrows slung our way. But there’s a cost-a cost to ourselves. The more we armor up, the more we identify with the armor itself—rather than with the love and peace found at our core.
It matters how we show up. If we present ourselves with authenticity, truly seeking to make a connection, then our work of restoration and peace has a chance of succeeding.
So do you? Do you believe that you can change the world? Do you believe that you can be a bearer of peace and bringer of wholeness?
Jesus sent the 70 out into towns and villages to bring hope and peace in places where they were in short supply. They were to let the surrounding areas know that the Kindom of God has drawn near. The kindom where the first shall be last and the last shall be first; the kindom where every person is seen and valued; the kindom where we celebrate our interdependence rather than our independence—this is the good news they were sent out to share.
As followers of Jesus, we too are being sent out. We’re not being asked to fix it all, but rather to identify one hole, one crack, one chink that that we can fill with God’s love working through us.
But here’s the thing—if we don’t believe we can change anything, it’ll never happen. We’ll all be that small pebble I mentioned—tossed by the circumstances of life and worn down over time.
But if we believe we can change the world—one crack at a time—our pebble might just fill a broken place instead of left to the whims of circumstances, and we can bring our world one step closer to wholeness.
Amen.
2 “An Epistle to the Hebrews” by Emma Lazarus