Like lambs among wolves

This is an extract from a sermon from http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20070702JJ.shtml on this Sunday's gospel reading. I found it very powerful.

"There remains on Earth––have you noticed?—the very real threat of powers and principalities. There remains the temptation to see ourselves as special, others as less than human; to kill in the name of the nation and tribe. Satan has fallen like lightning, but the armies of empire are not destroyed. And still the kingdom of God is very near.

A helicopter hung overhead. The police bullhorn bleated at us to disperse. “Watch,” said Mzwanele, and through the haze of smoke I saw a ten-year old girl, her dress whipping around her knees, dancing in front of the tanks.

Out of nowhere, out of everywhere, people began to sing in harmony and clap, and with a deep collective sigh the whole crowd began to move forward singing out of the stadium, dancing toward Calvary, the place of the skulls.

The kingdom of God is very near. Entering that kingdom is as simple as welcoming a stranger into your house, and saying, “Peace be with you.” It is as difficult as welcoming a stranger into your house, and saying, “Peace be with you.” The air is full of tear gas, and the streets of this world are full of broken children, and the Kingdom of God is very near.

Iraq.

In South Africa fifteen years ago, in Baghdad this afternoon, in a hundred slums tonight where armies and gangs rage, the Son of Man is going up to be glorified.

He is walking with the disciples directly into the line of sharpshooters, leaving behind violence and the temptations of power. She is contemplating revenge, rejecting it, offering a stranger a cup of tea as she prepares to be killed. He is refusing to strike the prisoner; she is bandaging the burnt child. He is turning his back on the empire, the nation, the flag, the tribe.

There is violence all around us. But Christ is here, and we are singing.

Kingdom come.

Alleluia."