What is whispered in your ear?
What is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the rooftop.
You know the image John paints for us of the beloved disciple,
the one Jesus loved,
reclining with him at table.
John chose not to name that “beloved disciple”.
I prefer to name the beloved disciple as “anyone”,
anyone who chooses to stay so close to Jesus
that they can hear his heart beating,
can feel his breath
and catch the whisper of his words in the ear.
What is whispered in your ear?
What is whispered in your ear
proclaim from the rooftop,
in this wounded world.
For the world is wounded
Our Collect today recognises that reality.
It does not pretend otherwise.
God our saviour,
look on this wounded world
in pity and in power;
hold us fast to your promises of peace
won for us by your Son,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.
And so we pray that God our Saviour
will look upon this wounded world
in pity and in power,
and hold fast to his promises of peace.
Deep peace.
A peace beyond all human understanding,
A peace won at enormous cost.
Not the shallow peace
that merely papers over the cracks.
Not the fragile peace
declared with cynical calculation,
while old wounds fester beneath the surface.
Not the peace that can be shattered
by the next angry word,
the next act of violence,
the next grasp for power.
That is a peace that has no love for its enemy,
that’s always ready to flare with hatred,
a peace that is defended at great cost,
with arsenals of weapons of destruction,
even tongues at the ready for lashing out.
That is a momentary peace,
a temporary ceasefire of hostility,
but the peace of God’s kingdom
is different.
In the peace of God’s kingdom,
justice and mercy embrace
and all things are made new.
Jesus breaks the uneasy peace
thank God.
Because the peace we so often settle for
is not peace at all.
It is avoidance.
It is silence.
It is looking away.
It is learning to live comfortably
with somebody else’s suffering.
And that is why Jesus speaks of a sword.
Which is difficult to hear.
Especially on a day when many of us are giving thanks for fathers,
when we are celebrating the love and care that family can give.
Yet Jesus says:
“I have come to set a man against his father.”
Not because fathers do not matter.
Not because families do not matter.
But because the kingdom of God reaches deeper
than every other loyalty we possess.
Not because he delights in conflict.
Not because he blesses violence.
But because truth has a way of disturbing lies,
justice has a way of disturbing privilege,
and love has a way of disturbing anything
that treats God’s children as less than human.
When Jesus stands with the excluded,
the rejected,
the last and the least,
those who benefit from their exclusion
rarely applaud.
The sword is the division that comes
when God’s kingdom collides
with the kingdoms we have built for ourselves.
It is the cost of proclaiming from the rooftops
what has been whispered in the ear.
For when you stay close enough to Jesus
to hear his heartbeat,
You begin to hear what he hears.
The cry of the hungry.
The grief of the forgotten.
The anger of the humiliated.
The longing of those denied dignity,
bread,
or hope.
And once you have heard those voices
beating in the heart of Christ,
it becomes impossible to pretend
that everything is fine.
The old peace begins to crack.
And through those cracks,
the kingdom begins to appear.
Which sounds wonderful.
Until we realise what it asks of us.
Because Jesus is not inviting us
merely to admire the kingdom.
He is inviting us to live for it.
To spend our lives for it.
And that may be a better way to hear
what Jesus says next:
“Whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”
Perhaps better:
“Whoever spends their life for my sake,
for the sake of the kingdom,
will find it.”
Every one of us spends our life somehow.
Sometimes it can be trivial.
Spending our lives accumulating things.
Spending our lives to make a name for ourselves
(a name that will be so soon forgotten when we’re gone).
Or, we can spend our lives
on the pearl of great price,
spending ourselves on truth
spending ourselves on mercy,
spending ourselves on reconciliation,
spending ourselves on the hard work of God’s peace.
And if we spend our lives this way
we shouldn’t expect everyone to approve.
After all, they called Jesus Beelzebul,
the lord of filth,
lord of the dung heap.
Those who expose what is rotten
are rarely thanked by those who benefit from the smell.
Those who expose wounds
are rarely thanked by those who profit from them.
Those who challenge exclusion
are often accused of causing division.
Those who stand with the last and least
are frequently labelled troublemakers.
Those who dare to believe in a peace
that goes deeper, beyond human imagining,
will be misunderstood,
criticised,
caricatured,
and even crucified.
This is what we are getting into when we become followers of Jesus,
when we become his beloved disciples,
close to the breath of God
whispering the words
that save us from the shallow peace
with its consequences of entrenched privilege,
deepening division and forgotten neighbours.
Jesus tells his beloved disciples:
Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid of those who misunderstand you.
Do not be afraid of those who mock you.
Do not be afraid of those who call good evil
and evil good.
Do not be afraid of losing your reputation.
Do not be afraid of spending your life this way.
For the kingdom of God
is worth a life.
The kingdom where justice and mercy embrace.
The kingdom where the last are welcomed first.
The kingdom where wounds are healed.
The kingdom where all things are made new.
So, perhaps the question for us this morning is:
What is whispered in your ear?
What is Christ saying to you
when you stay close enough
to hear his heart beat,
close enough to hear in his heart
the cry of the earth,
the forgotten,
the humiliated,
the excluded?
And what is whispered in your ear,
proclaim from the rooftops,
whatever the cost.
Grits and Grains 