It Depends on Which Kingdom (Luke 10:1-11, 16-20)
One of the primary ways in which the kingdom Jesus’ disciples announces is different from the coercive kingdoms of this world is that the first thing they’re supposed to say when they go to a stranger’s house is, “Peace to this house!”
Now, as I’ve mentioned before, in Roman occupied Palestine, everybody already knew what peace looked like in the hands of the powerful. The Pax Romana was a peace imposed on the weak by the dominant, a peace that benefitted the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and dispossessed. But the peace that these disciples offer doesn’t rely on the ability to impose its will on others; it’s a peace from a kingdom that relies on a commitment to vulnerability and the trust that there is enough for all of us, if we share what we have.
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