Say to them,
‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.’

Many will provide homilies on the topic of peace today.

It is very fitting to speak of peace today, based on the Gospel and the readings. The theme of peace runs throughout. There are also those who will speak on our calling, the call to proclaim the kingdom of God, our being sent like the seventy-two.

I would like to concentrate on things.

Do you have stuff? I have stuff. What is the value of all the things we own? How much more will we acquire in our lifetimes?

Our first reading speaks of Israel’s return to Jerusalem, the Jerusalem that laid in ruins, a veritable wasteland during Isaiah’s time.

Oh, that you may suck fully
of the milk of her comfort,
that you may nurse with delight
at her abundant breasts!
For thus says the LORD:
Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river,
and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent.

The Israelites saw the prosperity of Jerusalem as the symbol of God’s abiding presence. If Jerusalem dwelt securely, God was with them.

Because of their concentration on stuff, they often lost sight of the true covenant, the one that was to be written in their hearts. They missed the point. That’s why the old Israel missed the Messiah.

Unfortunately there are Christians who will proclaim, in this day and age, that the physical Jerusalem is somehow vitally important, that somehow and in some way, God needs the city of Jerusalem.

We all know that the city of Jerusalem is just a place, a historical place to be sure, but still, just a place. It has become, in a very unfortunate way, the occasion of sin for many, because of a concentration on things, the symbol without the Spirit.

St. Paul rightly pointed out, these physical things are of little account.

For neither does circumcision mean anything, nor does uncircumcision,
but only a new creation.
Peace and mercy be to all who follow this rule
and to the Israel of God.

Only the new creation in Christ Jesus matters. Only the Israel of God matters.

Brothers and sisters,

We are the Israel of God. The new creation is in us. We are the Israel where neither Jew nor Greek matters. The Israel where neither man nor woman, slave or free is of import. The Israel where faith in Jesus Christ, and the proclamation of God’s kingdom, is all that matters.

By our faithful membership in Christ’s body, the Church, we are participants and partakers in the kingdom of God. We are invited to work and to stand ready, with all the faithful, when the new and eternal Jerusalem descends from the heavens.

That Jerusalem is not a thing, it is eternity, with Jesus, in heaven.

If we are waiting for things, for more stuff, for the outward, we are missing the point.

The Lord God tells us through the prophet Ezekiel:

And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,
that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

We have work set before us. Our work is not defined by stuff, by things, or by cities. Our work means that we must change ourselves from the inside out. Our hearts must be alive in faith. Our work is to seek our nourishment from the abundant font of faith in Christ Jesus.

With that faith we hear the words of Jesus. The words He speaks to us:

Rejoice because your names are written in heaven.