Peace be with you.  

In today’s gospel, we hear a deep truth about proclaiming Peace. Luke doesn’t mince words: Peace takes work and peacemaking is more than platitude or a handshake across a pew. Jesus instructs, Go two by two, ahead of me. Don’t waste time. Bring nothing. The Harvest is abundant but the Laborers are few. Even if the Good News is not received, stay and eat. Jesus is telling the 70 how they are to bring peace as they enter into unfamiliar and uncertain spaces. And Jesus is offering the same thing to US, as today's Church navigating an uncertain world.  Peacemaking is Urgent…but Luke emphasizes it is not reckless nor quick.

Photographer Andrew Moore invites his viewers to enter into unfamiliar spaces with intention. His photos capture landscape and people in places such as Cuba, Russia, and The American plains. He uses a wide angle lens to capture a single room, a portrait of a person on their land, or in their home…Moore will take weeks or even months to get to know a person or place before taking a photo. Dr. Imani Perry writes that Moore’s photographs are “more than his brilliant mastery of composition…with each photo there is a story. Windows and Doors are everywhere, and Moore tells the viewer:

"You are Crossing a Threshold.”

Our Gospel today is asking us to cross thresholds as peacemakers. A threshold is a boundary, a liminal moment where we experience crises, decisions, or change. And our task as peace-makers is to offer the possibility in these moments for Shalom, for restoration of wholeness, for fullness of humanity. We are to cross thresholds not with fear or suspicion like wolves, says Jesus, but as sheep which requires the hard and humble work of following and going ahead of Christ, the shepherd. Peacemaking across thresholds takes dialogue, listening, waiting, trial and error, and sometimes… dusting off our feet and moving on. A threshold is as communal as deciding how your parish speaks out against war, or as intimate as deciding end of life care for a loved one. A threshold is a shared moment like the election of a new pope, or it is as personal as coming to terms with grief or loss. We are called as peacemakers to stand in moments of uncertainty…between rejection and belonging, between famine and harvest, death and new life.

When we say in the moment: Peace be with you…we are proclaiming 'Now is the Kingdom, now is the harvest.' But Proclaiming Peace isn’t enough. We must also use our lives to bless others with Peace. Jesus says enter whatever home, offer peace, and then… heal, stay, eat, give and receive generosity - no house, no person, is excluded from the proclamation or the blessing of Christ’s Peace. To proclaim and bless is to enact and animate this world towards peace.

So, let us be urgent, but not careless or reckless, as we cross thresholds. Let us cross unburdened by material wealth, or our own notions of success.  And regardless of how we are received, our humility and humanity must remain. We stay and break bread, listen and dialogue, because peace-making takes mutuality, respect, and time.

Thresholds are still boundaries, with precious lives on both sides. We are an incomplete Church and our words of Peace fall to the ground like dust, if we are not willing to do this Peace-making work of proclamation and blessing.  

And, it is worth noting, finally, that the disciples are not sent alone, they go in pairs. My friends, going two by two across thresholds is not just instruction but it is what gives us hope and strength for the work. Hope that the Peace of Christ overcomes the brokenness in the world. What might the Peace of Christ sound and look like if we were to cross thresholds WITH one another? Imagine the fullness of our church if clergy and laity are the two by two crossing thresholds as peacemakers, or if those historically silenced or marginalized might cross through uncertainty with those that have always had the podium.  Let’s hope that we might bend the world with and for Christ, if as a Church of 1.4 billion Catholics, we went out two by two as peace-makers in communion.  

We are at the threshold of a new church in a hungry and hurting world. Let us reclaim what it means to proclaim and bless, to evangelize, to preach, to be on mission for Christ in a way that is at its core Peace-Making. The Church needs us to be bold and persistent Peacemakers. This week? Maybe pause as you cross thresholds, as you enter work, or as the sliding doors open at the grocery store, or as you extend your hand across the pew at mass….Pause and let Christ richly dwell in your heart, see who is front of you in a new way, and then walk forward, and proclaim with conviction and hope: May the Peace of Christ Be with You.