My hobby is falconry. It’s one of the crazy things I do to keep sane. These days my hawk has one task in life: To molt last year’s worn feathers, and to grow new ones for this coming season. To help them along we falconers feed them up fat so they are well supplied with nutrients to grow good feathers. We pride ourselves in keeping our birds in better feather condition than in the wild. When they are in hunting trim they are attentive partners and aggressive hunters. But now, fat as he is, he gets nervous around me, and when I step inside the aviary to change his water he goes ballistic! Now it’s really not fair, it’s rather ungrateful of him for all the care I give him, but it’s just the nature of male Harris’ hawks. My first response is to get angry when he avoids me. But there is another option. Long ago I created in his mind a simple operant conditioning trigger, a tongue click associated with the comfort of food. I decided to make this sound whenever he looked at me rather than away. He began calming down and looking at me more frequently. It’s always been true that you draw more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Now, from the ridiculous to the sublime: We’ve been talking about dominion, that circle of influence you exert, that is your part of the Kingdom of God. Today we talk about how the Kingdom works. Between my two responses to my hawk’s withdrawal the first illustrates the dominion of the world, expressed in acts of fear, anger and domination, the second illustrates the dominion of the Kingdom, expressed in acts of loving service. Christ’s resurrection is the ultimate proof that the way dominion is expressed in heaven is stronger than the way dominion is expressed in the world, and shows that the power of love overcomes the world by absorbing evil and transforming it into good.

In Luke 10 Jesus sends out 70 disciples to heal the sick and preach the kingdom, just as He did. Like those 70, we are sent in His name to preach and heal. Both healing and preaching serve the same purpose: they express the power of God to bring us back into relationship with Him, each other and the earth. When the disciples came back they were all excited about the success of their mission. Honey had replaced vinegar in many lives! But Jesus saw the real effects: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven…—nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, but that your names are written in heaven.” As we heal and preach God moves through our actions and words into the world, and His dominion is established beyond its present borders. Our actions and words become instruments of the Kingdom, our dominion has become an extension of His Kingdom.

The exercise of godly dominion consists of words and deeds that work healing in God’s name. There is so much illness in our world! There is illness inside us: I recently saw a cartoon in which the therapist in his chair was e-mailing his client who was lying on his couch, asking him why he thought he was so lonely. There is illness between us: I recently heard about a soldier who had forged a marriage license so that he could bring his 14-year-old bride on post with him. There is illness in our social structures: Arrests of people of color are still more than twice as likely to result in a conviction than arrests of white people. There is illness in our earth: The forests are the lungs of the planet. Forests provide subsistence and income to 350 million people and forest industries employ nearly 100 million. Every 15 minutes there is a net loss of forest of 600 acres. All of creation, us included, is ill because it defies the dominion of the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom absorbs illness and transforms it into health. We have an active chapter of the Order of St. Luke at St. Christopher’s. They tell me stories of folks who have experienced healing after being prayed for. This is the exercise of godly dominion, and the Kingdom of God comes near. There are other ministries of this parish and of Christians around the world that work healing on all levels of creation. So how do we heal? First, recognize that the real healer is God. We are not perfect, we have issues and problems and besetting sins. We are wounded healers. A wounded healer obviously wields a healing power that is not their own. Like the disciples, we bring God’s healing power into the world. As we allow our illness to be absorbed into His health and be transformed, we find that same power flows through us to heal others. So there is no need to become worthy, such talk is nonsense. Just humbly seek an opportunity and start.

Second, recognize the extent of the power: I still remember words I overheard my mother say about me: “He is the outdoorsman of the family.” In the turmoil of adolescence they gave me an identity I could live into. The power of those words has never left me. She in many ways healed me. As Christians there is nothing in our lives that lies outside the purview of the Kingdom. Every action we do and word we speak either breeds health or infects illness. Let us work loving, caring, healing truth with ourselves, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and in our world. And let us expect things to change!

Finally, keep the goal in mind: With all the trouble brewing these days in the Anglican Communion, I believe that the greatest scandal in the eyes of the world is the distance between our word and our deed. We say we preach the good news of the love of God, but we often beat on each other like we hate one another. The Church is the only army that shoots its own wounded! Surely this is but another symptom of illness, not a sign of the Kingdom. Actions that bring healing are actions that bring people into relationship with God, with each other and with the earth. They are rooted in truth and humility, are motivated by love. They move us toward healthy and honest relationships, not distorted and sick ones.

But perhaps above all they absorb evil and transform it into good. To the degree that I do loving acts of service for myself in God’s name I bring the Kingdom of God into my life. To the degree that I do loving acts of service for my neighbor I bring the Kingdom of God into my world. To the degree that I do loving acts of service for my community I bring the Kingdom of God into our town. To the degree that I can do acts that bring the earth back into health I bring the Kingdom of God to our planet. To the degree that I do loving acts of service for my fellow Anglican with whom I disagree I bring the Kingdom of God into our church. Bravely go, bravely love, and bravely give, these are the signs of the healing of the world, these are the signs of the Kingdom come near.

Fr. Paul Moore+