Kyle Dresback

Dear Friends,

The singer Bono is having a moment, even by his own lofty standards. The U2 frontman’s story is by now well known: He grew up in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, started a punk rock band in high school that has spanned four decades in the mainstream, and has used his fame to advocate relentlessly on behalf of the world’s poor.

Even given all that, I think he might have missed his calling as a writer. His recently released autobiography “Surrender” is a great read.

Much of Bono’s story is that quest to use the currency of his fame to bring about some good: to change the world through music or through economic policy or through a repaired relationship with his father. But the thing that struck me throughout is how difficult a task that is—repairing things that have been broken.

Why is it so hard for us to recognize “the things that make for peace?”

In today’s gospel reading, Luke has Jesus lamenting over Jerusalem: “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!… You did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” And as if to illustrate the specifics of Jesus’s lament, Luke immediately shifts the scene to the temple as Jesus drives out those with power preying on those without.

To read Bono’s story is to witness over and over how hard it is to convince the powerful that they don’t need that much—that there’s enough food, medicine, and resources for all and yet we systemically neglect so many. Bono’s activist streak borders on an obsession. But he is also upfront about his own limits and blindspots, reminding us that well-intentioned celebrities can bring change but they are not the solution.

Luke, perhaps more than any gospel writer, wants us to have eyes to see hypocrisy and abuse and to act on behalf of the marginalized. But the motif that plays through this particular chapter is one of recognizing Jesus. Consider that this story comes right on the heels of Zaccheus and the parable of the Ten Talents. All point to Luke’s insistence that we recognize Jesus for who he is.

Just as we the Church are Jesus’s hands and feet in the world, in our worship we recognize him for who he is—the one who makes for peace.

In Christ,

—Kyle