October 1, 2006 Church of the Covenant World Communion Sunday Robert J. Campbell, D. Min., D. D. Printer-Friendly Version
Peace I Give to You, But... Dante knocked on the great door of a monastery late one night. "What do you want?" came the voice. Three times the scene repeated itself until finally the monk heard a weary answer, "I want peace!" Peace, what is it? Where is it in our day?
Isaiah 26:1-6
John 14:25-31
"Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me," but how many have it in our time? Is there peace in your home around the kitchen table with the coffee ring stains? Is there peace at your office or across the negotiating table? We know there is no peace in the Middle East, no peace under the refugee tents in Darfur or the AIDS' shelters of Africa, and it is fleeting in lots of churches. Where is there peace in the hospital wards or nursing homes late at night when fear and loneliness stalk the hallways? Where is the peace in the parts of this city when store clerks are shot by youngsters who find handguns more available than textbooks. Where is the peace in that dorm room when freedom has turned to a wrong decision or indiscretion? Peace, we want it, but can we ever have it?
How many smoldering conflicts plague our lives? Like a volcano, pressure builds until we erupt. Even the most content among us seem to be living in a time like Jeremiah when he cried, "They have healed the wounds of my people slightly, saying, 'peace' where there is no peace." And then along comes Jesus saying, "Peace I give to you, but not as the world gives." What on earth does that mean? A strange statement for sure.
But then one might expect religion's idea of peace to be some kind of avoidance. Psychiatrists tell us those who can look beyond themselves and their circumstance can have peace. But it's more than that. Jesus is talking about more than something that is synonymous with comfort, more than the peace of mind you can get from a prescription. And it's not the stuff of "pie-in-the-sky by-and-by." The kind of peace he talks about is a by-product of spiritual warfare. Not crusades or Jihads, not "onward Christian soldiers marching;" it's a quest, a struggle that requires sacrifice, giving up comfort, losing one's self in something bigger for others. Sounds like a Marine recruiter and throughout history it has too often been the call to sanctified slaughter, but in fact it is a different conscription God has in mind.
I was talking to a retired friend the other day. Unlike many I know, whose calendars are packed in retirement more than they were when they were nine to fiveing it, this fellow was so sick of bridge and golf that he felt he was already entombed and just waiting for the burial vault. He longed for the days when he had invested himself in the stuff of real life. "I never realized," he said, "how much living thrives on struggle." He was finally beginning to learn that being old is not the same thing as being stale. Life without movement is monotonous, like a cow eating grass under a tree staring off into nowhere. That is not peace; it's another name for Hell!
Jesus said, "I leave you with a legacy." He had no accumulation of wealth, no great inheritance for us to squander on self-indulgence, only a flimsy word. And taking him at his word, those who listened to him were swept along by a flood of controversy; they were mocked, stoned to death, hung on their own crosses. "Peace I give to you, but not as the world gives."
Clemenceau at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, addressing his peers, reportedly said; "I have heard much talk of the search for a permanent peace. You say you want to end all wars. I want to know if you really mean that?" He turned to Woodrow Wilson and David Lloyd George and the others, each silently nodded, "Yes."
"Then let us tally the cost," goaded the old "Tiger." "If we want to give up war then we must give up our empires. You, David Lloyd George, need to get out of India just as we French will have to get out of North Africa, and you Americans will need to give up the Philippines and your interest in Mexico and Cuba. We must tear down walls and open the world if we really want peace." Those at the table hastened to inform him that wasn't quite what they had in mind. At which point Clemenceau banged his fist on the table and shouted; "You don't want peace, what you really want is more war!" 1919, and how many Flanders Fields since then?
Would that history didn't repeat itself every time we hear a politician call for peace. How to get it? Bomb a village to save it, slaughter a nation to build it, starve a region for the sake of political appeasement and alliance. We pledge to eliminate terrorism whose root source is a sense of unfairness and unredressed grievances, real or imagined, but we misdirect the very resources that would give the peace we long for a chance. In the name of patriotism, we summon our young not to die for their country, but kill for it in the first preemptive war in this nation's history. We put God on our money and name our missiles "Peacemakers." We ignore the Geneva Convention's rules for prisoners, and we line the pockets of military contractors with blood. Let us read the signs of the times. Homeland Security can never make us safe from ourselves. When the world lives at each other's mercy, it's best we learn to be merciful. As Bill Coffin used to ask, "If we don't learn to be meek, who's going to inherit the earth?"
Dona Nobis Pacem, it is not achievable, it is always a by-product of a blending, a potent mixture of reconciliation, responsibility, and doing what is right! It is the very stuff we affirm this morning with a table that stretches across all national boundaries and at the same time resides in the heart of the parent creator of all persons, "Red and yellow, black and white. All are precious in God's sight!"
I like old biographies and recently I read one about a young man whose ambition was to be a good minister. Not a great one, only one who cared for others in some little country church. He completed his studies and was bright enough to be asked to teach, eventually becoming head of a seminary. But the more he studied the life of the man named Jesus of Nazareth the more he was convinced that Christian theology had become overly complicated. He reflected on the early centuries of the church, the seeming simplicity of following the examples laid down. He became more and more aware of the conflicting interpretations and debates of his time. In the process he began to develop his own perspective on how to engage in a living faith. His ideas were different from those being taught and he struggled with how he could lead a seminary, teach students what he no longer believed, and follow his own conscience. Finally, instead of trying to gain acceptance for his thoughts, instead of preaching his beliefs in the existence of God residing within each and every person, he decided to live what he affirmed. Years later on his 87 th birthday, immersed in pain and ready to die, he reflected on a book he had written called Memories of My Childhood . In it he had said, "I've struggled against facts and experience on behalf of belief in the good and true. At the present time when violence, clothed as life, dominates the world more cruelly than ever, I still remain convinced that truth, love, meekness, and kindness are the voices that can master all violence. The world will be theirs as soon as a sufficient number of (persons) live out those thoughts of peace." As soon as a sufficient number.
Albert Switzer spent his life proving Christianity was not an impossible dream. The man from Nazareth was not some poor misguided fool. Jesus left a legacy for those who would follow. "Blessed are the peacemakers" for they will inherit the earth. As soon as there are enough of them!
Back to Past Sermons