God's Call: "Peace Is the Way"

Sermon, 1/31/10. Unless peace becomes the means of our discipleship call as well as the ends, the insidious myth that violence can somehow redeem violence (to wit: Jesus had to die that bloody death on the cross) will always win in the end.

 

‘C’   //   Epiphany 5   //  1-31-10   //   Celebration of Worship, Bethesda Presbyterian

 

Scripture    Luke 4:20-30

 

God’s Call: Peacemaking

“Peace Is the Way”

 

“But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” – Lk. 4:30 (NRSV)

 

 

 

 

“There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”

 

Perhaps – at first blanch – these words from the pen of Fellowship of Reconciliation cofounder A.J. Muste do not sound like much. But great Christ-like wisdom is contained therein:

 

“There is no way to peace. Peace is … the way.”

 

Jesus knew this. Which is why, in so small degree, the earliest Christians did not call themselves Christians but simply called themselves “The Way”.

 

The Way. A simple, two-word phrase found time and again – in important transitional moments – in the gospels. Particularly in Luke: “Prepare the way of the Lord” (John the Baptizer) … “Make an effort to settle (with your accuser) on the way” (Jesus) … and all beginning with these words from John the Baptizer’s rejoicing father, Zechariah – words known to many Christians by the Latin Benedictus – “the tender mercy of God … (will) guide our feet into the way of peace.”

 

And today, the heart of The Way as peace, and not to it, is conveyed once and again by our gospel narrative’s consummation: “But (Jesus) passed through the midst of them and went on his way.”

 

 

Such is God’s call to our congregation – and to us as individuals: An  outreach of peacemaking. Our faithfulness to the way of peace … and not necessarily to peace as the result. If Jesus had any doubts about searching for peace as the result of his witness, all he had to do was look back over his shoulder at those fist-shaking home folks he somehow escaped.

 

For Jesus wasn’t about peacekeeping – as if peace is an inert force, devoid of conflict. And Jesus wasn’t about peace-seeking – as if the result is all that counted, the means to it be damned. We will come back to these perversions of peace.

 

Jesus was all about peacemaking. Outreach – Reaching out – through, and not toward, peacemaking.

 

 

“There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.” The way made manifest to the world by Christ in this season of Epiphany – the very definition of the word.

 

The way made manifest only when peace is made between two or more people – or two or more nations. Just ask those magi heading back east with Good News from Israel. Not among one people or one nation: What kind of peacemaking would that be – made among those who act and think like us?

But God made manifest universally – in diversity, one of our Session’s signposts into our future.

 

And how scandalously diverse is Jesus’ message today as found in this gospel passage! Scandalous, because it manifests God’s self beyond the self-assured, self-indulgent, nationalistic ways of any day and age. Beyond the easy chorus of God Bless Israel/America, to the rugged biblical diversity that – gee – somehow, appears only to that widow at Zarephath and a certain Naaman the Syrian and perhaps even a mujahideen – male or female – in West Asia.

 

A radical, prophetic statement by Jesus in the face of the theocratic propriety and zealotry of his day … a radical, prophetic statement of Epiphany season, in the face of the church respectability and religious righteousness in our day. The zealotry and/or respectability that would forge one word out of God and country.

 

Does the sword of prophecy hidden within Jesus’ words here – thrust forward to lance the boil of our national exceptionalism – sound all that peaceful to you?

 

It’s certainly not peace-seeking. We hear at the story’s outset that “all spoke well of him, and were amazed at the gracious words” that dripped from his lips. Until. “Don’t rock the boat, son of Joseph!” But boy, does he ever!

 

As most of us know, there exists a high level of trust and welcome at BPC – among ourselves, and shared among others. Hospitality is truly one of our gifts, and one of our signposts into hearing God’s call for us.

 

Saying that, I often wonder how we, or any church, can answer God’s call to do outreach in the world when we are may be so busy seeking peace among ourselves – trying desperately never, ever to offend one another. We would just as soon avoid conflict – take flight from taking a stand – than to actually be about fulfilling the justice of Jesus’ inaugural address we heard last Sunday and the diversity he celebrates today. We forget that he actually preached and lived what Pope Paul VI once famously stated: “If you want peace, work for justice.” We forget that he took to heart what Martin Luther King admonished us about our run-and-duck methods of peace-seeking. “True peace is not merely the absence of tension,” King said. “It is the presence of justice.”

 

Change – which justice-making always entails – requires conflict; it does not merely suggest it. At our recent weekend transformation retreat, our Session learned that hardly an example can be found anywhere and at any time where a congregation reversed the trend of its decline without one huge fight that resulted in some leaving the congregation.¹

 

Our flight mechanism of peace-seeking – the insistence upon promoting mutual agreement at the expense of mutual concern – thwarts real and lasting change. Every single time. Change which can, and will, include the promotion of doing justice.

 

 

Another mask we are wont to wear and call it peacemaking is in all actuality peacekeeping.

 

From the “flight” of peace-seeking to the “fight” of peacekeeping: Whether it be well-intentioned yet well-armed “peacekeeping forces” – who may halt a struggle yet never stop the war -- or nuclear warheads called “Peacekeeper missiles”, I wonder if we have seriously considered how we misuse the language of peace in this way to mask our commitment to the Prince of Peace.

 

Many of you may not agree with me here, and there’s no time to unpack this well, but I would like to say a few words about so-called “just war”. “Just … war”: What a term! Let’s remember, for starters, that this concept was developed and advanced by St. Augustine in a day when the most advanced weapons of war were the catapult and soldiers primarily fought … soldiers. Given today’s weaponry and mass civilian slaughter, “just war principles” are not only obsolete, they are obscene. Not to mention not understood by the vast majority of Christians or deliberately obfuscated by “peacekeeping” politicians, such as our latest and quite famous Nobel Peace Prize recipient – no less – in his remarks while receiving the award. President Obama actually believes that civilians can be spared violence in a “just war”. At the least, he considers their plight. Yet at the last, he is painfully wrong.

 

Friends, I confess: I am just about – not quite, but just about – as close as a Presbyterian can get to being a pacifist. And I imagine it true that most of you may not be. And so – given that prospective point of disagreement among us – I appeal to you today as a Christian sister or brother that we come together on this one thing: If we’re going to do battle in a church or as a nation, let’s at least not do so by coating it with “Christian” virtue, to say we’re “keeping” the peace! As the old country song has it, “There ain’t no fleas on the lamb of God” – so let’s not scapegoat him in that way!

 

For do we not live under a delusion – not simply in denial, but under a delusion – that we are to kill people who kill people to teach us, once and for all, that killing people is wrong? That violence can somehow put an end to violence or decrease violence or even redeem itself? Do we delude ourselves that we are saved through a pre-ordained violent act of the cross by a child-abusing God – that Jesus had to die that way for our sins? Or can we understand that Jesus’ cross-event, while perhaps inevitable, is both secondary to and precipitated by the way of all our crosses – the way of making peace, that may bring state violence down upon our heads?

 

Warring zealots cry – then, and now: “Take up your sword, and follow me!” Peacemaking Jesus cries – then, and now: “Take up your cross, and follow me!”

 

The way … of our crosses. The way of peacemaking – which unfortunately may mean that some sacrificial Jesus-following souls will have to die in order that the world be given a chance to live.

 

 

Our outreach, as a church …

 

We can peace-seek. Take flight from conflicts. Take the temperature of the other, so we know how we feel. People-please, that our witness to change in general and justice in particular may never bear fruit.

 

Or, we can “peace-keep”. Take “fight”, not flight. Look to get our way, in church or as a nation – though most of us churchy Presbyterian peace-seekers would rather bless than dress the peacekeepers. We would bless, or even engage in, the latest war to end all wars. Our intended ends – after all – certainly justify our means.

 

Or, we can follow Christ’s third, and hardest, way: Peacemaking. We make it with our Maker; we create it with our Creator. Day-to-day, in every way, creatively and nonviolently resisting the violence in our world. Perhaps our church call is to resist violence on a local level: “What makes and keeps those people homeless, anyhow?” Perhaps our call may reach to a broader level: “Why do we, as five percent of the world, consume 50 percent of the goods and own over 50 percent of the weapons of mass destruction?”

 

 

Certainly, I’m not Jesus – I don’t play him on Sunday mornings – and I hope I never pretend to be the, or a, Prince of Peace.

 

But are you ready to throw me off a cliff yet?

 

If so: May you witness to the outreaching gospel of peacemaking in a way that others in our violence-worshiping world might be ready to do the same to you. And that you, in return, may bring to mind the response of Jesus today, pass through the midst of them, and go on your way.

 

The Way – of peace.

 

Whoever has ears to hear … let them hear.

 

¹See Nancy Ammerman’s vignette in Jill M Hudson, When Better Isn’t Enough: Evaluation Tools for the 21^st Century (Alban Institute, 2004), p. xi.

 

 

Benediction …

 

As we depart today – though we never really part: Let me humbly propose, based on Jesus’ example, Three Peacemaking Principles for the Church:

 

1.     Peace is based on mutual concern, not agreement.

2.     Conflict is the lifeblood of peace.

3. Unless you take one side or the other, peacemaking is impossible.

 

So let us go out into the world to make peace – and to love and serve our servant Lord. Amen.

 

 

 

Children’s Message …

 

Here’s a sign. What does it say? …

 

Peace. And the arrow on the sign points to peace being somewhere over there.

 

And so let’s do it. Let’s create peace over there …

 

(To my son, Drew): Here’s a rock. Throw it at the pulpit. (Throws rock.)

 

What?! Why did you throw that rock at the pulpit? Don’t ever throw a rock at that pulpit again! No matter what I or anyone else says! You got that?

 

Now: Do you think Drew will throw a rock at that pulpit ever again?

 

No. And that’s peaceful! There’s peace over there. And that’s okay.

 

But I want to share with you something even better today:

 

Here’s another sign. What does it say? …

 

Peace. It’s another sign that says Peace. But what kind of arrow is there on this sign? … An arrow pointing upward. An arrow pointing to me. And if you held this sign, it would be an arrow pointing to you, as well!

 

So where is the peace being created now? …

 

That’s right. It’s being created in each of us. For The peace that counts most of all is not the peace we can establish over there – which is never bad. It’s the peace of Christ that we carry within us.

 

Would you pray with me? …

 

Lord, let there be peace on earth –

  and most importantly of all: Let it begin with me.

 

In the name of the Prince of Peace,

  our brother and friend and Lord named Jesus,

  we pray …

 

  AMEN!