Imagine the most peaceful setting. Get specific about it. Is it sunrise? Sunset? Midday? Middle of the night? Is there water? Are there mountains? Are you alone or with other people? Just sit there for a moment and know that sense of peace. . . .
Yesterday I got to walk through a five-acre garden that had little paths and stepping stones, sculptures, ferns, hostas. Birds sang in the trees overhead. A little creek burbled through a ravine. There were benches every so often to sit and just absorb the space. Sunlight streamed through leaves that glowed green. It was so peaceful.
“Peace I leave with you;” Jesus tells the disciples on his last night with them, “My peace I give to you” (John 14:27).
It is tempting to imagine that this is the kind of peace Jesus means: sitting by a creek, totally calm, serene, all is right with the world. So tempting. If we just commit ourselves to loving Jesus, we will always know this kind of peace.
Yeah. That’s not what he meant. So hang onto that peaceful image—stick it in your back pocket to pull out from time to time as we wage the kind of peace that Jesus was really talking about.
These words about peace come in the Gospel of John during Jesus’ farewell discourse with the disciples during their last supper together before he is crucified. The kind of peace he’s yearning for just then is the kind for which he is just about to lay down his life. It’s the kind of peace he’s been trying to create throughout his entire ministry.
We’ve talked before about two kinds of peace. One is Pax Romana, or the peace that the Roman Empire tried to achieve by conquering all its enemies and either killing them or suppressing them so hard that they dared not complain. That’s peace through might and oppression, through physical power. Might is right. Then there’s Pax Christi, the peace of Christ, in which everyone knows themselves to be beloved children of God, everyone is valued and heard and seen and included. Everyone has a place to belong, food to eat, access to healthcare and education. Everyone knows themselves to be a beloved child of God. That is the peace that Jesus gives. It is, of course, a very threatening kind of peace to anyone in power, because it empowers the very people who are supposed to be oppressed. It gives them ideas, makes them think they are somebody, teaches them to be creative in fighting for their rights. It teaches them that love is stronger and louder than fear. When you control people through fear and they are suddenly unafraid, you have a problem. And we see how that problem cropped up for Jesus—he got crucified because he was a threat to that system of peace through oppression.
Peace that is unafraid: That is the peace that Jesus leaves with his disciples. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. [In other words, Pax Romana, peace through fear and might.] Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Where have we heard that before? Be not afraid. Fear not. It’s all through the Bible. The peace that Jesus gives to us is fearless, even though there is much that one might reasonably fear. Waging peace can be a fearful thing.
For example. Later in this same discourse with his disciples in which he has given them his peace, Jesus says, “I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Creator or me.” (John 16:1-3). How do we hang onto the peace of Christ when people are killing us and thinking that they do so in the name of God?
I am thinking back again to the Mayday USA people who came to Seattle to spread the word of Jesus through their concert-style worship at Cal Anderson Park. They want to make their version of Christianity the state religion, to impose it on everyone, to classify transgender folks as mentally ill, to define marriage as one man, one woman. They will welcome LGBTQ people into their version of Christianity and put them through “conversion therapy” to make them cis-gender straight people conforming to a certain mold.
The Mayday USA folks seem not to have read the passage in Acts we read last week, where the disciple Philip baptizes an Ethiopian eunuch and accepts him fully into fellowship without any notion that he is “less than” in any way, either because he’s a foreigner or because he’s a eunuch—his body does not conform to the sexual norm. Mayday USA seems not to recall that in Acts 2, Spirit came into the upper room where Jesus’ mourning disciples were gathered, danced like flame on each of their heads, and pushed them out into the street, where they were so exuberant in their all-inclusive message of God’s love that people of all languages and situations found themselves swept up in the excitement, wanting to join in the Good News.
All-inclusive. As they were. Bring your whole self to the party. We will speak your language; we will meet you where you are. That’s the peace that Jesus waged throughout his ministry. He went out to where the people were—the lost, the lonely, the sick, the hungry, the forgotten, the poor, the oppressed—and he preached a message of love and inclusion.
That’s the peace that Jesus gives to us: Pax Christi. He sends us out to dance in the streets, to invite everyone to God’s party, just as they are. Sounds kind of like Pride Month here in Seattle. Come as your full, whole, fabulous self and celebrate the diversity of God’s creation.
You may recall that Cornell West says, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” Walter Brueggemann says, “The Biblical definition of justice is finding out who it belongs to, and returning it to them.” He also says, “Newness happens in the world when long-silenced people get their voice enough to sing dangerous alternatives.” That’s the peace that Jesus waged: giving people their voice, singing dangerous alternatives to might and oppression.
The peace that Jesus gives us is dangerous. It is a peace that understands that my peace is wrapped up in yours, that my wellbeing is connected to the wellbeing of the immigrant being deported without due process, or the person of color experiencing racism, or the LGBTQ person being kicked out of their Christian family. Our peace depends on everyone having access to healthcare and decent housing.
In the blessing we read today by Jan Richardson, she gets that this peace, this grace, is not easy. She tells us that this blessing is not for us alone but must be shared with others who are not exactly like us.
To bear this blessing,
you must first take yourself
to a place where everyone
does not look like you
or think like you,
a place where they do not
believe precisely as you believe,
where their thoughts
and ideas and gestures
are not exact echoes
of your own.
In that place we are to wait, watch, listen, open ourselves to what comes. This blessing, this peace,
this is the reason
we were made:
for this ache
that finally opens us,
for this struggle,
this grace
that scorches us
toward one another
and into
the blazing day.
[Jan Richardson, “The Grace That Scorches Us,” Copyright © 2015 Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessing for the Seasons. Janrichardson.com. Used by permission.]
You and I can’t fix all the hurt in this world, but we can do something, and if we can do it, we must do it, even if it scorches us. It will burn away the dross, call us to be pure flame. So on this Pentecost Sunday, as we celebrate the birth of the Church, let us be looking for where Spirit is calling us—as individuals and as church—to be doing a new thing in the world, to be dancing in the streets, to be spreading the “y’all come” Good News. This is a dangerous peace because it threatens those in power who would like to take away healthcare, particularly for people who are pregnant, stop subsidizing affordable housing, cease SNAP benefits for the hungry, kick trans people out of the military, plunder all the remaining oil from the planet, and on and on and on. Waging peace means we stand up and say that’s not okay. Waging peace means we join with others in saying Palestinian babies and Ukrainian babies should not be getting bombed out of existence just for being who and where they are.
Our peace is in Jesus. It is not an easy peace. It is the peace that comes from committing to the path of God’s love—which rocks the world order. Pax Christi makes us vulnerable. Yet we will remember that we are not to be afraid, because we travel with Spirit dancing in our hearts and Christ leading the way. You remember that peaceful scene you imagined a few moments ago? We work toward the day when everyone can experience the serenity of that peace. Our peace is not complete until everyone can experience such peace. May it always be so. Amen.