The topic for consideration is, “Seeking Peace”. The text for today is Psalm 34:14-18, Luke 19:41-42, John 14:27, and Hebrews 12:14. As I begin this discourse on peace, I am mindful of Matthew 5:9, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. It is important to share on this topic because the times in which we live call us to focus on what it means to seek peace or to ask the question, “Is peace something to be desired or is it actually possible with the present social and economic order in place?” The question emerges as a response to those spiritual disciplines that awakens us to our collective profound need for God’s grace and mercy. For some, the times we are living through become an invitation to weep as they encounter the spiritual blindness, its moral deficit, and lack of peace encountered by Jesus in the gospel of Luke 19:41-42.
The implication of engaging spiritual
disciplines is the nurturing of a prophetic consciousness that becomes the
ground of a new vision for peace. A vision not defined by or exclusively in the
purview of powerful political, economic, and religious interests but a justice-oriented
vision grounded in Psalm 34:14-18, that puts the desires of the righteous, those
who have turned from evil to good, who pursue peace, the brokenhearted and
those who are crushed in spirit at the center of cultural and societal
concerns. I speak of a peace, attentive
to God’s ears, that delivers and saves the global poor, oppressed working class, and those on the margins of a global society from all their troubles. This kind
of peace requires a new global structure of peace that decenters and/or
displaces the former global structures of peace built after World War II.
The Dai Lama says, “Peace does not mean
an absence of conflicts; differences will always be there. Peace means solving
these differences through peaceful means; through dialogue, education,
knowledge; and through humane ways.” Peace first and foremost is about seeking
understanding. It is about recognizing the image of God as distinct in the other
person and community. In this sense, peace is about dignity, recognition, hospitality, and an appreciation for
historical concerns, as recognition that all of humanity is made in the image
of God. What I have been talking about is strategies that address an ever-increasing
longing for a society that exhibits a deeper depth of capacity for love,
justice, enlightenment, and the basic needs that sustain life.
The implication of such a strategy is a
power that emerges from a love for all God’s people expressed in the life and
ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. In the book, A Call to Conscience, Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. writes, “Power is the strength required to bring about
social, political and economic change…Power at its best is love implementing the
demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that
stands against love.” This kind of power, exemplified by Jesus, is ethical,
sacrificial, compassionate, and non-violent. Attentive to the all-pervading
presence of God, it seeks peace through understanding, radically inclusive
hospitality, and the uplifting of a diverse human society.
Hebrews 12:14-15 says, “Pursue peace
with everyone and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the
grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and
through it, many become defiled.” The writer of Hebrews is calling us to do everything
humanly possible to be at peace with everyone, even those who benefit from
violence and conflict, and see the kind of peace that Jesus gives as of little use.
The peace of the Hebrews text is anathema to those who revel in injustice to
power, wealth, and domination. Isaiah 10:1-4 “Woe to those who make iniquitous
decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right, to make widows their spoil and
to plunder orphans! What will you do on
the day of punishment, in the calamity that will come from far away? To whom
will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth, so as not to
crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain? For all this his anger has
not turned away; his hand is stretched out still.”
The sincere follower of the teachings
of Jesus, living critically in an immoral society with its evil structures, that
uplift conflict and violence, as a norm, where hate speech and hate crimes are
on the rise, this includes anti-LGBTQ legislation, with 474 million guns in the
US alone, according to Alcohol Tabacco and Firearms data, this is on top of a US
military budget of 715 billion dollars in 2022, should be mindful of John 14:27
that says, Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you
as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be
afraid.
The Christian must grapple with the
reality that the world is incapable of the peace that Jesus leaves. They
recognize that the current state of US and global affairs including the latest
situations between Israel and Palestine and Russia and Ukraine, is no different
than when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his Beyond Vietnam, Time to
Break Silence Speech on April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York
City. The sincere Christian considering what
might seem to be a hopeless situation, asks the question, “How does the
Christian, in the present environment, share the light of peace that Jesus
gives?”
Mahatma Gandhi said, “The day the
power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.” – The Christian witness, emerging from a place of
religious humility, must be first and foremost about peace as a spirit-filled, overwhelming outpouring of love. The peace that Jesus bestows must be
how the Christian moves in the world. Peace must be a reality of embodiment.
It must be a way of life. Only if
peace is a way of life can it be the primary concern and not a secondary concern
of peripheral importance. This embodiment of peace must be received as an
invitation of authenticity that emerges as an outpouring of the Good News. Peace
must be an ongoing concern of all people at the personal intimate, communal, national, and global levels inclusive of the United Nations and a global conference
on peace grounded in the sacred texts of all religions. While these structures and strategies may be in
place, it is of great necessity to reassess these structures to rejuvenate the
purpose, meaning, engagement, and foundation of peace.
