There are five enemies of peace that inhabit with us:
Avarice
Ambition
Envy
Anger
Pride
If these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.
Petrarch
Did I Offer Peace Today?
Did I offer peace today?
Did I bring a smile to someone’s face?
Did I say words of healing?
Did I let go of anger and resentment?
Did I forgive?
Did I love?
These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and in the life to come.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Peace Is A Come
Go yonder, go yonder and gather the people,
tell all the people that peace is a-come.
tell all the nations their weapons aren’t needed,
tell all the people that peace is a-come.
Go yonder, go yonder and gather the people,
tell all the people that peace is a-come.
tell all the children their hunger is over,
tell all the people that peace is a-come.
Go yonder, go yonder and gather the people,
tell all the people that peace is a-come.
tell all the refugees they can come home again,
tell all the people that peace is a-come.
Go yonder, go yonder and gather the people,
tell all the people that peace is a-come.
Peace, Part Two
True peace, which is dependent on justice, includes justice for the planet, not just for people. The United Nations developed sixteen principles of sustainability for the earth and its peoples. Number 15 and 13, respectively state, “Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt reserve land degradation and biodiversity loss. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resource for sustainable development.”
Sustainable development goals like these move control of natural resources from those who favor commercial development and profitability at any cost to sustainable goals that assure enough for all, as well as protection of the planet.
The roll back of environmental protections by the occupant is frightening. Our planet cannot sustain unbridled development. Scientists and climatologists are increasingly alarmed about global climate change. This includes rising sea levels, the rapidly disappearing polar ice cap and the capacity the global community has to feed itself in the face of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.
The probability of any kind of sustainable peace is dependent on how we care for the limited resources of our planet and distribute them equitably. In the second creation story in Genesis 2, humanity was told to “till the earth and keep it.” It is an image of stewardship and care as opposed to Genesis 1, the more popular creation narrative, where humanity is told to have dominion over the earth. The prevailing definition of dominion appears to be abuse and pillage, based on the job humans are doing at the moment.
Thousands of species face extinction and hundreds more are being added to the endangered species list. The most recent animal added to the endangered list is giraffes. In the biblical sense there can be no peace for the people if there is not peace for the planet.
When we proclaim that Jesus came to bring peace, we do well to remember that shalom is a sense of well-being that goes far beyond individual well-being and happiness. It is a communal and earth based well-being.
Peace, Part One
It is impossible to speak of peace without speaking of justice. The two are inextricably bound. As Dwight D Eisenhower said, “they are two sides of the same coin.” As such, peace is more than individual inner tranquility or a sense of well-being.
Peace, in the biblical sense is not primarily personal. It is communal. Some of us know the Hebrew word for peace as “shalom.” It means more than an absence of war, though I suspect most of us would settle for that. It means a well-being that is primarily a state of affairs. In includes the personal understandings of peace, but extends to the communal. It includes security and safety. It also includes all people, not just individuals. For there to be true shalom, all must be cared for and treated with justice. Shalom assumes a level of wholeness that leads one to give back so that others might experience wholeness.
And there’s the rub. A small percentage of the world’s population owns the majority of the world’s wealth. They will not go quietly to the place of equitable sharing. Our capitalist roots (at least in the US) run far too deep. It is very much a “What’s mine is mine and tough munchies for you” mentality. It is the root of shaming and blaming the poor: the notion that I worked hard and if you do, you can succeed too. If you are poor you must be lazy or stupid or…pick a derogatory adjective.
Embodying a path to equitable distribution of goods and services is part of the United Nation’s 16 goals for sustainable development.
Goal 16 states, “Peaceful societies and countries depend on sustainable development and effective accountable inclusive institutions for all.” This means that individuals must have equal access. As long as a few people control the majority of the world’s wealth, there will be no peace and there will be no justice.
In the Advent season we prepare to meet the one who came to radically remake the world economy. That the known world was a lot smaller than it is now is not relevant. It was the same system” a wealthy few controlled access to the majority of goods and services. The poor were left to fend for themselves. The radical peace, the deep Shalom, that Jesus came to bring was and is possible only when there is enough for everyone.
There is enough for the world’s need, not the world’s greed.
Figure Out What You Hope For
The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for.
And the most you can do is live inside that hope.
Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof.
Barbara Kingsolver
I Believe
I believe imagination is stronger than knowledge.
That myth is more potent than history.
That dreams are more powerful than facts.
That hope always triumphs over experience.
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe love is stronger than death.
Robert Fulghum
The Whispered Promise
Many years I ago, when I was in my first pastorate, I received a card from a parishioner. On the outside it read: “YOU are the answer to my prayer!” On the inside, “You are not what I prayed for but apparently you are the answer.”
It’s an apt summary for much of our prayer life. We pray for someone to get well, for another to find a job, for the end of marital problems, the success of children and more. And often our prayers are not answered to our satisfaction. It can occasion a real crisis of faith.
Toward the end of one of his movies Woody Allen comments, “It’s not that I have anything against God, I think the worst you could say of God is that God is an underachiever.” In our minds, God never quite lives up to God’s potential.
God’s perceived underachievement is the stuff of Isaiah’s lament in the 64th chapter. It’s worth a moment to read it. It is a psalm of communal lament. It is one person writing for an entire community that is feeling completely bereft of God’s presence.
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” It is an anguished outburst. Having prayed all the prayers of politeness, having exhausted all possible human alternatives, the cry erupts, “Tear open the heavens and come down!”
This is the prayer for those moments when we have prayed and felt we were talking to ourselves. It is the prayer of frustration and powerlessness in the face of that which we cannot change. It is a prayer for today.
It may be a little surprising to realize that anyone in the Bible ever prayed this kind of prayer. Personally, I find it comforting to think that the spiritual giants of our religious history struggled in their relationship with God.
It wasn’t until I started to seriously study scripture that I got over the impression that people in the Bible had the God thing all figured out. If God was always so obvious, like Moses and the burning bush or Paul getting knocked on his butt on the way to Damascus, staying connected to God would be a snap.
But that’s not usually the way it happens. There may be the occasional burning bush, or the unmistakable voice of God somewhere deep inside us. But more often than not, while I am busy looking for God in primary colors, bold strokes and angel choruses, God is found in the shadows, speaking in a whisper. Whispers are hard to hear when you’re waiting for the Hallelujah Chorus.
God is not going to show up on our command in a readily recognizable form carrying the answer to all our prayers.
Enter Advent. While the world calls us to be loud and busy; Advent calls us to be quiet and still. The world calls us to do more and buy more; Advent calls us to wait expectantly and seek the gifts that are given and received without money. The world calls us to create a holiday celebration, Advent reminds us that God offers the best celebration: life that is rich and full and tender and just.
Advent rhythm is the antidote to what’s out of whack with Christmas. God is in the silence, waiting to whisper in the quiet that comes when we pause, when we are in the emptiness that is usually filled with the busyness of our days.
While we are waiting for the shouts, God comes in whispers, in the spaces between what we dream for and what is. God comes in the spaces between our deepest longing and our greatest fears. God whispers our name in the silent spaces.
It may not be what we pray for, but apparently, it is the answer.
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
O come, O come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel.
That mourns in lonely exile here until the son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, O come, thou rod of Jesse free your own from Satan’s tyranny.
From depths of hell thy people save and give them victory over the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, O come, thou day-Spring light and shine on us your healing light and cheer.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night and peaceful shadows o’er the tomb
O come thou Key of David, come, and open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel
O come, O come, O Adonai in thy glorious majesty
Be patient, kind, receive the love enthroned in majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel
It’s a Long Road Home
Contrary to popular belief, prophets were not fortune tellers or soothsayers. They did not see into the future or predict what was going to happen. The sum total of their strange skill set was in FORTH telling rather than foretelling.
As such, prophets were a versatile lot who served up words of rebuke, social, religious and political analyses as well as hope, encouragement and care. The common denominator of their message was a blue print to help us find our way home. By home, I don’t mean that place where they have to take us in, but rather that place where we have always belonged.
As a prophet, John collides with what we have done to Christmas. He doesn’t fit in with shepherds and starry skies and wise men. While the angels are singing in their gentle soprano voices; “glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,” John is interrupting with his own song, sung loudly and off key; “you brood of vipers.” Then he quotes Isaiah, “In the wilderness prepare….”
The wilderness Isaiah refers to is not a physical place you can point to on a map. It is a state of being, a kind of spiritual lostness. It is an inner desolation where nothing is clear. It is where chaos and confusion and temptation are in charge. Perhaps you know that inner address. It seems to me we all take up spiritual residence there from time to time.
There are countless roads that take us there. Jobs evaporate, families disappoint, illness robs, death comes out of turn, war erupts, addiction consumes, choices are hard, consequences are unforgiving and the world teeters on the brink of disaster.
Every day we are reminded that life isn’t fair and, despite all our best efforts, we are not the captains of our own fate. Every day we catch a glimpse of the fragile human experience that binds us together and wonder what’s coming next. Perhaps more at this time of the year than any other, we see the parts of life that didn’t happen the way we thought they would.
Wilderness is a familiar place. It is around us and within us. And John says “prepare a place.” In that wilderness, prepare a place.
Even though John sounds a bit like a travel agent for guilt trips, he stands in the tradition of the great prophets, calling to people in the places of their deepest sadness, pain and confusion.
The primary incentive is not guilt. It is love. The prophets’ greatest motivation was that people would know in their bones, not just in their heads, the deep love and great passionate desire for God.
Moreover, they knew that only God’s life-giving love could transform the inner wilderness of emptiness and ache. They knew that the only way through the desolation of the present moment was to return to the embrace of the God who never lets us go and never lets us off.
It’s not just about us and what’s broken in our lives, but also what’s broken in the world. It’s all of a piece in God’s world.
It’s an invitation to repentance, which simply means to “get a new heart.” It is not a function of beating one’s breast and saying penance. Repentance is that gracious, life giving opportunity that allows us to pitch the “figure out your own life instruction book” and take up a more comprehensive guide. This guide is authored by the One who desires nothing less than to love us, heal us, hold us and send us on our way to invite others.
It’s not the Hallmark card theme song of Christmas, but it is the biblical one.
The images of shepherds and bright stars piercing the night sky will fade. John’s invitation to radically realign the assumptions of life has staying power. It is far more likely to bring lasting hope to our lives and to our world than all of our mad dashes to wrap packages and buy fruitcakes.
The Irreverent Reverend 