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But what about the descriptor of peace so innocently tucked away between the commas? |
Our text for this day is made up of familiar words, words often used to dismiss God’s people from worship. Some of us learned it in English as a prayer: “May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” But the NRSV is the better rendering of the Greek as a declarative sentence: the peace of God will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. It is not a hope; it is a promise … God’s promise and God’s gift. But what about the descriptor of peace so innocently tucked away between the commas? It is the peace of God [comma] which surpasses all understanding [comma] that will guard us. But what is not to understand? When war has been raging and hostilities come to an end, we call that peace. When young men and women are no longer sent into battle and brought home in caskets, we call that peace. When after years of gang warfare and drive-by shootings, it is safe to sit on the front porch and let your kids play in the park, we call that peace. And what is not to understand? When the husband who has been beating you and your kids is finally in jail or in treatment or both, when you no longer live in daily fear for your life, we call that peace. When after months of wrestling with a career decision that will change everything for you and your family, you have come to a decision, to resolution, to something you name as God’s call, we call that peace. When you sit in that special place (in your home, out of doors, in church), when the quiet fills you will a profound sense of God’s presence, when your heart almost seems to expand out of your body and you are filled with light, we call that peace. And what is not to understand? In fact, I think we understand a great deal about peace … whether
it is the peace that is the end of violence or peace that is the absence
of conflict or peace that we experience in a place of natural beauty,
we know what peace is. Peace among us or peace within: we may not always
experience it, but we can imagine it; we know what it means. |
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And the followers of Jesus (including Paul) believed that it was God overturning their understanding of God’s own law. |
So, what does Paul mean when he writes about the peace of God which surpasses all understanding? He means quite simply what he says: it is the peace of God that surpasses understanding. We can assume that Paul knew some of the other sorts of peace. He was a citizen of the Pax Romana, an empire where power was used (often very violently) to maintain a kind of civil order and peace (at least for some of the population). Paul himself had once been a violent man or at least a man who used violence and coercive power to get rid of people whose beliefs and practices he believed threatened the peace, unity and purity of his community. But Paul’s life had been transformed. It was, he said, no longer he who lived, but Christ who lived in him. In this new life, Paul understood his relationship to God in a profoundly new way. Through Jesus, crucified and risen, Paul believed that he saw into the heart of God, to the core of God’s purposes for humanity. And thus he came to see that he was made right with God by God’s grace alone, not by anything that Paul himself ever could or would do. Paul came to see that salvation is precisely like life itself: free gift … free gift of God … never earned, never owned, never (in the most profound sense) understood. And in that realization, I think, Paul experienced the peace of God. But in Paul’s experience (just as in Jesus’ life, indeed in the history and experience of Israel), being in right relationship with God was neither an individual matter nor an exclusively “spiritual” concern. In fact, such terms and the distinctions they imply (individual vs. corporate, spiritual vs. political) were unrecognizable to people shaped by the faith of Israel. Thus, the transformation Paul experienced not only changed his life with God, it completely re-oriented his social world. Paul’s new relationship with God led to new relationships … no, to relationships period … with people who were completely beyond the pale. Remember, to be pure, to be holy, to be God’s people meant for Paul (and Jesus and his followers) that all others were outsiders, impure, off-limits, outside God’s promise. To associate with those “others” (known by the Greek term “gentile”) was to violate commandments every bit as important as the Ten Commandments these services have focused on. But from the minute Jesus healed the Canaanite woman’s daughter
and the Roman soldier’s slave, to the time he touched the leper
and talked at length to the woman of Samaria, the boundaries were crossed.
And the followers of Jesus (including Paul) believed that it was God overturning
their understanding of God’s own law. So, Paul and others went
out to proclaim this (for them radically new) vision of God’s purposes
for humankind. They invited in those whom they once called “other,” and
they received hospitality from them in turn, and they experienced peace.
As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “Christ is our peace; in his flesh
he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall,
that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its
commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new
humanity in place of the two, thus making peace.” |
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...the true peace that puts us right with God and with one another is always and only God’s to give. |
How can this be? How can those who know each other as “others,” as outsiders, as those who have differences that are almost by definition irreconcilable be brought together into “one new humanity?” How can the broken human family be at peace? It is the work of God, and it surpasses our understanding. Peace and grace and life itself: they are all the same in that they are all and always and only gift. We love always, only because God first loved us. We may have programs and strategies for peacemaking and we may deploy troops and weapons for peace keeping, but the true peace that puts us right with God and with one another is always and only God’s to give. When I moved to Chicago in 1995, I soon became acquainted (at least through the media) with Chicago’s most prominent Christian leader: Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. A brilliant but also extremely personable man, Bernardin had just been cleared of false allegations of sexual abuse, when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Because of his prominence (and the affection and respect he enjoyed in the city), there were press conferences held at every stage of his illness. In fact, he joked once that the city of Chicago knew more about the state of his insides than he had ever known himself. Over the next eighteen months, through treatments and setbacks, complications and intense pain, Bernardin became a pastor in new ways. Friends urged him to write about the journey, and the result is a remarkable book entitled The Gift of Peace. Thirteen days before he died, Bernardin wrote these words: “What I would like to leave behind is a simple prayer that each of you may find what I have found – God’s special gift to us all: the gift of peace. When we are at peace, we find the freedom to be most fully who we are, even in the worst of times. We let go of what is nonessential and embrace what is essential. We empty ourselves so that God may more fully work within us. And we become instruments in the hands of the Lord.”1 We become instruments of God’s peace.
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It is about God, not about us. |
American Christianity is (not surprisingly) a lot like American culture. The drive for us to figure it out, to fix it when it is broken, to improve where it is failing, to work harder and better and smarter is almost impossible to overcome. Much good comes from all this work, but so does a deadly spiritual conceit. With all our effort, we are so tempted to believe that we are the ones who must make happen whatever will happen. And so we (and our efforts, our spiritual disciplines, our theological reflections, our social justice programs) become the center of attention. And it is then that we need to be brought back to the founding vision of our Reformed tradition which is this: it’s not about us … it’s about God. Peace, holiness, justice, reconciliation, justification, sanctification: none of these are our accomplishments. They are God’s gifts in which we get to participate. Our ordination vow asks whether we promise to further the peace, purity and unity of the church. Another verb is perhaps better: will we receive the peace, the purity and unity of the church from God who alone is the author of all three? In a few moments, we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper. This is another place where verbs are important. We come not to take communion but to receive it. We do not serve ourselves; we are served. In other parts of the Christian family this is symbolized by coming forward with open and outstretched hands and allowing someone else to feed us. The peace of God surpasses all understanding because it is God’s peace and not ours. It is God’s gift not our creation. It is about God, not about us. And for that we can humbly and joyfully say, “Thanks be to God!” 1 Joseph Bernardin, The Gift of Peace: Personal Reflections, Chicago, Loyola Press, 1997, 152-153. (return) |
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Passing Understanding