May 4, 2003 - Eastertide 3
By Jack Price

            It was late, after visiting hours.  The hospital was quiet, its corridors dimly lit and still.  I walked through them looking for the Critical Care Unit, checked the family waiting area to no avail, Upon entering Dan's cubicle area, I saw him asleep, in a coma really, on a respirator.  Taking his hand gently, I found myself praying for him to be at peace.  Honestly, I did not know if my prayer was for him to die gently or not to be frightened or in pain.  I prayed for Dan to be at peace.  The next day, when I met with his family and asked them what it was for which they wanted me to pray, they all said, "Peace.  Pray that he will be at peace."

In what may not have been the best preparation for a sermon on peace, my son Jonathan and I went to see the new movie X2 last night.  It's a movie about people with special powers, mutants, who are in conflict:  with themselves, with non-mutant humans, and with each other.  It is not a "peaceful" movie, yet many of the principal characters were indeed seeking peace - to know who they are, where they belong, and what their purpose in life is? 

What is peace?  Shalom is the Hebrew word we usually translate "peace."  It is not, however, the same as "peace and quiet."  Peace is inner serenity in the midst of stress and chaos.  Peace is deep faith that the holy mystery surrounding everything is also the sacred at the center of my existence.  I wanted Dan to know that peace.  The Christ Gift of Peace is the experience of an inner reality on which we can stake our lives; wholeness and connectedness to the sacred center.  Peace is the God-ordained purpose for creation: Shalom.

There is a spiritual song with the text, "When I am alone, give me Jesus.  When I am afraid, give me Jesus.  When I come to die, give me Jesus.  You can have all the rest, give me Jesus."  Peace is the gift of the post-Easter Jesus, the risen Christ, to each of us.  John's gospel writes, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  .Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid." 

In my own times of worry and fear and grief, I pray for peace, for a sense of God's peace.  What I mean is I want the pain to stop and everything to be okay again.  At a deeper level, what I seek is strength to make it through the current crisis.  What I want is not to feel alone.  It is to experience the very real presence of the Holy with me in that very moment.  What I need is to trust that there is a context somehow and somewhere in which what is happening makes sense.  I seek peace.  I want peace.  I need peace.  Peace is the gift of the risen Christ and evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

            How can I have peace?  Mahatma Gandhi, the great champion of non-violence and peace, used to tell a story to his children and grandchildren: 

Long ago, there was a king who was curious to know about peace.  He asked the wise people in his kingdom, but none could satisfy his curiosity.  Eventually, he went to see a wise man who lived at the edge of the town.  After listening to the king's question, the wise man went to the back of his house and came back with a single grain of wheat, which he gave the king.

Now, the king was too proud to ask the meaning of the wheat, so he took it back to his palace and put it into a gold box and locked it in his safe.  Each day he would take the grain of wheat out and examine it, but nothing ever happened and he became more and more puzzled.

When another wise man came to visit, the king asked him, "What does this grain of what have to do with peace?"  The wise man replied, "As long as you keep this grain locked in your safe, nothing will happen.  It will eventually rot and there will be nothing left.  But if you were to plant it in the soil and allow it to interact with nature and the elements, it would grow and multiply, and soon you would have a whole field of wheat.  You cannot keep peace locked up in your heart and mind."

As a pastor, I have visited many people in the hospital or as residents of nursing facilities, with some of them in the process of dying; also with their families in times of worry, fear, and grief.  In my life, there has also been worry, fear, and grief.  I pray for peace and have consistently experienced the reality of healing and wholeness as signs of God's presence in times of illness, injury, and even death.  Peace within is trusting that healing in its many forms always accompanies being open to the Spirit's presence.  Peace between and among people, and between individuals and creation herself, is the trust that wholeness and connectedness are themselves the underlying fabric of creation.

Peace comes only in the present moment, always in the present moment, and only one moment at a time.  A Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of peace as "mindfulness," as being focused in the present.  He teaches, "that peace is not external or to be sought after or attained [from the outside].  Peace is already present in each step," as in the poem:

Peace is every step.

The shining red sun is my heart.

Each flower smiles with me.

How green, how fresh all that grows.

How cool the wind blows.

 Peace is every step.

It turns the endless path to joy.

Shalom is life itself.  A desire for quiet and comfort at any cost is not biblical peace, is not the gift of the risen Christ.  Jesus himself demonstrated divine peace in a powerful way when,

after sharing a last supper with his disciples, he went to the Garden of Gethsemane, found a quiet place, and prayed.  This is no way of knowing what he actually said or thought in that Garden solitude, but the words recorded in the Gospels definitely match Jesus' actions when he came to face the cross.  "If it be possible, let this cup pass by without my drinking from it (meaning the cup of his suffering and death), nevertheless not my will but yours be done."  The time had come.  Jesus saw the reality lying before him, the path of betrayal, rejection, and death.  He understood clearly what was at stake and, in that moment wanted a sense of peace.  "Oh God, please let this not happen; if possible, please. Nevertheless., not my will but yours."  Nevertheless is the key to divine peace, to shalom.  Peace comes at the moment of "nevertheless."  When we fully understand and fully realize the consequences, when "dyes are cast" and fateful decisions are made, peace comes when we can say honestly, "Your will be done." 

The field of process theology depicts the eschatological judgment of humanity in a similar way:  in the presence of the Spirit, we come to realize the full extent of our life's actions, good and bad, and how they have affected people.

Then, when we see the effect of our lives clearly, even as God sees it, in that moment when we would judge ourselves of no account or worse, the Spirit embraces and forgives totally. 

We know without a doubt that the divine mystery of life loves us personally, completely, and unconditionally.

The nature and will of God is peace.  The sacred center of all existence desires for you and me to experience shalom, peace.  Christian author Nicolas Wolterstorff claims that shalom is the purpose, the end, for which God created us "and in this end lies [humanity's] uniqueness as well as [humanity's] vocation."

Late in the first century, John the Evangelist wrote to some Christians about their faith the risen Christ.

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.  The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.  What we do know is this:  when he (it) is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.  (1John 3: 1-3)

We live in a world of conflict.  This is nothing new.  Humanity has known either conflict or oppression or both for most of its history.  Today, hope for harmony between people is constantly frustrated.  "We cry 'peace,' but there is no peace."  Many voices clamor, each advocating their own plan for peace on their own terms.  They find themselves in conflict with each other, all too often seeing one another as the enemy.

How can we have peace?  Peace will only come between people when we learn the discipline of James Fowler's stage five faith.  Stage five represents a level of trust that listens to each voice within its own context and in its own language.  To experience divine peace among us requires trust that God really is God, that divine truth really is greater than any single understanding of that truth, and that the living Christ is present and involved with all people, even those who use a different name for it, even those who deny that presence altogether.  Peach is beyond belief, all the way to deep faith.

            Only when we walk the paths of our lives deeply trusting in the divine mystery that surrounds and permeates life itself, can we walk together in peace.  Shalom is the gift of "Spirit presence" in every single moment of life.  It is being open to that presence and trusting that we are held in its embrace now and beyond this life into eternity. 

Shalom, peace, is knowing, being in relationship with, the Divine at the center of existence.  As a community of faith, we gather at various stages of this knowing and invite you to join us.  Talk with me today or get in touch with me this week, or with another member of this congregation.  To begin is as simple as choosing; "the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."  To continue also involves choice and the will to keep choosing!  You walk the path in each present moment, always by the grace of God who loves you.

            Come, let us walk together in the Spirit:  in the living likeness of Jesus, in loving relationship with the risen Christ, surrounded and filled by the Spirit whom to know is life and peace.  "Shalom, my friends.  God's peace be with you"