"Peace" and its meanings

A reflection on Isaiah 40:1-6 and Mark 1:1-8

According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, “peace” can mean one of three things:

1. Freedom from disturbance, or
2. Freedom from or the ending of war, or
3. Within the Christian Church, the peace is an action such as a handshake, signifying unity, performed during the Eucharist

 

The dictionary also tells me that “peace” is used in a number of common English phrases such as “at peace”, or “hold one’s peace”, or “keep the peace”, or “make one’s peace”.

 

Because this is the second Sunday in Advent, I would like to take a moment or two to consider some of these meanings and uses of the word “Peace”.

 

For a start, I’m not entirely happy with the notion that “peace” simply means freedom from disturbance. I’m quite sure that there are lots of people whose lives are basically free from disturbance but I’m not equally sure that their lives are truly peaceful: a prisoner in solitary confinement has a bed and three meals a day, but is hardly likely to describe their circumstances as peaceful. A patient in a coma in Intensive Care is free from disturbance but their family is not going to say that that is a peaceful situation.

 

Similarly, I’m not convinced by the definition of peace as an absence of war, any more than I would want to define war as simply the absence of peace. Yes, I recognise that the ending of hostilities between warring parties is a great and good thing: the end to death and destruction is to be hoped for and hungered for and celebrated when it arrives, but I would want peace to be something more than just an absence of war.

 

My problem with both these definitions is that they suggest peace is not something rather than is something: they tell us that peace is not disturbance and war, but they don’t tell us what it is.

 

Where we find the word “peace” in our bibles, it is most often the word used to translate the Jewish term “shalom”. But there is a difference between “peace” and “shalom”. Shalom is a positive word, a word to describe positive attributes, things to be sought after, rather simply the absence of something.

 

The Encyclopedia of Jewish concepts tells us that:

"The Hebrew word shalom has a wider meaning than the English equivalent peace, for it signifies welfare of every kind: security, contentment, sound health, prosperity, friendship, peace of mind and heart..."

 Encyclopedia of Jewish Concepts 
by Philip Birnbaum

 

When we celebrate the Sunday of Peace, surely these are the things we wish to celebrate: security, contentment, sound health, prosperity, friendship, peace of mind and heart. These mean so much more than merely an absence of disturbance or freedom from conflict.

 

Last week, I spoke about hope in the context of good news and bad news. Hope is what we hold to when our circumstances are bad news circumstances. The family gathered around the bed in Intensive Care needs hope; they reach out to the possibility of good news. In any number of circumstances, in the midst of bad news people hope for good news.

 

And peace is a good news thing. Security is good news – when all around us the world is in financial turmoil, security is to be hoped for. Sound health is a good news thing as well – the family gathered around the sick bed will attest to that. Friendship is very good news – someone to depend on, to offer counsel and support, to share the journey through the valley of shadow: friendship is surely good news.

 

Where is John the Baptiser in this morning’s reading? In the wilderness. Where is the way of the Lord to be prepared? In the wilderness.

 

As Australians, we tend to think of the wilderness as a bad news place – without water, surrounded by dangerous creatures, without knowledge of where we are or how to get out of the wilderness, it seems like bad news.

 

But I wonder how we would feel if the story of who we are took place in the wilderness; if our identity had been shaped by a forty year journey from captivity to a Promised Land? Perhaps then the wilderness would be the place of hope. Perhaps then we would see the possibility of good news springing forth from the journey.

 

It is into the wilderness of our lives and the wilderness of our world that Jesus comes. He comes to bring good news; he comes to bring peace: security, contentment, sound health, prosperity, friendship, peace of mind and heart…

 

Not that we will necessarily recognise these things because the world has been blinded by false definitions; the hopes of the world have been dulled to the point that we have come to believe that peace is nothing more than an absence of disturbance. Our culture has been deluded into thinking that prosperity means money in the bank, and contentment means shopping trips with credit cards.

 

In short we have settled for less than mountains leveled; highways smoothed; valleys filled. We haven’t dared to hope for a wilderness transformed with roadways straightened; ruts plugged. It has been beyond us to ask for rocks to be rolled from the doors to new life.

 

But it is into this disillusioned world that the Messiah comes, bringing hope and bringing peace.

 

I want to leave you with one last reference to “peace” in the dictionary – the phrase “to make one’s peace”. The dictionary tells me that this means “to be reconciled with another.” Jesus is the peace bringer, who hungers for us to be reconciled with God, with one another, and with ourselves.

 

And that is why we greet one another with words of peace in church: as a foretaste of that reconciliation, as sign of our unity, as a symbol of shalom.

 

Peace be with you. Amen.

Watch, wait, be ready

A reflection on Isaiah 64:1-9 and Mark 13:33-37

A patient wakes up following an operation to find the doctor standing beside him. He’s not feeling at all well, but he manages to ask, "Doctor, how did it go?"
"I have good news and bad news", says the doctor.
"Give me the good news. I feel terrible and I need cheering up"
"The good news is that we managed to save your kidneys."
"That’s terrific. What's the bad news?"
"The bad news is I have them here in this jar."

 

My suspicion is that, if we are offered a choice between good news and bad news, we will want the good news. And not the good news first, but only good news. Being rational human beings we avoid the bad news if we possibly can.

 

I think that’s one of the reasons we like Christmas: it’s a good news time. A story about a little baby born in a stable – that’s a good news story. A story about a fat man dressed in red bringing presents to all the girls and boys – that’s a good news story. The whole idea of Christmas parties, gatherings of families and friends, gift giving and receiving, it’s all such a good news thing, isn’t it?

 

But our Bible readings this morning don’t seem very good news at all; they seem far more bad news. I mean, just listen to some of these verses from the first reading. God’s chosen people are speaking to God and they say:

   There is no one who calls on your name,

    or attempts to take hold of you;

    for you have hidden your face from us,

    and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

(Now that’s bad news.)

 

    We all fade like a leaf,

    and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

(And that’s bad news too.)

 

   You meet those who gladly do right,

    those who remember you in your ways.

(Good news!)

 

    But you were angry, and we sinned;

    because you hid yourself we transgressed.

(Bad news.)

 

The reading from the gospel of Mark, the words of Jesus himself, aren’t terribly positive sounding either:

Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come… you do not know when the master of the house will come [and] he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 

 

Sleeping when the boss returns? Bad news!

 

So what is this all about? This time of the church’s year is set aside to prepare for Christmas. So why the focus on bad news rather than getting excited about the good news that is to come? Surely we can prepare for the good news of Christ’s coming into the world without having to think about anything too depressing.

 

Or can we?

 

Perhaps, we need to face the bad news in order to recognise our need for good news. Perhaps, we have become so accustomed to good news – comfortable lives, security, good health, good times – that we don’t even recognise that there is something missing, some need in us that is not being met because we are anaesthetised by too much good news.

 

And the Bible is really excellent at this: pointing to what is real in this world to remind us that we need something from beyond this world. The Bible is a consistent reminder that the world in which we live is not just a good news world. There are countless biblical references to what is wrong, and each of those references is meant to point us towards what is needed to make what is wrong right.

 

Instead of living in a fantasy world, where everything is jingle bells and Christmas stockings and plates heaped with turkey and ham and enough food to provoke the most profound indigestion, instead of a fantasy world where everything is all right, we are asked to recognise a greater truth: all is not well, and Christ comes into the real world in order to do something about it.

 

Did you know that tomorrow, the first day of December, is the fiftieth anniversary of the day Rosa Parkes got on a bus? “Who is Rosa Parkes?” you ask. On December 1, 1955, a black woman got on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in the United States. She was required to go to the back of the bus because the front was for whites only. This is the U.S. just fifty years ago. But Rosa Parkes was tired and weary from a long day of hard work, and she sat herself at the front of the bus and refused to move. Her small act of defiance is seen by many as the initiating event for the movement for civil rights in America; the whole Martin Luther King revolution which has made it possible for a black man to move into the White House began with a tired and weary woman who refused to change her seat.

 

We are watching and waiting for Christmas, but are we ready to allow our dissatisfaction with the way things are to bring Christ into the world?

 

Another thing about the first of December is that it is World AIDS Day. Do you have any idea how many people in our healthy, rich, well-educated world are going to die between now and Christmas from a disease which could be controlled if not defeated through education and spending some money on making medication available where it is needed most?

 

But, of course, those who suffer from HIV/AIDS aren’t on our TV screens at this time of the year. They aren’t even in our country. So we can choose to ignore HIV/AIDS; this is a problem we don’t have to see unless someone is rude enough to disturb our good news preparations with some bad news.

 

We are watching and waiting for Christmas, but are we ready to do something about bringing real good news into this world?

 

Jesus says,

Beware, keep alert… It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work.

 

There is work for us to do while we watch and wait; there is a readiness we have to adopt. Perhaps this year it is finding a red ribbon to wear tomorrow, the first of December, World AIDS Day, and to keep on wearing right up until Christmas to remind ourselves of the bad news and to remind ourselves that good news is needed and good news is coming.

 

Watch, wait, be ready.

 

Where will we look in the days and weeks to come? Will we look only under the Christmas tree? Will we only wait for Santa Claus? Will we be ready only for good news for ourselves?

 

Or will we look for the lost and the lonely, the despairing and deprived, the suffering and saddened? Will we wait with those whose daily news is bad news? And will we be ready for the good news that comes into our world at Christmas?

 

Watch, wait, be ready.

Stomach problems

A reflection on Matthew 9:35 - 10:8

My friend and his guts

I have a friend who once went to hospital. He wasn’t a well boy. And the reason he wasn’t well was because his stomach had tied itself in knots. Literally. According to the doctors who know about such things, this can be a very serious matter: evidently the stomach tying itself in knots is something to be avoided wherever possible.

 

Now, how did such a strange thing happen? Well, my friend was under a lot of stress and strain in his job; an excessive amount of stress and strain – so much so that his worrying, his concern, his anxiety knotted him up inside. We say that, don’t we? People tie themselves in knots through stress and strain, through anxiety and concern.

 

Jesus and his guts

Why am I telling you this? Well, guess what Jesus is doing in today’s gospel story? The translation we heard this morning says, “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them”. Compassion for them. Actually compassion is a really wishy-washy word for what the original Greek says. A more literal translation might say something like, “When Jesus saw the crowds, his guts tied themselves in knots”. But you can’t say that in the bible. You can’t go around saying that Jesus is so concerned for the crowd that his guts tie themselves in knots. But that is what it means. That is the strength of Jesus’ feelings.

 

Now my friend’s stomach problem – his guts in knots situation – was because of what was going on in his life. Interestingly, tellingly, Jesus’ difficulty is not caused by his own problems, but by what is going on in the lives of others. “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” It’s the crowds who are under stress and strain, who are worried and anxious, harried and helpless, but it is Jesus who gets his stomach in a knot.

 

At this point, though, I start to wonder: what’s wrong with this mob? What’s their problem? Whose fault is it that they are like a mob of sheep without a shepherd?  These are reasonable questions, aren’t they? After all, we like to know who is to blame, particularly if it’s not us.

 

Biblical theology would suggest that their problems are caused by God. But it’s not God’s fault. God causes the problems but God’s not to blame.

 

Let me explain: The Hebrew understanding was that God causes everything to happen. The sun shines – God did that. The rain falls – God did that. The Israelites prosper – God did that. They are taken into Exile – God did that too. Everything is caused by God.

 

But equally, God is not arbitrary. All of these things which are down to God are done for a purpose. If something good happens, it’s because it is deserved. If something bad happens, then that is deserved as well. This is Old Testament theology. Why were the Israelites taken into captivity? Because they failed to honour their covenant with God and so they deserved to be taken from the land God had promised them and God caused it to be so.

 

Now if this line of reasoning is followed consistently then it must mean that the harassed and helpless crowd are harassed and helpless because they deserve to be. For whatever reason, they must have been the cause of their own suffering. At least, that is one way of explaining their situation.

 

But if this is so, why would Jesus get his stomach knotted for them? Why would he wish to respond to their need? Why would he have compassion for them?

 

The Oprah method

During the week I heard an interesting thing: Did you know that Oprah Winfrey is considered to be the most influential person in America today? Oprah, the talk-show host. She has a viewing audience of about 46 million people per week. 46 million. Let me tell you, the crowds following Jesus were more likely to be 46 than 46 million.

 

And Oprah is a very, very influential figure in American and Western culture. Her approach to life and life’s problems is espoused in all sorts of places; her approach is emulated and articulated by ordinary folk, by business leaders, by celebrities and by politicians across the country and across the world. And what is Oprah’s approach? Fix yourself. If you have a problem, fix yourself. If you’re not happy with your life, it’s your problem so fix it yourself.

 

And there’s a certain beguiling logic to that, isn’t there? I mean, it worked for Oprah. Why shouldn’t it work for everyone? Why shouldn’t people take responsibility for fixing their own problems? Particularly if those problems are of their own making. You got yourself into debt? Get yourself out of it. You don’t have a well-paid job? Sort yourself out. Interest rates are rising and your mortgage payments are getting harder to meet? You’re on your own.

 

The Oprah approach. People should take responsibility for fixing their own problems. And that is really excellent because it means I don’t have to help them. We don’t have to help them. Society doesn’t have to help them. No need for anyone else to get their guts in a knot, is there?

 

Jesus and his guts

But what about Jesus? Remember Jesus? He’s the one running around with his stomach in knots. For a whole load of harried and helpless people.

 

Christians understand Jesus to be the very incarnation of God. If Jesus has his stomach tied up because he is so worried about others, then God is also suffering from intestinal problems. The Incarnation says, “God is with us.” And, as nice as that is for us, even more importantly, the Incarnation means God is with people who are in need, who are harried and helpless.

 

Not standing at a distance, a mildly interested observer. Not on the sidelines, cheering encouragingly, “Fix yourself!” Not saying, “You got yourself into this mess; now you get yourself out of it.” No, this is Emmanuel: God-with-us.

 

Us and our guts

One last trip back to today’s gospel passage:

“Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples… These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions… “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.”

 

What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus, to be a disciple? It means to be sent to those who are harried and helpless. Being a disciple is not some wishy-washy religious thing. It’s not standing on the sidelines. Following the one who is the Incarnation of a compassionate God involves living out that compassion for others. It’s not “Fix yourself” but “Be with others.”

 

Let me leave you with some questions, some questions designed to cause stomach problems:

• What difference does our practice of Christianity make in the lives of people?
• Are the suffering and dying better off because we follow Christ?
• Are the hungry and homeless finding their lives improved because we follow Christ?
• Do children have a brighter future because we follow Christ?

 

And if your stomach hurts, don’t go to hospital. Go out into the world. Amen.

Whispering the lyrics

Jimmy Reed was a musician – a black musician. In the late 1950s and into the 60s, Reed was one of the most influential blues guitarists in the United States, a black man shaping the future of white music. One of Reed’s biographers draws attention to the fact that on recordings of his music there appears to be an unidentified voice, a voice so quiet as to be indistinguishable. While Jimmy Reed sings, another voice murmurs in the background.

There are a number of explanations for the mystery whisperer, but the most likely appears to be that it is the voice of his wife. You see, sometimes Jimmy Reed would become so caught up in his playing, so consumed by making music on his guitar, that he would forget the words to the song that he was singing; and his wife would have to stand beside him whispering the lyrics to remind him of what he had to sing next.

His wife was whispering the lyrics.

When I first heard this story I was struck by the power of that image. Whispering the lyrics… words that Jimmy Reed had sung a hundred times before, words that he himself had written, yet even so he needed someone to whisper the lyrics.

When Jesus tells his disciples, “the Father… will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever”, he is speaking of the coming of the Holy Spirit. In two weeks’ time, we will be celebrating the great feast of Pentecost. Pentecost – when we remember and rejoice in the gift of the very Spirit of God given to those who seek to walk the way of Jesus.

In some churches – the Pentecostal churches – much is made of the extraordinary powers of God’s Holy Spirit: powers to cure illness, to prophesy, to speak in unknown tongues. But the reality seems to be that, while the Pentecostal church focuses upon some manifestations of God’s Spirit, they seem to neglect the most significant and extraordinary gift of all: the Holy Spirit comes so that we might know that God is with us.

Can there possibly be a more important gift? What use is it to speak in the tongues of angels if we forget who it is of whom we speak? How can we dare to prophesy if we do not know the presence of God with us?

Jesus says to his friends, ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” How is it possible to love Jesus if we do not experience him with us day by day? And keeping his commandments is only possible if we are grounded in, immersed in the reality of the presence of God in our daily lives.

In Jesus’ time, one of the most unfortunate things that could happen to a person was to be an orphan. It wasn’t a particularly unusual thing to happen, after all life-expectancy was very short. But to be left an orphan was to be left without kin to care for you; to be left without a family to belong to at a time when families were the primary mechanism for the structuring of society. Honour and shame, status and privilege were all tied to family membership, and so to be an orphan was to be cut adrift in a hostile world.

But Jesus does not leave his followers orphaned. Instead there is a family to belong to: the body of Christ; and there is a parent to guide the children in the hostile world: the Spirit of God.

The vast, vast majority of the Christian Scriptures are all about helping the followers of Jesus to find their way, to live out their calling as disciples of the Christ. Where the Jews had the Book of the Law, the followers of the Way had the gospels and the writings of the apostles.

But there are some problems with being a follower of Jesus. Our problems are somewhat different from those of the early church: no-one is going to feed us to the lions for professing our faith; no-one is going to crucify us for not worshiping the gods of the world; we are unlikely to be persecuted just because we go to church on Sunday.

Our struggles are different. For us, we are surrounded by a world which offers us an easy way. We have food to eat, clothes on our backs, a level of security almost unheard of in Jesus’ time and still extraordinary for the vast majority of people in the world today. Our problem is not persecution but sublimation. We are far less likely to be persecuted than we are simply to forget that there is anything different about us as Christians.

Do you know what we need? Do you know what would be really, really helpful for us as we try to live out our faith in twenty-first century Australia? What would be best of all would be if we just had someone to go with us through our days whispering the lyrics of the gospel.

As we go about the daily business of our lives, we need to be reminded of the lyrics of our faith. When we are consumed with the ordinary tasks of day to day life we need to hear what it is we are really called to be doing. It is so easy to become entangled in the web of modern life that we forget who we belong to and how we are called to respond to our God. We are not so very different from Jimmy Reed lost in the moment; like him, we have the power and the opportunity to shape the world around us. But we cannot do that if we forget the song we are called to sing.

And God sends us another Advocate to whisper to us the lyrics of the gospel; to remind us of God’s love for us and God’s love for all the children of God; to sing to us of commandments of love – love of our God, love of our neighbour, love of ourselves, and even love of those who do not love us.

This is the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Presence whispering the lyrics of love. Amen.