Peace is not doing nothing

Text: John 14:23-29 May 13, 2006

If we so much want peace, why don’t we have peace?

No one wants war, we say. If no one wants war, why do we constantly go to war? Why have humans warred for at least 4000 years straight?

The sentence really goes like this: “No one wants war, but …” “No one wants war, but we have to do something.” War is doing something. Peace, it seems like, is doing nothing. War is something we engage in. Peace, it seems like, is something we don’t do. When the situation calls for action, or seems to, war answers that call and peace seems not to.

Jesus speaks to his disciples, who are pretty upset and anxious. He’s finally convinced them that his death is inevitable and that they will be left without him. In the passage we just heard, he tries to reassure them. First, God will send the Holy Spirit—also called the Advocate in our Bible, but sometimes called Counselor or Paraclete after its Greek name—the Spirit who will continue to teach and guide them. And second, Jesus gives them a gift of peace. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.

But neither are especially helpful to the disciples. If the disciples thought that Jesus was giving them a cushy assignment, if they thought that they were off the hook, if they thought that the grace of God was something they could observe instead of take part in, if they thought that the peace Jesus was talking about was going to let them retire in fame and fortune—if they thought any of those things, they were going to be disappointed. Because from the time of Jesus’ two gifts to them—the Holy Spirit and the peace of Christ—they had nothing but trouble. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples preached and healed and lectured and worshipped, and by and large were put to death for all that.

Either the gifts Jesus gave were not very good ones, or Jesus meant something altogether different than what they expected.

It is evidently a strange sort of peace, a different sort of peace than they expect. I do not give to you as the world does, Jesus tells them. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid, Jesus tells them. Yet they live in fearsome and troubling times.

When Jesus says Do not be troubled in your hearts, the word he uses means “do not be perplexed.” Do not be confused. Do not be distracted. And when he says Do not be afraid, the word he uses means “do not be timid.” He is not trying to tell them that their hearts should not be moved, or their muscles atrophied.

The peace that Jesus brings does not numb our hearts, minds, or bodies. It does not make unpleasant things pleasant. It is not a drug that transports us to some unearthly place where we lie in a agreeable stupor while the cares of the world wash over us.

The peace that Jesus brings is not an anesthetic. On the contrary, it is a stimulant. It is a wider, more acute and clear awareness, not a fuzzier one.

The peace that Jesus gives is action. The opposite of peace is panic and paralysis. Inaction. Withdrawal from action. The opposite of peace is being bound and jailed by our troubled hearts and timid fears.

What Jesus gives to the disciples—that is, to us—is Shalom. Shalom is a word and greeting that means peace. But the peace of shalom is not the peace of being withdrawn from the turmoil of the world. It is instead the peace of being right with God, of being in alignment with God’s hopes for the world and us in it. Another word for that alignment is “justice.” The peace that Jesus gives is intimately related to justice. When there is injustice, when the world is messed up according to God’s will, when things are out of alignment—as they so often feel to us these days—then we cannot call it peace.

The world is imperfect. Experience, scripture, and theology all agree on that. People do vicious things to others, and anger and fear and retribution and greed are strong motivators to us human creatures. Evil things can and do occur in the lives of individuals, in relationships, in families, in communities, in nations. Unfortunately, it seems, wherever people gather.

We do have to do something. There is no good word, oddly, for acting in peace. There is no equivalent for the phrase “waging war.” “Waging peace” sounds silly. Partly that is because, though we often think of war and peace as opposites, the end of war is not the same as peace. If injustice continues, even it there is no war, there is no peace. So acting in peace might better be called “working for justice.” And working for justice is hard work.

Peace is not doing nothing. It takes a huge amount of spiritual energy. More, even, than war. It takes courage and bravery and sticking to convictions. It takes confidence in oneself and in one’s buddies. It takes putting fears aside, or more likely living with fear. It takes sometimes-extreme Christ-like generosity. It takes, for Christians, faith in doing what Jesus did and taught. It takes more than what is humanly possible, and therefore takes in the end the willingness to put at least part of the responsibility for things in God’s hands. It takes listening for the Holy Spirit that Jesus tells us is sent in his name. None of this is easy.

The word Peace comes from a word meaning “to join.” When we share the peace here at Faith, we are joining with one another. The rite of sharing the peace just before Communion comes from the notion that we should be reconciled one with the other before we come to share Christ’s meal at the table. If we are all children of God in this world, then peace in the end means reconciliation. Not just not battling one another, but joining together.

I do not give you peace as the world does, Jesus tells his disciples. Do not be perplexed and do not be timid, he tells them. God will send the Holy Spirit, he tells them. The world hardly gives peace at all. But we have signed up as followers of Christ and get the same gifts the disciples were given. Clear thinking, courage, and the power of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us, guide us, and remind us of all that Jesus has said.