SERMONS
Sean Gilbert – 26/4/09
Christ Church Luke 24:26-48
Dynamics of Peace
Peace, peace.Shalom, Eirene, Santi, Mir, Ping, Pax – peace.
Differentwords, different religious and philosophic understandings or premises on whichthe one word rests. For even though Jesus spoke Aramaic, Shalom was both theword and the vision: one of wholeness and well-being – an original state,to which we are always in the process of returning, re-discovering, reclaiming,seeking, yearning, living.
Contrast that with the Latin and Greek understanding of peace which is more akinto a truce, a lull between hostilities if you like, the natural stateof things being competitive warfare; peace thus being a space even to plan anotherconquest.
“You shall have peace,” wrote Nietzsche, “as a means to newwars – and short peace rather than long! Let your peace be victory!” Nietzsche’sSuper Man philosophy, of course, being fundamental to the rise of Nazi Germany.Peace, ironically as a means to an oppressive and destructive end.
Well, thankfullywe don’t buy that negative, cynical premise or that ‘kill or be killed’ worldview. Christianity like its founder, seeks another less pessimistic or fatalisticway. One born in the Spirit, surely, yet a way still needing to be experienced(the disciples’ experience) through the complexities, vagaries and themany injustices of life. In other words, peace can’t simply be left asa warm, fuzzy feeling, important as that liberating spiritual experience is.Indeed it is the liberation from fear that then becomes the very impetus fora peaceable, just and reconciling life.
English theologianJohn Macquarie says it well:
“Peaceis a dynamic in the sense that although its foundation is that wholenesswhich is proper to human nature, this very (inner) wholeness must take up conflictand difference. Peace is therefore a striving.” It has intent and energy.
He goes onto argue that Peace is a much needed inclusive virtue and ethic to be practised,not merely received. It is that tangible definitive, practical and pressing withinour modern world – local and global. And at the heart of a peaceable life,in contrast to the ‘Seachange’, escapist model, sometimes mistakenas but spirituality and church, lies the willingness to enter life’s cauldrons,crucibles, hard places, places where the diplomatic missions or ambassadors haveretreated to home territory, so to speak; this to maintain the neededdialogue, not playing victim, not wearing the perpetrator tag, but seeking tofind a common ground within a shared experience of human worth and dignity. Tocontinually remind one’s imaginary or real enemy of their humanity in andthrough the vulnerable and expressionof our own.
Martin Bubercalled this “genuine dialogue” and it takes place when “eachof the partners, even when they stand in opposition to the other, heeds, affirmsand confirms their opponent as an existing ‘other’; only so, canconflict not be eliminated from the world, but be humanly arbitrated and ledtowards its overcoming.”
Now in the writing of all this, I’m aware of how bookish it might sound – for more important is the call to consciously practise peace on a daily, hourly basis with friends, family, the neighbourhood, estranged relations or acquaintances, or people we’ve just fallen out with. Such a call to care remains a Christian imperative. It may not be globally significant, but then again it might be. J Edward Parrett nails it: “The universal realization of peace is certainly not an immediate possibility. But, the relative and proximate increase of peace is in every moment a very realistic possibility.” The opportunity always lies before us by virtue of choices we make.
So as a Christian community, we need not, we dare not be passive about peace-making. It doesn’t happen magically, even if we want it badly enough. For like Jesus, it is about vision, choice and intentional living. Staying in the hard place until the work is done. The good news being, as I said earlier, there is a spiritual or mystical aspect - an experience of love and grace and presence – that strangely yet unmistakably, equips and empowers – “the quiet of a steadfast faith, calm of a call obeyed”, says the hymn writer.
The sobering part of it all though being, that in the gift of grace – the presence of the risen Christ to us – remains his essential woundedness – the battle scars of a life laid down for peace, notably, his accompanying words, particularly from John’s gospel: “As I have been sent, so I send you.” And from Luke: “You are my witnesses (my martures) from which comes what word, but martyr; the Christian life being that embodied, that in tune, that integrated or infused by the life and mind and heart of Christ.
It’s both breathtaking and almost debilitating. But, (there is always a but) it is the consequence of a life given over to the vision and virtue and beauty of Shalom (peace) in our world, in our time. There need not be a naiveté, there need not be reluctance, there simply needs to be a love of God and a love for a common, yearning humanity. In the challenging words of the poet: “Be ignited or be gone.”
Let us take a few moments for reflection.
