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Peace and RevolutionMay 13, 2007 Sixth Sunday in Easter As many of you know, we follow a three year cycle of scripture readings called the lectionary. This means that each Sunday's scriptures were also read on roughly the same Sunday three years prior, as well as six, nine years prior and so on, by multiples of three, back into the misty past. Within this cycle, each of the four Gospels are divvied up, as are the various New Testament Epistles and a smattering of texts from the Old Testament, as well as the Psalms. Every three years then, we repeat the cycle as the Christian year unfolds. So today, on May 13, 2007 we're reading the texts that were read on May 16, 2004 and May 20, 2001. This being the case, from time to time I check out what I've said those earlier dates to see if I had anything useful to say then. Actually, it doesn't happen very often, but once in a while something I've said sort of catches me off guard. That happened this week when I came across my remarks from the Sixth Sunday of Easter, 2001. That day I gave a sermon entitled: "I Do Not Give as the World Gives;" you recognize that as quoting Jesus from our gospel lesson. We received new members on that Sunday, otherwise it was rather unremarkable. Except that things in Jerusalem were rather hot—many acts of violence, retaliation and so on. Here's how I began: "I'm concerned about the Middle East. I'm worried that things are spinning out of control. These are dangerous days…. This past Thursday I attended a gathering of Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders. The Middle East was our agenda. This was a civil conversation about intensely passionate issues. Uncertainty hung in the air and as well as concern that the tension there not spill onto American soil, and especially into our city…. I continued, "I know it seems far away. I know many are only vaguely aware of the increasing hostility and sense of hopelessness that pervades the reporting. And I know our attention wanes as the years go by. But I'm thinking it would be a grave mistake for us to grow complacent. World leaders, let alone those of us sitting in these pews, experience a pervasive sense of impotence…."[1] That was May 20, 2001. Just four months later something awful did spill into our city. Now these words seem eerily poignant in retrospect. Of course we weren't fixated on Iraq at the time, or even Al Qaeda. In fact, we were mostly dull-witted about Islam and the varieties of cultures of the Middle East. Self-absorbed and complacent, for sure, we were caught by horrified surprise when our towers came down at the end of our beloved island home in a colossal conflagration. And then our government took us to war. As a nation we were inclined to strike somewhere, somehow, against someone. And six years later my observation then, that "world leaders, let alone those of us sitting in these pews, experience a pervasive sense of impotence," more than ever seems to capture our mood, notwithstanding the spent lives of tens of thousands of Americans, Iraqis, Afghanis, British, and many others. In that earlier sermon I reminded the congregation to "hammer the gates of heaven with our petitions for peace and justice." I suggested that such prayer might bring us closer to our own home, closer to understanding our call to be bearers of this peace because that's what Jesus said he would leave with us-a certain peace. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid."[2] My peace I give to you; I do not give to you as the world gives…. Thank God. Because on the matter of peace the world generally gives bubkes… For all of its self-serving machinations humanity seems incapable of loving peace more than war. Of course, much of humanity does not hold to that ethic anyway. For some, war is very much a higher ideal, or if not ideal, at least a pragmatic or perhaps addictive preference. But then, true enough, the peace Jesus speaks of here isn't principally or solely concerned with affairs of state. And as for that, his world was no more peaceful than our own. Just after he utters his hopeful and comforting words he's betrayed by a kiss from a friend and summarily executed as an enemy of the state, ostensibly and ironically, to keep the supposed peace. But by the time John writes his story, Jerusalem itself will have been sacked and razed, the temple torn down and strewn into parts and pieces leaving only a bit of wall still standing that to this day is known as "the wailing wall." Of course, we also heard the author of Revelation's vision speak of a New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, a city which has "no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it … they shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations." This sounds like a glorious consummation of the peace that is promised by Jesus. But this sort of prophecy was not intended to simply console us that everything will be all right in the sweet by and by. It is also a confrontation with the reality that things in the here and now are profoundly unwell and that repentance and change of life are required if ever this vision is to be realized.[3] For the fact is, if a robust peace is ever achieved in Jerusalem, for instance, in the Middle East, if it ever is the case that the nations will walk by its light, the world will be a different place. People will be different. We will be different. Which on the smallest of scales begs the question of whether or not you have hope that you can be a different person, a changed person today, tomorrow, or the day after that perhaps—if you think its even possible. Do you think its possible? Could you become a more peaceable person? And there, you see, we touch the Easter hope. It's very usual for me to read Jesus' words about peace at a funeral. I've read them before hundreds of grieving people and at lonely graveside with just a few. But always I've shared them as a transcendent word of comfort born from hope. But if these are words of comfort, the listener already has some sense of what this peace would mean in their present circumstance. I don't think it's possible to be truly hopeful about what is to come, hopeful about the peace, and not have some fragment of that peace available in the present. After all, isn't that what Jesus said he would leave behind for us? That a counselor and advocate, the Holy Spirit, would come to teach us all things. And among the things the Spirit would provide would be the gift and knowledge of this peace; as Paul would reference it, "the peace that surpasses all understanding…"[4] How could we yearn for this peace then and not want it in the present moment? I think that's a logical impossibility. What we hope for in the future has a claim upon the present. This future hope draws us forward. And in this drawing, we are changed. In this sense, worship is a revolutionary activity. It is a present claim upon a future hope. Worship allows us to transcend our current experience, and every time we do, we become a bit closer to what God intends. As we move in this Godward direction, so does the whole world, little bit by little bit. But just what is this peace we're speaking of here? What does it look and feel like? Here's what the great theologian, Augustine, had to say about it in the 5th century: "Peace is serenity of mind, tranquility of soul, simplicity of heart, the bond of love, the fellowship of charity. This peace takes away enmities, restrains wars, holds back anger, treads down pride, loves the humble, calms those who quarrel, reconciles those who are enemies, and is pleasing and acceptable to all. It seeks nothing that belongs to another; regards nothing as its own. It teaches a love that has never learned to hate. It does not know how to be lifted above itself. It does not know how to be puffed up."[5] Do you think its possible for you to grow day by day into the sort of person who lives by the light of this sort of peace? I know there are some who dislike the particular moment in our service we call "the peace." And others are at best indifferent towards it. I know that in some congregations it devolves into a sort of mini coffee hour gab-fest. I can generally reach only those who are closest to the front. But now, imagine for a moment that at this time you actually intended to extend this same peace of Christ to those around you that he extends to us. The kind that "holds back anger, treads down pride, loves the humble, calms those who quarrel, reconciles those who are enemies, and teaches a love that has never learned to hate…" Imagine reaching out to the person you wouldn't normally reach out to with sincere intention. Imagine shaking the hand of the person with whom you hold a grudge and pray, bless that person with God's peace. Imagine a congregation that has that self-aware intentionality. What kind of people would such a community be forming? What kind of place would it be? How would it differ from the larger city of which it was a part? Who would be included in such a community? What sort of hospitality would it extend? How would it impact the homes and families, friends and loving partners of those who came? Can you see how such a community would contribute to the transformation of the world? Maybe that sounds grandiose. On the other hand, if not us, then who? Isn't that what we're called to become? Agents of transformation. As I look around this room I'm struck by the astonishing variety of people here, the array of backgrounds-religious, national, ethnic, lingual. What I find so compelling is that all of us have been drawn out of our past experience into a present and future reality that has a claim on all of us. And I think to myself, Why would such a place like this, a people like us, exist, except that God has moved among us, called us forth, encouraged us to lay claim to a hope that's far larger than our current circumstance? Here's my subversive point : our worship tranforms us into revolutionaries for peace. As we change so does the world. [1] Stephen Bauman, "I Do Not Give as the World Gives", sermon delivered at Christ Church, 5/20/01. 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