PREPARING FOR PEACE
Rev. Dr. Joyce Antila Phipps
Old First Church, Middletown, NJ
December 6, 2020
Texts: Isaiah 40: 1–31, Mark 1: 1–8
On May 14, 2018, coinciding with the declaration of Israel as an independent state, the United States moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Of the 89 countries with embassies in Israel, only Guatemala, looking for more financial aid from Washington, joined in this move. The other 87 countries kept their embassies in Tel Aviv. The move was hardly a symbol of building peace in this troubled area once described by Bill Clinton as “Too much history. Too little land.”
It’s now been almost thirteen years since I was in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, a mere five miles away from the Old City, but ages away from peace. Building peace is more than just the absence of war. The seventeenth-century Jewish philosopher Baruch de Spinoza once wrote that peace is not an absence of war, calling it a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, and justice.
The question for us is how we develop the state of mind that enables us to practice benevolence and justice, for true peace entails practicing both charity and justice. In the words of the old song, “You can't have one without the other.” That is what every single international development agency knows and what we should know as well. The connection goes back even before the Isaiah of the restoration, whose words we heard earlier: There can be no peace without justice. So, if you want peace, in the words of Paul VI, work for justice.
It's a truism, of course, but the problem with truisms is that they are often ignored because we often do not consider their deeper meaning. What does it mean to “work for justice?” Most of us cannot just go off to Africa or some other remote place to give up six months or so of our lives. Most of us are too old and have too many commitments here in New Jersey. We have families, jobs, and other commitments that, for better or worse, cannot be broken. So for us, the work of peace must begin here at home: in our communities, our state, our nation, and in our hearts.
Finding peace in our hearts is not easy, especially as we are buffeted about by the world and its demands on us. Moving beyond those demands and moving into a peace that we find through our connection to the One who has given us the ability to think and act, to love and, yes, even hate, to be present with others in the midst of their distress––that is the task of peace. Preparing for and building such peace in our hearts is not easy. Quite frankly, it's really difficult, but ever so necessary if we are to have peace in the world. For the two are connected. As the Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Thanh said, the miracle is not to walk on water but on the earth.
Peace is not something abstract, a concept just to be considered, but results from our encounter with each other, which is in reality, an encounter with God. Peace in our hearts doesn't come from “believing” in peace but from experiencing a deep and real moment when we feel that peace within. It's true that all of us need moments of solitude, those times when we confront what is within us. Even Jesus needed to withdraw from the press of people to recharge himself so he could be with others.
When we cry for peace we should not cry for someone else to bring it to us. We should cry for strength to bring it to others, for in that way will we bring it to ourselves. We can find a model in the way that Jesus connected with others. He built peace by sharing his peace with others, not just through large crowds, but by directly looking at and addressing each individual person as if that person really mattered. As Dorothy Day once said, peace must be built as one would build a house, brick by brick.
Obviously, this doesn't mean that we ignore the world around us. There are times when for the cause of peace we must organize to act as a force against evil. But we must always remember that without peace in our hearts, it is nigh impossible to build peace in the world.
So, where is peace? How do we––how can we think about peace in the midst of all the violence and war we see around us? Violence is not just in other lands or in the fear of terrorism; it’s here in our midst as well––in our cities with drug killings; in homes where seemingly “nice” people destroy others through domestic violence; in ourselves when we are consumed by anger that sometimes seem to control us.
Our inward feelings and outward actions cannot be separated. Peace requires justice and justice begins with our relationships with one another. The large work of justice is a reflection of the small work of justice in our dealings with each other. And unless our relationships are just, there will be no peace. If you listen carefully to John’s words it is clear that he was talking about more than individual repentance. He called for societal repentance as well.
Peace in our society and peace in our hearts is deeply interconnected. Personal frustration and anger rob us of peace in our hearts even as we struggle to have it. And we see the eruption of that frustration and anger by the lack of peace in our society directly related to the feelings of injustice. It is indeed a vicious cycle, one that is hard to break. Every once in a while we get a glimpse of the possible.
There’s a difference between the anger that consumes us and what we could call righteous indignation. The monk Thomas Merton pointed out that nonviolence is not some passive falling down and rolling over. It is a different way to approach the evil we see in the world, in our communities, in ourselves. It is active resistance to that evil by attacking it at its source: our own anger; our own destructive passions. Listen to what Isaiah says: (40:28–31)
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
God does not faint or grow weary;
God’s understanding is unsearchable.
God gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not be faint.
What incredible imagery! We draw our strength for creating peace from God. In the same way, we draw our strength for establishing justice from God. Advent is a season not just of expectation but also one of preparation. Let us reflect on how we prepare our lives to work for peace and justice.
Let us pray: Creator of peace, establisher of justice, bring peace into our hearts, into our souls as we continue the vision of the One we follow who came to bring peace to our hearts and justice in our relationships with others, even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.