Peace I Leave You

 

John 14:25-31

               The passage that we heard from John today is part of Jesus’ speech on the night before he was killed.  Throughout his speech, throughout the evening, his disciples were asking questions about his “leaving” them.  First Peter, then Thomas, then Philip, then the other Judas (not Judas Iscariot)… all were worried, all were upset, and all were asking for clarity, for understanding about this upcoming death that Jesus told them would be coming.  They also bargained, denied, argued with Jesus about what was to come.  But Jesus was clear and firm.

               In the face of their concerns, their fears, their lack of understanding and their grief, then, Jesus’ response was repeatedly to tell them, in different ways, that they were not being abandoned.  He reassured them that he would remain with them through the Spirit, that his relationship with them, though different, would not be over.  He told them they did not need to be afraid, and he offered them his peace. 

               All of this caused me to think on our own experiences of loss and death.  When we know that someone we love and truly value is going to die, that someone is going to leave us, we, too, like the disciples feel fear, anxiety and pain.  As much as that person’s death is about them, and as much as we say we rejoice that they will no longer be in pain, that they are beyond suffering, or as much as we express concern for them at their dying, we also have our own fears, our own grief, and our own experiences and feelings that we must deal with.  Sometimes those can blind us to the pain of the person who is actually dying, actually leaving.  Sometimes it causes our focus to be very inward rather than outward.  Sometimes we even express those normal stages of grief; anger, denial, bargaining, as the disciples did with Jesus, before the event even happens.  And sometimes we require the person who is dying to do the comforting, as strange and as somehow backward as that must sound. 

               But this is very human, very normal.  None of the disciples comforted Jesus.  None of them even could stay awake with him when he needed them to be with him in his final hours of anxiety, grief and prayer.  No, instead, he was required to comfort them, to reassure them that his death was not the end of the relationship, that it would continue, though in a different way.  He would be with them through the Spirit’s presence, as he promised here.  And rather than focusing on his own feelings of loss, he was tasked with the job of comforting, reassuring, and holding those he loved in these his last moments with them.    

               But the peace that Jesus offers is much more than this.  This peace is not just absence of conflict.  It is also not a peace of simply having nothing to be upset about.  So what else does this peace entail?

First, It is a peace that includes forgiveness.  Just as, when we pass the peace in church, it is supposed to be a response to our prayer of confession and acceptance of God’s grace, God’s forgiveness, the peace that Jesus offers is one that is intended to relieve us from our shortcomings, from our failures, from our lack of wholeness.  It is, above all else, a peace of the Holy Spirit’s empowerment. 

I found myself reminded of something Craig Barnes wrote, “Complaining is usually a veiled lament about deeper issues of the soul. Since most people are unaccustomed to exploring the mystery of their own souls, they will often work out their spiritual anxieties by attempting to rearrange something external - like a church's music program. But it doesn't matter how many changes they make to the environment around them. They will never succeed in finding peace for the angst of their soul until they attend directly to it... (That is why) to be of service to the Holy Spirit, who is at work in human lives, the pastor can never reduce ministry to servicing parishioners' complaints about the church.”  So when Jesus offered peace, he was also offering a peace that called them to attend to their own issues of the soul.  These disciples, as we know, were very far from perfect.  They didn’t understand things, they weren’t always supportive.  And Jesus’ peace calls from them growth, calls them into a deeper understanding and commitment.  This is a peace that remembers our connection and that sends his disciples, therefore, out in mission, out to do the work of healing and caring for one another.

               That offer of peace, therefore, included his own offer to them of forgiveness as well, for their lack of support for him, for their lack of understanding, for anything they had failed to do and anything they had done that was less than loving, less than supportive.  His peace was a call on them to accept that forgiveness, and to strive to move into wholeness.  His peace, again, was a call towards their action of mission in the world, doing what they were called to do. 

               But peace is even more than this.  Bonhoeffer said it this way, “There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God’s commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cross.” 

               As my bible study discussed this last week, it’s deeply connected to what Archbishop Elias Chacour talks about when he translates the Beattitudes.  Jesus “peace” is deeply connected to the “blessing” that he speaks of when he speaks the beatitudes.  To quote Archbisop Chacour, “Knowing Aramaic, the language of Jesus, has greatly enriched my understanding of Jesus’ teachings.  Because the Bible as we know it is a translation of a translation, we sometimes get a wrong impression.  For example, we are accustomed to hearing the Beatitudes expressed passively: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

‘Blessed’ is the translation of the word makarioi used in the Greek New Testament.  However, when I look further back to Jesus’ Aramaic, I find that the original word was ashray from the verb yashar.  Ashray does not have this passive quality to it at all.  Instead, it means ‘to set yourself on the right way for the right goal; to turn around, repent; to become straight or righteous’.

How could I go to a persecuted young man in a Palestinian refugee camp, for instance, and say, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted’, or ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’?  That man would revile me, saying neither I, nor my God understood his plight, and he would be right.

When I understand Jesus’ words in the Aramaic, I translate like this:

Get up, go ahead, do something, move, you who are hungry and thirsty for justice, for you shall be satisfied.

Get up, go ahead, do something, move, you peacemakers, for you shall be called children of God.

To me this reflects Jesus’ words and teachings much more accurately.  I can hear him saying, ‘Get your hands dirty to build a human society for human beings; otherwise, others will torture and murder the poor, the voiceless, and the powerless’.  Christianity is not passive but active, energetic, alive, going beyond despair.”

               With this understanding, some might not be as interested in this peace that Jesus offers as they might have been a minute ago. 

               I am reminded of the article I shared with you last week from reader’s digest, about the boy who stole a wallet being helped by bar owner to retrieve what was lost.  He also gave the kid a home with his family and a job.  The owner of the wallet also forgave the boy.   This is what peace for the bar owner looked like: it looked like taking action, working for the wholeness and healing not only of himself, but for all those around him. 

               The peace of Christ is not just being content with your life.  Jesus was offering comfort, yes, but peace is far beyond that.  It is not just comfort.  It involves healing.  Healing from fear, healing from grief, healing from the terrible things that happen and that people suffer in this world.  But more, that healing, that gift of peace that is given to you, to me, to all of us: that healing is not just for you.  We are called to be carriers of that peace, to pass it along in our actions, in our work, in our very attitudes in the world.  We are called to be bearers of that peace.  To heal, to mend rifts, to work towards wholeness, for individuals and for the world.