Peace

God Relationship The Answers to Everything

God/Relationship

About as close as an “in joke” as we have at the church came from a long run of “quizzes” that the pastor had given during church. For years, he would ask, Who built the ark? Or Who was the first king of Israel, Or who found out about the still small voice? After a year or so of this, the kids started figuring out an answer that worked for every question, “God!” or “Jesus!”. We laughed because the answer does tell a truth about everything. Pretty soon the adults caught on and most of the interesting responses to questions ended for a while as we all giggled about a “one fits all” answer. But then the congregation saw that although there was always truth in the answer, there were some questions that it just didn’t make sense. How did David defeat the Philistine? How did God create people? Why did God choose the Israelite people? God certainly worked, but we finally decided that “Relationship” worked much better as the answer to all the how and why questions. So, our developing theory was that the answer to all Who questions is God and the answer to all what, how and why questions was Relationship.

It is a pretty funny solution to everything, sometimes profoundly true theology, sometimes radically paradoxical and complex theology. (Where does evil come from and how does it work ends up with the same answer as where does love come from and how does it work – think about it.)

This week, we were treated to another round of this when at the Charge Conference Nymphas Edwards, our District Superintendent, shared his feeling that the only two criteria in judging the world or our work as a church are loving God and loving our neighbors. We told him our answers for everything, he saw at once that these two were intertwined. As we move into December, we move into the church season of Advent – preparing ourselves for the coming of Christ. One of the most important names for Jesus that we use this season is Prince of Peace and that is what we will concentrate on in Advent. Who brings or makes peace? – God? How does Peace come about? – Relationship.

The Politics of Peace

From the first Christmases to now, the Peace of Christmas usually has something to say, usually something bad to say, about the ways we govern our world. Christmas, for faithful Christians, should always be a time to evaluate how we are doing in our political world.

President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon seem to be operating under truth different from our simplistic and profound answers. They think that peace is brought about by seeking out and destroying threats, by retaliating for harms done under the supposition that by rooting out the limited number of “bad people”, we will finally be done with it. I guess they haven’t read the Bible, or looked at history, or for that matter, even looked at their own record of success. Somebody needs to sit them down and tell them what any kindergartener knows at our church. The answer for all who questions is God and the answer for all why or how questions is relationship.

Who will bring peace in Iraq? God. How? Relationship. Who will make peace in the Holy Land? God. How will peace come to Israel and Palestine? Relationship. The seeds of peace come in building relationship. Blowing people up, walling people out, “spinning” the fact to make others into evil people – these things don’t build anything but bad relationships – God is about right relationship (what the Bible calls righteousness.)

True to form, the present politic of security and counter-force is showing us, from Iraq, Israel and Palestine to the Congo and North Korea to the streets of Morgan Hill, just how badly that way of thinking works. Violence breeds more violence. Unending need for security leads always to distance and alienation. The force we use to stomp out “a few bad people” inevitably hurts more innocents than “bad people” and brings more violence instead of safety. Peace will not come that way.

Constraining evil may come, for a time, from force. However, Peace comes from God, peace comes by building relationships.

And that includes us. Relationship, like Christianity takes work. It demands us to take up our crosses and follow and love, not close our doors, stick our fingers in our ears and blithely believe all the lies we are fed. Do we know who is paying for our security and what the costs really are? How many people in Morgan Hill would suffer if the electricity and water went out even for a couple of days?

In the ancient language of our faith, shalom, peace, is a very complicated idea, much more involved than our wishy-washy sense of peace. The ancestors of our faith used the term to describe the wish of God for humanity personally and globally and it is also used as the way to say hello and goodbye in that old language. We determine shalom in all its complexity by how we relate to one another. Our actions inform the political worlds. So, it is often our own busy-ness, our own needs for security, our hidden desires to watch violence and cravings for excitement that drive such unimaginative leader’s actions.

Peace comes about through relationship.

The fundamentals of our relating to the world will dictate the terms of peace.

The Contexts of Peace: Conflict

It is interesting that peace is not often described. Very few of us have been taught what peace really is, so there are an almost unending numbers of descriptions for peace. Most often we describe the context not the content of peace. Peace, which is highly variable, takes shape as we describe where peace is needed. There are three basic levels that provide the contexts of peace.

Conflict

The world is created in immense diversity and along with that diversity comes conflict. Conflict is not bad, in fact, it is one of the key features that fosters growth and life. Where there are two people there are ten different opinions, which is to say that even in one person there is conflict. Choices, wisdom, discovery all come from conflict. (In fact one of the important contexts of peace is seen when there is no conflict because that usually means that some voice is not heard, someone’s humanity is put down. (More about this in a second.) Peace comes in conflict as we are able to move in the flow of conflict, to rest in our differences, to experience that we are not in conflict all the time, to resolve, or sometimes set aside conflict and celebrate. Not all conflicts can be or need to be resolved by satisfying everyone, so a part of peace is the graceful ability to lose and to win.

Violence

Inevitably from conflict comes the possibility of violence. When we resolve our conflicts by inflicting our way on others, when we use force to solve our problems people are hurt. Once again, not all of this is bad. Force is rarely the best solution to a conflict, but it is often the only avenue for practical discernment. As a species we have not learned yet how to solve some conflicts or restrain evils in the world without it. But, here the work of peace is often the need for an end to violence. There is no situation of violence that does not need to have an end. When we become conditioned to the inevitability of violence, then peace is lost. When we allow the violence within us or around us free reign, then peace demands a stop. That is true when we look in the mirror and put ourselves down, it is true when two nations fighting over living space bomb one another. Peace demands that there is an end to violence and safety for those who are affected by it.

Oppression

Finally, some forms of violence become systematized into our world. People are stripped of their humanity and forced to live at the whim of some abstracting and controlling force (once again whether under the gaze of ourselves in the mirror or in the meta-political forces in this world. The drive to dehumanize is abhorrent to our faith. Stripping away our humanity is denounced at every level, cannot be tolerated, and at the heart of it all Ten Commandments and almost anything that ever came out of Jesus’ mouth. Peace takes shape in this context in the form of what we call justice. It is why justice and peace can never be separated from one another. Justice, in the context of faith, is the process of restoring people’s humanity. Hopefully that is what courts are about, but the work of justice is far greater than any legal system.

The Disciplines of Peace

Each week we are asking you to grow in peace. We will ask you to participate in a church wide spiritual discipline to grow in peace.

Seeing -- November 30 to December 6

The First week we ask you to practice seeing. Do something to remind yourself to watch for places where people’s (or your own) humanity is stripped away. Ask, who is really paying the price for this? You don’t need to do anything, just look. If you are going to be a follower of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, you need to be able to see with honesty and clarity, or at least know when you aren’t able.

Honoring – December 7 to December 13

To live in peace demand the ability to honor other people as different and as equal to ourselves. This week do something to remind yourself constantly to listen to other people especially where you are in conflict with them. Ask yourself, what do they need? You don’t have to agree, don’t have to change, just find out.

Hoping -- December 14 to December 20

Give the world some space to be wonderful, especially where it is darkest. This week remind yourself – constantly -- to look at what God might be doing or wanting everywhere you go. Try to look into dark places in your world and see what God might do, not necessarily a fantasy world, but what might really be done to make things better, to bring the balance of peace. Use your imagination and your intellect.

Acting – December 21 to December 27

This is Christmas week. In all your holiday plans, make time to do something to help restore someone’s dignity or call a leader to do that. It might take some planning, so start now, but in that week, sometime, do one thing to work for peace as you have come to know it.

Restoring humanity where it has been taken away, understanding that God is present in the darkness, bringing to reality the peace that God hopes for us, this is the heart of our Christmas story.