THE PEACE THAT JESUS GIVES

      This last week in puzzling over what should be said at this moment, something happened to me that hasn’t happen in all the 33 years I’ve been in the pulpit. It was given to me to know clear as a bell how to end the sermon, but I was left with the struggle of how to begin! But a beginning must be made if we want to have an end, so here goes.

      Here close to the end of the season of Easter, we are invited through the lectionary reading to remember what Jesus said to his followers just before the cross. He said: “peace I leave you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

      Jesus gives us peace but not necessarily in a quiet corner.

      For some reason God created life in a framework of conflict. “Nature red in tooth and claw” was the way the poet Tennyson put it. During the week, I look out of my window onto the Pre-school playground and watch the life preparations for a world the way it is given to us. The first one to the ball gets to throw it. The one who can scream the loudest gets the teacher’s attention. The one who has the most energy takes more turns on the slide.

      And even if the kindly teacher intervenes occasionally to prompt sharing the teeter-totter and enforce the “we don’t hit” rule, what I see is a workable model for the way it’s going to be in life.

      If God gave us the understanding so that we don’t need to harm each other to get what we need, God did not remove us from competition and conflict. But some people take the short cut; they get angry so that they can compete.

      We hear a lot about “anger management” these days. If you mess up enough, you get sent to anger management class. What we don’t hear is that people who get sent to class are already managing their anger. They have stumbled onto a strategy to deal with the inevitable conflicts of life by managing to get angry in the first place! And they learn to elbow their way through life. They don’t seem to know that you can get ahead without getting mad.

      Look at the great ones: in sports, in politics, in business, in academics, in homemaking. They don’t have to get mad to get going. Because they are motivated more by the vision pulling them forward than the competition holding them back.

      When you have the peace of Jesus, you can say no to the lesser because you are drawn to the greater. When you have the peace of Jesus, you know that the competition is made up of your brothers and sisters, even if they don’t know it. And if you live the peace of Jesus every day, people you bump up against will begin to perceive that your constancy is not mere obstinacy, and your strength is not aggression.

      And Jesus gives us peace in the face of our guilt.

      I say that with some caution. Religion has been so manipulative over so many years that the popular conception of the church is that its whole purpose is to relieve guilt, a guilt that in many cases it has wrongly instilled in the first place.

      But you and I know that, even without the worst practices of the church, we have guilt. We see the hurt we have done and the promises we have broken and the best intentions we have bungled. And even if they are balanced by many good and noble deeds, they still sit there unresolved. To live in the world is to be guilty.

      A number of years ago I read a verbatim of a conversation between Martin Buber and Carl Rogers. Buber is the Jewish mystic philosopher who gave us the phrase “I-Thou relationship,” that intense personal encounter with another which goes way beyond our usual experience and chit-chat. Carl Rogers is the psychotherapist who gave us “non-directive counseling”….

      As the conversation progressed, Rogers kept talking about guilt feelings and their effect on human relationships. Until finally Buber cut in: what about guilt? What about guilt itself? Whether felt or not? What about being guilty before God or another human being?

      Rogers could not get the point. He was competent to help people deal with their feelings, but the underlying; bedrock relationship of being guilty was something he could not handle.

      The peace that Jesus gives is not an ethical Valium. Jesus does not say to us “Oh that’s not so bad. Forget it.” He does not leave us guilty but feeling OK. He gave his body to be broken and his blood to be shed and he offered God’s forgiveness, proclaiming for all eternity: no matter how guilty you are, you can’t be more guilty than were the people who did this to me on the cross. Whatever the human consequences of sin, before God you are forgiven. That’s the peace of Jesus.

      The peace that Jesus gives is the whole package. It’s not just the ribbon. It’s not just the wrapping. It’s not just the corner or the side. The peace of Jesus hears the quiet voice of the poor over the loud din of the powerful. The peace of Jesus is being at peace with the world even when the world is at war with you.

      Don’t be saying you have the peace of Jesus and walking around all day with your fists clenched. You don’t have the peace of Jesus just because you haven’t hit anybody.

      Don’t be saying you have the peace of Jesus and make no effort to use less of the world’s precious energy and resources. You may not have your fists clenched but you’re clenching somebody else’s.

      Don’t be saying you have the peace of Jesus and “now I lay me down to sleep” until you have made a significant effort to fix at least one problem of someone in need every day.

      You can have the peace of Jesus even if the world ignores you because God knows you. You can have the peace of Jesus even if the world opposes you because you are committed to go with God. You can have the peace of Jesus even if the world hates you because you know God loves you.

      Well, where can I get me some of that? I want a lot of that! I want a truckload of that!

      And the irony of that question is that we have an inexhaustible supply of it right in the middle of us. In front of us. In back of us. Beside us. Not on some mountaintop. Not in some hidden cavern. Not in some secret book. Not behind some fenced in enclosure. It’s as if some one drove a bucket loader through the entrance way to the sanctuary, hit the lever, and. …plop. There it is, waiting to be spread out.

      Century after century folks have drawn close to God, suffered unimaginable trials, and overcome incredible obstacles, and told us how they did it through the peace of Jesus. (Are you ready?) Pray daily, study scripture, worship regularly, and oppose evil wherever it shows itself.

      Well….that’s pretty simple. Yes, Jesus didn’t say that you had to be smart to have his peace. (This is peace for dummies.) Pretty simple, but try it. You can do it without a trek to the far corners of the galaxy, but people who have found the peace of Jesus compare their life to a journey if not a quest.

      But they will also tell you this: you find the peace of Jesus on the way, not just at the end. On the way of daily prayer, however halting. On the way of scripture study, however fumbling. On the way of regular worship, however inconvenient. On the way of opposing evil, however vexing.

      Ask yourself today whether you have enough of that peace. And ask yourself tomorrow morning. And Wednesday afternoon. And Saturday morning as we plan. And if you find that you don’t, you know where to find it.