We now come to our second Advent theme, Peace. The expected Messiah is “prince of peace”.
Unfortunately, often when we think of peace, we think only of cessation or absence of conflict. We may think of the great public celebrations on the streets at the end of World War 2 or ceasefires or peace agreements worked out after much negotiation as happened in Ireland. The media may speak of a “peaceful night” after many nights of rioting. We may pray for peace in Aleppo or South Sudan or Afghanistan with only the minimal goal of cessation of conflict and relief of suffering.
Thus, we get strange expressions like “armed peace” or “nuclear peace” or “peace-keeping” or “trust-building”, practices that bring about or stabilize the cessation of conflict. Likewise, in interpersonal relationships of conflict we may come to a peace that is like a personal ceasefire, as after a divorce or separation or act of violence. In all these cases, we might call this understanding of peace “thin peace”. In such circumstances, often it does not take much for conflict and war to begin again.
The Biblical concept of peace is different. It is “thick peace”. Jesus declares, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you [peace] as the world gives” (John 14:27).
The depth, richness and thickness of divine peace, Shalom, is obvious in the passage that we read as our first lesson, the Messianic prophecy of the Peaceable Kingdom in Isaiah 11. In the Messianic reign, righteousness and peace shall be one, and every traditional hostility of creation (including human beings) is reconciled in mutual love and justice. In the words of Psalm 85, “Love and faithfulness meet together, righteousness and peace kiss each other”. Or in the words of today’s psalm, “In his time shall the righteous flourish, there shall be abundance of peace until the moon be no more.” Shalom, divine peace, is a deep, active and complex reality in which all the parties are deeply united in the Messianic rule or, we might say, the Reign of God.
In Advent, we are invited to reflect on the quality of our peace, whether as a nation or as communities or families or a parish or individuals. We are encouraged to move from a thin model of peace (conflict resolution, for example) to a thick model of peace in which we genuinely love and care for one another and the world, warts and all. I do believe we already have much of that “thick peace” in the parish and we thank God very much for it.
Today’s Gospel reading about John the Baptist and repentance makes it clear that thick peace is a divine command: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. . . “You brood of vipers. . . Bear fruit worthy of repentance . . . I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me. . . He will baptize you with Holy Spirit and fire.” It is that Holy Spirit that leads us into the deep Shalom, the deep Peace of Christ. “My peace I give you, not as the world gives . . .”
Like many of you, I enjoy cooking. Perhaps turning our thin peace into thick peace is like making a roux. (How many cooks here know what a roux is?) A roux is a way of thickening a sauce. One cooks fat (often butter) and flour together and slowly adds milk or stock, as in making a white sauce. At first the sauce is very thin but as it cooks it slowly thickens and is eventually suitable for a casserole or a thick stew. One needs a good pot and controllable heat or the roux will burn. One needs a whisk or it will be lumpy. Salt and pepper and spices may be added. In other words, there is intentionality and not just tossing the ingredients together, turning on the stove and hoping for the best. When we make a roux, we want it to turn out well so we work carefully with it.
A roux may be a good metaphor for church and even civic life – working at turning “thin” peace (or even no peace) into the divine Shalom of thick peace. It takes work.
But metaphors are always imperfect. In the church we all continue to have our own particular gifts, perspectives, strengths and interests. We are not melted into an anonymous mass. Yet our all our gifts are to be shared and appreciated in the context of a deep Shalom, a deep and thick peace, that enables us to work together in trust even where there is disagreement. We express that deep Shalom week by week when we exchange the Peace in the liturgy: the very words of the Resurrected Christ as he met his disciples in the upper room on the evening of Easter day: “Peace be with you”.
“Thick peace” is not mean to be suffocating; it gives space and freedom to the other. Sometimes silence and separation from others Is necessary to experience God and find one’s own peace. Sometimes the wilderness or aloneness calls. Yet in the end it too is for the building of God’s just and peaceful reign in ministry and service.
As we move beyond the parish to the world scene (or maybe even sometimes in the parish) we may despair whether thick peace is possible; indeed, even thin peace may seem far away. The epistle from Romans brings us back to last week’s theme of Hope. Indeed, the passage is a description of the deep divine peace that we have been reflecting about, buttressed by hope: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Hope brings us back from separation and division and thin peace to thick peace.
There is perhaps one other aspect of peace in the Christian life that needs to be addressed: making peace with the past. Modern psychology has shown us how damaged we may sometimes be because of events of the past, events often not our own fault. We may be victims of bad parenting, divorce, poverty, sickness and accidents, violence, abuse or bad decisions that we have made or others made for us. Parishes also have difficult pasts and we may be carrying some of the scars. We may feel that because trust has been broken in the past we cannot again enter into a trust leading to a deep peace in the present. We get stuck.
In the end, I believe we are called into a deep and thick peace with our pasts no matter what lack of peace we experienced. The Messianic Reign takes up all hurts and oppressions of the past and offers healing. The end of the Book of Revelation sums it up, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away”.
To arrive at such a point requires a real willingness to put away all hurts and disappointments of the past, and that usually requires forgiveness of real people, dead or alive; sometimes that can be quite difficult. But that is the direction the deep peace of the Reign of God is directing us. It is sometimes comforting to hold on to hurts and disasters of the past, they may give us value in our eyes and even push us forward to justice. But in the end we are also called to freedom from them as we are called to a greater ministry and service, to a greater Peace: from death to resurrection.
Hope and peace lead to joy and I hope your preacher next week, the Dean, will preach on Joy. Peace and joy do not totally obliterate the past. The joyfully resurrected Christ offering his peace still bears the marks of the crucifixion. But the movement is always forward towards the Messianic reign, confirmed by the Resurrection. As dear a late missionary friend from this diocese who worked in Africa, John Rye, always used to remind me, “turn your scars into stars”. The expression sounds trite but it is also profound.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the peace of the Holy Spirit.” Amen.
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