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Jay Weldon
Peace, Restoration, and Wholeness Almost exactly five years before I began at King of Peace, I went to work on a Monday morning at Lucent Technologies to find out that I, along with most of my department, was now unemployed. I took the news pretty well, mainly because they were going to pay me through the summer, almost three full months for doing nothing. So, knowing that I would be paid for the next three months, I did what any responsible young person would do; I bought a plane ticket to Europe and mooched off of a friend. Winfried and I had known each other for a few years, ever since he first invited me to a Bible study with him when I first moved to Germany to study there for a year. He wasn’t thrilled that I was coming to live with him, but he was okay with the idea. The problem wasn’t really his lack of willful hospitality, but he lived in Munich in one of these infamously small European apartments. The entire “flat” as he called it, wishing not to be too American, was about the size of your living room, into which we crammed a kitchen, bathroom, bed, and sofa. It was smaller than a room at the Marriott, but because he wasn’t charging like the Munich Marriott, I wanted to make it work. I was a terrible guest; well, difficult at best. He had to wake up at seven each morning, and I could just sleep. So I did! Apparently, I moved his things around in a way that really bothered him. I’m not a re-arranger, but it seems whatever I did was too much. By European standards, I showered too long and made him mad that I had used too much water. The list went on. I had formulated a short yet succinct list of things that he did that were driving me insane. He wouldn’t let me use a flashlight to read at night. He fussed at me like a child for storing the milk on the left side of the refrigerator instead of the right, for opening the window when I was hot, for using too much water when I washed my hands. We were a match made in heaven. Finally, one night things came to a head and he told me I was a terrible guest. Knowing that he was correct, but wanting all too little to agree with him, I responded the only way that I could- I told him he was a terrible host. There was a long, awkward silence, and then we both started laughing. Finally, we had something that we could agree about! Three days later I was on a plane bound for Singapore, looking for better hosts, and perhaps this time to be a better guest. I mention this story today because, at least at first glance, there is a strong case made for the importance of being both a good guest, as well as being a good host. In fact, it seems like it is an item of eternal proportions. In our Gospel for today, Jesus gives the seventy a strange plan for evangelism and outreach. He sends them to the towns and villages where he himself is planning to go. And so he sends them out to do a little PR campaign, as well as maybe a little research into which towns are ready to hear from him, and which towns he may just as well wave to as he passes by. Their instructions are simple: to speak peace wherever they go, and find out if the people they are visiting are also people of peace. It seems like both the research and PR are carefully and succinctly wrapped up into one handy marketing program. Be good guests, and see if the people are good hosts. There is a lesson here, one that Winfried and I could have both heard during those difficult summer days five years ago. There is a lesson in hospitality that each of us as followers of Christ need to hear again. In many ways, it is something that makes us different, that sets us apart. I had the opportunity to meet Justo Gonzoles a few years ago. Dr. Gonzoles is a church history professor at Emory and has written one of the most popular histories of the church around these days. Check Fr. Frank’s office if you don’t believe me. I asked him to summarize how the first Christians had been different, how their lives were different, how they had changed, and if he could to sum it up in one or two sentences. He said this: they celebrated Christ’ presence among them through Communion, and maybe more so than that, they were known for their hospitality. They reached out and cared for everyone. That’s what made them different and set them apart. People knew them because of it. So at first glance I am tempted to chock this story up to a lesson in good etiquette. Be a good guest, or a good host, and God is pleased, and it really makes a difference to those around you. Well, maybe. This story isn’t about Emily Post or Martha Stewart; it’s about Jesus. Our sign out front says King of Peace Church, not King of Peace Country Club. If our only goal were hospitality, the country club would be enough. We could all buy into a Starbucks franchise, give out grande moccas for free, and the Kingdom of God would come. But I think there is more going on here than a simple primer in courtesy. Being on one’s best behavior does not cause satan to fall from heaven like lightning. Minding one’s Ps and Qs doesn’t get names added to the book of life. Jesus tells the seventy to go out and speak peace to the people of the villages where he will be going. The idea of peace is something we hear a lot about lately, courtesy too often of CNN and Fox News. To them, peace is simply the absence of war. If people aren’t actively fighting, then there is peace. I can remember hearing one night that a cease-fire in Gaza was almost over, and that both sides were currently reloading and preparing for a day of violence tomorrow. However, the reporter said, there was still peace there that night. I wanted to disagree, and I think Jesus would have too. Hating and plotting and burning with evil intentions—all just silently—is not the mark of peace. This message of peace that he sent out with the seventy was not just a polite smile or a salutation to let others know that they didn’t have to expect violence. Peace, in Hebrew, was more than just the lack of violence. Shalom, a word that you may recognize from Hebrew, meaning peace, comes from the word Shalem, meaning wholeness. The state of shalom is not just a place absent from violence, but one of contentment, wholeness, and completeness—more than just a peaceful easy feeling. It makes better sense that only that kind of peace would prepare the way for Jesus and the coming Kingdom of God. A few years ago, I had a Jewish roommate named Lior. He was from Tel Aviv. He was as Jewish as they come. He wouldn’t keep food in our refrigerator because it wasn’t kosher. He walked on the Sabbath instead of driving and wouldn’t use a cell phone from sundown Friday until Sundown Saturday. If I ate a pork chop, he got mad and went to visit neighbors. He always greeted me with a shalom every time he came and went, but after a while shalom came to have a few new meanings. One night as we were getting ready to leave, he asked me if I was ready to shalom. Sure, let’s shalom. Jay, he asked me one time, do you want to shalom a little coffee with me? Another time, he couldn’t make the window close completely and I told him he just needed to put a little shalom in it. He did, and the window shut! Before long, shalom replaced almost every verb in our conversations. We made absolutely no sense, yet strangely we understood each other. There was only one problem: neither of us knew what in the world shalom meant anymore. I am afraid that each of us has this same problem now when we hear the word peace. We may have some remote idea about the positive feelings it conjures up in each of us, but it is rather difficult to describe. There are ideas we have, like the feeling of peace we have when we have come to terms with a problem, like the elusive idea of world peace of which we seem to only dream, like the peace we wish each other every week in preparation for the Eucharist… sometimes even when we don’t really mean it. These are all in fact peace, noble and lovely ideas, pleasing to God and worthy of Christ. But in reality they so often lack the reality of peace, true peace that encompasses contentment, wholeness, completeness, and comprehensiveness. I do believe that each of us holds, somewhere deep inside, a formula for finding peace for ourselves. The Buddhist calls it nirvana, a state where one forgets every trouble and is at one with the universe. The Muslim calls it total submission to Allah, where after reaching total submission a person finally receives all the rewards of heaven. The secularist humanist American calls it knowing oneself completely, and after knowing what one truly wants deep down inside, going after it regardless of the cost until each person obtains for him- or herself what he or she really wanted. I have never been a Buddhist or Moslem, but I do know from experience with the secularist humanist perspective of Americans and Europeans that we often come up empty, even when we achieve what we always thought we wanted, with peace ever elusive and ourselves ever dissatisfied. For any of these approaches, I cannot say that any of them is entirely right or entirely wrong. I do know, however, that Jesus had a different plan for the advent of the Kingdom of God. It sounded something like this: “If you are looking for the Kingdom of God to come, work for the peace of others. If you want to go out in my name, then go out and work for wholeness and completeness and fullness of life, not just for yourself, but for your neighbor too. I wasn’t kidding when I said that I came so that people may have life and have it more abundantly. I really meant it.” And then I think he would smile. Hoping that we would get it, he would smile, because in this vision, maybe even just for a moment, he really did see a world transformed. Somewhere in the happy auspices of his divine, Galilean mind, He saw Satan fall from Heaven like lightning, he saw names being written in the book of life, he finally saw a world reborn, and he saw the fulfillment of the mission that the Father had sent him into the world to do: to bring peace and completeness and wholeness to a world that has too little shalom. It is a strange approach for taking over the world, but ushering in the Kingdom of God, the complete reign and rule of God, has always been a strange approach. Instead of traditional means of taking power, the seeds of the Kingdom of God are sewn in peace, guaranteeing also that we would yield a peaceful crop. It is the vision that the author of Isaiah had, the reading we heard a few minutes ago, that a new and restored Jerusalem would be built in shalom—in wholeness and in peace. It is the vision that Amos had when he saw people who would beat their swords into plowshares, trading weapons of violence in for weapons of peace and growth and life. It is St. Paul’s admonition to us this morning/ evening in his words to the Galatians: Do not be deceived; God is not mocked; you will reap what you sew. The only way to guarantee the peaceful, complete reign of God is to sew the seeds in peace. For centuries, kingdoms and principalities have been built by power, by holding dominion over others, by coercing and forcing people into contrition and subjugation. But blood and force and coercion are bad fertilizers. There were those who wanted Jesus to bring in this crazy reign of God by force. But I think Jesus was tired of seeing blood spilled uselessly in the desert, and was ready to fertilize the ground with something else. This morning/ tomorrow morning, we will baptize. We will again repeat the baptismal covenant, asking of those about to be baptized if we and they will turn from evil, renounce the sinful desires of this world, turn to Jesus Christ, and put faith in his grace and love. And then we will be asked to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. We will be asked to strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being. It seems contrary to the message we hear everyday about finding peace, that peace comes from within, that peace is attainable simply by liking yourself, or by holding to some certain mystical regiment. But the message of Jesus is usually contrary to what we hear every day. He asks us to come and die (in these baptismal waters) and be born anew, a new creation as St. Paul calls it, a creation that now tries to love a neighbor as much as oneself. It is a new creation that is willing to work toward the advent of the kingdom of God , not just to satisfy our own selfish desires and personal ends, but that actually looks outside of oneself, wanting to work toward the peace, restoration, and wholeness of others. ************************** It is a good formula for hospitality, for friendships in need of better hosts and better guests, for peaceful easy feelings. But peace means so much more. It calls us out of ourselves, to be new creations, so devoted to the reign and rule of God’s love that we are willing to work toward the wholeness and restoration, the peace of this world. And like Jesus and those first seventy he called to this task, I think we may have to stop and smile. We may see demons turn and run. We may see Satan fall from heaven like lightning and names being written in the book of life. Or if that is asking too much, we may just be content laying down our weapons and loving our neighbors as ourselves, and enjoying the harvest of a peaceful crop. Amen.
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