“An
Encompassing Peace”
John 14:23-29
First Presbyterian
Here is my nomination for the most breathtaking passage in scripture.
You may have your own, but mine occurs in our gospel reading of the day.
In the hours leading to his death, Jesus was having a “last things”
conversation with his disciples and they are nervous, anxious, troubled, afraid.
They are afraid that without Jesus, their little troupe will be like a
body without a head. They are afraid
they will be lost without him. They
are afraid they will not be able to keep the movement going.
They are afraid they will be judged guilty by association and that they
will be the next ones to be nailed to a cross.
Jesus, looking on them and loving them, says,
Peace I
leave with you; my peace I give to you. I
do not give as the world
gives. Do not let your hearts
be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
The peace that Christ gives is
not the peace the world gives. The
peace the world gives is conditional. It
is based on favorable circumstances. So
the peace the world gives is fleeting because change is unrelenting.
Life is unpredictable. I
talked with a young mother this week who went to the hospital for an
appendectomy but awakened to hear the news that the surgeons had discovered
stage three colon cancer. Peace in
the way the world gives it can be snatched away in an instant.
But the peace that comes from
the Christ of God is not conditional. It
is given to us. It is a gift.
It is always with us whether we acknowledge it or not.
We can choose to avail ourselves of it or not, but it is always with us.
It is always “right here.” Jesus
bestowed the peace of God on the disciples and said to them, “Do
not fear; be not afraid; let not your hearts be troubled.”
The peace of God quells our fear.
There are only two things in life: love and fear, fear and love. The most important work of our lives is to let loose of fear that keeps us from listening to our lives, to let our fear drop away, and to fall ever more fully into love – both for ourselves and others – because it is in the practice and embrace of love that our true humanity is formed. Letting go of fear, we are freed to live into the truth of our own lives even if others do not understand us. Jesus said that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves and so, if we do not honor and love our own life, we shall not be able to love others well either. We see this played out in Mary Oliver’s poem, The Journey, in which the tyranny of being “on call” to other’s lives and the fear of disappointing them is released so that one may live into his or her own true life:
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried. (Mothers know those voices, and ministers!)
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.
There is nothing selfish about
listening to the voice that arises from within us for does not God often speak
to us that way? What if in service
to fear Jesus had put aside his inner calling in favor of fitting better into
the conventions of his tradition and culture?
What if in service to fear Martin Luther King had said no to doing what
he “knew” he had to do or if Rosa Parks just had moved once more to the back
of the bus? What if in service to
fear the prodigal’s father had hearkened to the confines of custom and
banished forever his son from his heart and his home?
What if in fear of critics poets did not write their poems or singers
sing their songs? What if in fear of
disapproval we do not follow love where it leads us even if it takes us outside
the lines? Whose lines are they
anyway? Did not Jesus make it his
point to blur the lines and to cross the lines and to say that love is more
important than lines?
In the sixteenth century, the
spiritual mystic, St. Teresa of
Let nothing disturb you,
nothing finally frighten you,
all things are temporary,
except God who remains.
So we seek what is of God because everything else passes away.
Filtering our lives through fear as we often do makes that difficult, for
only what is wrought in God brings peace. We
can listen to all those voices who cry to us to mend their lives, to make their
lives okay, not to rock their boats and doing so will yield its own rewards.
But to ignore the voice rising in us in fear of the cost will not lead us
to experience the peace of God which, as the psalmist put it, requires truth in
our inward being.
Denise Levertov has an insightful poem called “In Whom We Live and
Move and Have Our Being” –
Birds afloat in air’s current,
sacred breath? No, not breath
of God,
it seems, but God
the air enveloping the whole
globe of being.
It’s we who breathe, in, out, in, the sacred,
leaves astir, our wings
rising, ruffled – but only the saints
take flight. We cower
in cliff-crevice or edge out gingerly
on branches close to the nest. The
wind
marks the passage of holy ones riding
that ocean of air. Slowly
their wake
reaches us, rocks, us.
But storm or still,
numb or poised in attention,
we inhale, exhale, inhale,
encompassed, encompassed.
The poem begins with birds afloat in air’s current. But the thought of air’s current in this obviously theological poem, given its taken-from-the-Bible title, evokes the notion of pneuma, the wind of the Spirit. Levertov goes on to claim that this breath is not the breath of God but God’s very Being. God becomes, she says, the air enveloping the whole/globe of being.
Then Levertov imagines ordinary human beings breathing in this breath
that is God. Yet, we often do so
like birds who cower/in cliff-crevice or edge out gingerly on branches close
to the nest. She contrasts them
to the saints who take flight. She
pictures the holy ones riding/that ocean of air and concludes the poem
with the reassurance that rehearses the regular rhythm of breathing and
heartbeat. Even the timid human
beings are protected as they continue to inhale, exhale, inhale/encompassed,
encompassed.
In other words, the peace of God is none other than God’s
encompassing presence. Jesus told
the disciples that even though he would be leaving them, God would send God’s
Spirit, God’s abiding presence, to be with them.
“Do not fear; be not afraid; let
not your hearts be troubled.” Or,
as
Peace as the world gives it
encourages us to escape our turmoil, to find idyllic places in which to get away
from everything, to seek refuge from the conflicts and stresses of life, to beat
a retreat from those who would judge us. But
that peace is only temporary for true peace does not carry us out of or away
from the world but into it. The
peace of God strengthens us for our life in the world, to go into the teeth of
tumult, into the dis-ease and disorder of our lives knowing that our lives do
not hang in the balance but already are accounted for and kept by God.
The peace of God experienced and
offered to us by Jesus strips away the fear that comes with facing ourselves and
grants to us the comfort and courage of love that heals us and frees us.
“Peace I leave with you,” Jesus said.
“My peace I give to you.
I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
The peace of God is with you
because God is with you. You are
“encompassed, encompassed” by God and God’s love.
Will you dare then to live your
life, will you dare then to live your life
that God opens to you?
Amen.
Copyright © 2010 First Presbyterian Church