Path to Peace

There was once a pastor who was settling in quite nicely into the pulpit of a church he had served for three years. He loved his new community, had made great friends, and had benefited from the wisdom of several of the congregation’s elders. One particular gentleman, we’ll call him Wallace, had been a deacon many times over, had even served on the search committee that had selected the pastor, and was especially cherished. So it broke the pastor’s heart when he noticed Wallace falling asleep during the sermon. And not just falling asleep, falling asleep there in the front pew, where everybody could see the head nod, hear the gentle snore. The pastor was determined to make his sermons more interesting, spent hours tweaking, all to no avail. Finally it dawned on him… maybe it wasn’t the sermons. Wallace was getting up in years, maybe there was a health problem. And like a good pastor, he switched into care mode, gently dropping hints, and finally just coming right out and asking Wallace if there was a health issue they could address in prayer. No, Wallace assured the pastor, everything was just spiffy.

The pastor, being human and all, was hurt to think that this trusted friend, wise elder, had so little respect that he would sleep during the sermon. Then, being human and all, this hurt turned to anger. He decided to take the bull by the horns, not always the wisest choice, but one we sometimes make. So during the sermon one Sunday, after Wallace had dozed off. The pastor said quietly “Those who want to go to heaven, please stand up.” Everyone stood up, except Wallace, from whom a gentle snore could be heard. The pastor motioned for everyone to sit back down. Then he said “And if you are damned to hell,” and he slammed the pulpit and roared out “please stand up!” And Wallace sprang up to his feet, fumbling for his hymnal. Jaws dropped, eyes got wide, and finally Wallace, noticing that the organ wasn’t playing, looked around, and realized he was the only one standing. He turned back to the pastor and said ‘Well pastor, I told you when we called you that I was going to stick with you, and it looks like you and I are the only one’s on our feet, so where is it we are going together today?”

Where are we going today, indeed! For many Christians, Jesus saves purely through his death. Torture and execution, demanded by an angry God unwilling to forgive without payment, are the key, and so these Christians refer again and again to the cross, and while Christmas is cute and fun, it is easily commercialized, because it is a fluffy sort of holiday with no real bearing on salvation. It is nothing more than a prelude. For that matter, the things Jesus does and says during his earthly ministry aren’t that important either.

For other Christians, and I include myself in this group, blood sacrifice makes no sense, nor would I choose to worship a god that was so spiteful. For me, and for many, the salvation we experience in Jesus comes both from his victory over the forces of empire, evil and death itself, and it comes from his life and teachings. It is Emmanuel, that is, Jesus as God-with-us, God-for-us, that carries the power to save. And so, during this Advent season of preparation, we are using as a central image a path, a way with direction through a world of aimlessness and sin. This second week of Advent we focus on the traditional theme of peace. So what, I ask you, is the Christian path to peace?

Now I have to confess to being a bit sappy. Despite all of the extra work, the frantic nature of this season, I love Christmas. And one of the reasons I love Christmas is the Christmas movies, no matter how cheesy. Most of you may have a limit to how many Hallmark movies you can watch about families down on their luck, orphans and widows and folks who have lost what is called the “Christmas” spirit. I have no limit. I can watch them again and again, and I am guaranteed to weep at the appropriate moment. I love the idea that, as the saying goes, “the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, goodwill towards men.” I love the shepherds on the hillside, the lovely manger story, and so I prefer Luke over Matthew’s dead toddlers any day of the week. But truthfully, my happy clappy happily ever after Christmas peace is a little naïve. The “can’t we all just get along” version doesn’t have much sticking power in a world filled with humans, because we humans are far from perfect, and sometimes we’re downright wicked.

What, then, is the peace of Christ? We say it, but what is it? We know what it is not, it is not the peace of Caesar. This is important, because the early Christians intentionally co-opted the language of the Caesar cult to position Jesus in opposition to Augustus and his successors, so it is fair the contrast the Pax Christi and the Pax Romana. The Pax Romana did, for a time, bring a halt to the wars that plagued the Mediterranean basin for centuries. But it did so through brutal oppression, it was a peace of force. It benefited Rome itself, and offered some protection for those few offered citizenship. But for slaves and non-citizens, for those who dared oppose the emperor, there was the ultimate sanction. You were beaten to a pulp, stripped naked, then left hung on a cross to slowly die, a process that sometimes took days. The, as a warning sign to others, your corpse was left on display. If that’s the Pax Romana, you won’t mind me saying, it wasn’t very “pax-ful.”

Of course, we have some challenges in the Pax Christi as well. For example, “peace on earth, goodwill towards men” is a terrible translation, and not just because it forget women and children. A more accurate translation, the one you’ll find in modern texts, is “peace among those whom God favors.” Even Jesus doesn’t promise us peace, instead promising that the choice of salvation would pit siblings against one another, would divide parent and child. This is a peace we want? Not so much!

And yet, there is a peace we find when we choose to follow Jesus, albeit not one that fits a fluffy Hallmark movie notion of peace. The peace we find in Christ has nothing to do with the outward circumstances of our life. To be sure, if we follow scripture, if we love and forgive and sacrifice, if we turn our backs on greed, resentment and violence, our outward lives will be more peaceful. But the real peace of Christ, the real Pax Christi, is an inward peace found in knowing that you have aligned your life with the purpose of your Creator! It isn’t bucolic shepherds frolicking with lambs under a starry sky, but it is a kind of peace.

In fact, if we look at today’s lesson from the Hebrew scriptures, a passage from the unknown author of the second portion of the Book of Isaiah, we get a clue that the peace God promises is an active peace. The prophets had been proclaiming for some time that peace required justice, but something else is going on in our passage. The author is part of the Hebrew community in exile in Babylon. She or he imagines a day of return, a herald who announces that it is time to return across desolate and rugged terrain. The prophet announces a major construction project. Make a level super highway through the desert. Fill in the valleys, flatten the mountains and hills, turn the rugged wasteland into fertile river plains. This peace is active, maybe even violent in its call for some serious terraforming! The exiles see a path to peace, a path to restoration, but they also know it is going to take some work, it is going to literally change the lay of the land.

It is Isaiah that Jesus reads in the synagogue, and it is through Isaiah that we can come to understand the Pax Christi. The path to peace is found in the life, teachings and victory of Emmanuel, God-with-us, even this Jesus, our Christ, our Messiah. But it is not sappy happy clappy. It is an active peace found in aligning yourself with God’s great purpose. Maybe somewhere under all the frantic commercialism, under the pressures of the holidays, even under the formulaic movies on the Hallmark channel, we can find peace. We can choose peace. Amen.