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Sunday, September 5, 2010

LIVING IN THE SPIRIT OF PEACE

Peace is Something You Make
Luke 14: 25-33
Dr. Charles J. Tomlin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
September 5, 2010, Proper 18C

If you ever get to visit Scotland, the ultimate “Vaterland” of some of us, go into the St. Machar Cathedral located in the working man’s city of Aberdeen, where you will an arresting series of stained-glass windows depicting the first 12 disciples of Jesus.  Each picture describes and depicts how tradition says they died.  By the way, like their master teacher, none of them died a peaceful death in bed at a ripe old age.

“Simon Peter is in a picture dying upon a cross turned upside down.   James, the son of Zebedee, is shown being beheaded by Herod Agrippa.   John, the brother of James, is shown perishing as he is boiled in oil.  Andrew is stoned and then crucified for good measure.  Bartholomew is tied up in a sack and thrown into the sea.   Matthew is burned at the stake in Rome.  Thomas is impelled with a spear. Philip suffers crucifixion under the rule of Domitian.  James, the son of Alphaeus, is stoned after being pushed from a high wall.  Thaddeus, meets a gruesome death, having his head split open with an ax.  Simon, the Zealot, is clubbed to death.  Judas hanged himself.  Paul, is also beheaded in Rome.

The scenes of the deaths of those thirteen disciples are placed below the central panel of Jesus and his death on the cross.  It is a sobering reminder that if you are a faithful, committed follower of Jesus Christ, in this world you will likely suffer some form of trouble and tribulation.  It is also a message that repeats what Jesus told his disciples before about peace just before his own death when he said; “My peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, but not as the world gives...”   Which is to say, that if you need or want to find peace, it will not something the world can or will ever give you.  Peace is not something you can get, but peace is ultimately something you will have to make within yourself.    This message is about how we do that in a world where there are no hand outs of peace, contentment and tranquility.

GOD’S PEACE IS NOT THE CEASING OF ALL CONFLICT
Our Bible lesson today from Luke, at first, seems to be as far away from being a message about of peace as possible.   The passage begins with a family conflict, centers on calculating the cost of discipleship, and then concludes with story about a King contemplating going to war.  Only in the next to last verse do we even encounter the word “peace” and here it is only an afterthought.   How in the world can you find a message of peace in these images?

When we consider the first image of Jesus talking about “hating” your father, mother, spouse, children, brothers and sisters, even “hating” one’s own life, we naturally repulse and resist, and ask ourselves again, How can you find any sense of “peace” in this?  How can Jesus be showing us the way to make peace, when it shows ever indication that he is showing us how to “hate” and make conflict?   This is more like Jesus not bringing peace, but bringing a sword!  How can you find or make peace by “hating” the ones you want to love the most?

When I consider this “hard” word from Jesus I have all kinds of emotions well up within.  One of them comes from my childhood, when my mother once lost her temper with my father.  Our home was a very peaceful place, but even good people can lose their peace and when, as I child, I heard my mother lash out in anger, the words shook me to the core.  This was only one time, and I can’t imagine what constant conflict in a home might do to the psyche and soul of a child.

There is no kind of “conflict” worse than family or domestic conflict.  Every policeman will tell you that the call they fear the most is the call to respond to a “domestic dispute”.  It seems that the atmosphere where there is suppose to be the most love, is also the place where there can be the most hate.   Today’s psychology would suggest that the presence of some conflict with another person actually shows that we really do care about the relationship and our “hate” or “anger” toward the other person reveals our real fear that connection with them could end.

While some conflict is to be expected even in caring, connected, and compassionate relationships, what Jesus speaks of takes us to a whole different level.  Why would Jesus suggest that a disciple “hate” his family and even hate his or herself, and how would this ever be a way to make peace?

Part of our problem with Jesus words comes from the breakdown that often happens when you translate from an idea from one language to another.  In this case, the word “hate” in English corresponds directly to the Greek word that stands behind this text  (miseo) also means “to hate” or worse “to detest.”  But what we have to remember when we read such troubling words, is all Bibles are human translations from other languages.  When you translate from another language some meanings do get lost.  We must also realize that Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek.  He spoke in a Semitic language where the word “hate” is not a violet word of emotion—but instead it is more a description of a way of being.  “Detach yourself” is a better translation.  The same passage in Matthew (10:37) is worded more in this direction when it says, “Whoever loves father and mother, son or daughter, more than me is not worthy of me.”  This is still hard to grasp, but not quite as bad!   Only one of my Bible’s in my Library, the MacDonald Idiomatic Translation, which translates the meaning, not the literal words, comes close to what Jesus actually said, as it translates, “If anyone comes to me and does not give me the preferential place…he cannot me by disciple, (Luk 14:26 MIT). 

You might continue to struggle with these words, until you have found yourself in some form family conflict yourself.  If you lived all your life to please your family or you’re still living your life only to hope to die of a ripe old age, without daring or doing something with your life, then you too might struggle with what Jesus means.  But if, you’ve ever dared to use the roots your family gave you to spout your own wings and sore to new heights of answering God’s call, you will immediately recognize what Jesus means.  Following Jesus can bring conflict, not just with the ones who hate us, but it can bring conflict with the ones we love.  
The other Wednesday evening Teresa shared about our own experience of answering God’s call to go to the mission field.  And even though we promised our families that we would not forget them, or would return if they needed us, (which we did in the case of the illness of my mother and me being the only child to help), still they struggled to understand how we could “leave” our families and go to live in another land.  There was a sense that in order to “hear” and “answer” what we felt God calling us to do, we had to at least “detach” ourselves from the wishes of our families.     Someone has rightly said, “Christianity is a lifestyle to follow someone headed in a direction we would not normally go.”  Following in this very different direction is bound to bring conflict.

A case and point is made by Will Willimon, when he was Chaplain of Duke University, as he tells about the day an angry father started shouting at him over the phone---saying he held the chaplain personally responsible for corrupting his daughter.  The father, evidently a very wealthy father, had sent his daughter to Duke so that she could get the best kind of education, go on to medical school and embrace the family tradition---becoming a third generation nephrologist (that’s a kidney doctor for those of us who didn’t make it into Duke).  But instead of following in her family’s footsteps, this ‘foolish girl’  was wanting to follow in someone else’s footsteps and was talking about spending three years in Haiti---all because of a “feel good” mission trip that she had experienced with Rev. Dr. Willimon.   After an awkward pause, the Duke Chaplain responded to the infuriated father this way:  “Now, just a minute, sir.  Didn’t you take her to be baptized?  Didn’t you take her to Sunday School and also to worship God when she was little?   “Well, sure we did.  But we just wanted her to be a good person.  We never intended for her to do this kind of damage.”  (From, The Last Word, pp. 108-108, as Quoted by Susan Andrews in a sermon entitled “What Family Values?” from Lectionary Homiletics, Vol. XXI, Number 5, p. 54, Aug.-Sept., 2010).

When you really follow Jesus it does not bring the end of conflict.  Sometimes, in fact most of the time, the conflict will escalates if your follow Jesus in this world.  I realize that this is not good marketing to get to be a Christian, but it is in this very different way Jesus preaches God’s gospel; not by baiting us with shallow, half-hearted, feel good words, meaning nothing, but by challenging us with words that can be offensive, hard, to our backward lives, but are also realistic, deep and life-saving.  

Jesus’ deep and demanding word about discipleship also gives us an even greater perspective of what having God’s peace means, which is exactly “not” the same kind of shallow, fleeting, or uncertain peace the world offers.   Remember again, how Jesus said that “his peace” is “not as the world gives to us”.   God’s peace is the kind of peace that is not dependant on the ceasing of conflict or the absence of struggle.  God’s peace is the kind of peace that can even bring delight and contentment in the midst of strife and struggle.   Remember the apostle Paul’s words to the Philippians, right after he said, “God’s peace surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4: 9) while he himself was suffering and struggling for sake of the gospel, and not long before he, rather ironically, lost his own life for preaching the gospel of peace?  Paul wrote to his friends in verse 11, …For I have learned to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.
 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.  (Phi 4:11-13 NRS)    

GOD’S PEACE IS ABOUT PUTTING GOD FIRST  
However you come to describe “peace” in your life, the peace that is the Fruit of God’s spirit, which flows from a God of love, who brings not happiness, but the deepest experience of joy, is also the God that only gives us peace when we also make our own “peace” with God.   How do you make “peace” with God?  This is exactly what Jesus is telling us with these very demanding words.  You only make peace with God when you put God first, ahead of everything thing else in your life.   Until you take this most important step toward peace, you will continue to struggle in a world where there really is no lasting peace at all. 

The Scripture gives us a wonderful promise of peace all the way back to the time of the prophet Isaiah, when he wrote: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you.  Because he trusts in you. (Isa. 26:3).  The peace of God, which goes beyond earthly conditions and is beyond human understanding, is a peace born out of making our mind stay on God.  Remember also what Jesus is quoted as saying in Matthew chapter 6, 25ff. , “Don’t worry about your life….then he says how we can do this, as he continues, in but seek, first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then, all these things will be added to you.   The older I get, I especially like that word, “will be added unto you” as the King James Version translates.  It reminds me that in a world that only works with the constant threat of “subtraction”, so that as you live, it gets harder and harder to hold on to things like health,  family, and friends and wealth.  In this kind of world, the only way you can find real, lasting peace, is to live by God’s way of addition.  

We can only live by “addition” when we seek, God’s kingdom and his righteousness first of all.  This is what all these words about demanding discipleship, detaching from family, counting the cost and calculating your decision is about.   When you do this, when you taking the daring and adventurous step to live by God’s addition, adding to his kingdom, not simply living to add to your own (which you’ll die trying but never do), but when keep your mind on him and you live to add to his kingdom, you’ll always have something left in the plus column and all your loses in this world cannot take away your peace.

GOD’S PEACE COMES THROUGH SURRENDERING, NOT WINNING.
But there is one more word about God’s peace which comes in Jesus’ parable about the king contemplating going to war.   Again, it sounds like the last place you’d find the word “peace”, but this is where it shows up.  Jesus says, finally, that discipleship is like a King considering whether he can win war, and if he thinks he can’t, then he will send out a delegation to negotiate conditions for peace. 

What are the conditions for peace of the human heart and for the world, unless they are surrendering and negotiating peace instead of winning and conquering each other?  None of us can really win in this world.  Even if we conquer someone, or another people, or we think we have conquered our own hearts, it isn’t long until something or someone challenges us to take us off the throne.  The great truth the gospel of Jesus has still to teach the world is that the only way to win the battle of life is to surrender ourselves to God’s perfect will and to the needs we have together, instead of giving in to the desires that lead us to strife and hate.  The way to peace is always, even if we have found ourselves in battle, is ultimately, in some for or other, a way of surrender.  Isn’t that what has been so aptly illustrated in the ending of the Iraq war.  There was a time to fight to rid the world of Sadaam Hussein, and there is still a time to fight and struggle against terrorists, but ultimately the way to peace is to surrender their world back to them, so that together we can negotiate the future together in the way of peace.   

It is the same way in the human heart.  Peace of mind and heart ultimately come when we give up our own desires and our own struggle against what must be.   There is an old story about one of the Desert Father’s who lived during the early years of Christianity and moved into the desert in an attempt to follow God without giving in temptations of the cities.  One of these spiritual leaders was getting older and a younger man watched him struggling in prayer.  “Father”, the younger man asked, what’s happening? 
            The spiritual leader responded, “I’m struggling with God much more these days.” 
            The younger man came back, “Father, do you think you can win the struggle?” 
            “No, the Father, said, “I hope to lose.”
Jesus said, only those who “lose their life will save it.”  What he means is that one day, we must all surrender to God.  The surprising thing is that we don’t have to wait to die to surrender.  We can surrender to God now, and we might just discover how much more peace we find, and how much better we are able to live, even without having to win.

Maybe, the best way to understand this “Fruit of the Spirit” we call peace, is to realize that when we find peace by surrendering ourselves to God, like we find love when we surrender ourselves to another person.  When we dedicate, commit, give and surrender ourselves to that most significant other, this loving act of “surrender” to be faithful to “one” does not make us less a person, but it makes us more---by giving love we also receive love.  Also this act of surrendering is what brings joy, completeness, fulfillment and it will bring us a  “peace of mind, heart, and soul, that gives us a sense of contentment, even in the midst of suffering or want.”  Surrender to God is like this King, surrendering so he and his nation can live.   It is not about losing ourselves so that we gain nothing, but is giving ourselves up, even letting go of relationships, taking up our cross, and calculating the real costs, so that we are taught how to find our lives, even by losing them.   When we surrender and give ourselves to God, we are not giving up ourselves, but we are finding and making peace with God and with our true selves and thus feeding our soul which already belongs to God, anyway.

Listen to this final story.   A woman went into a pet store to purchase a parrot to keep her company and give her some peace.  She took her new pet home but returned the next day to report, “that the parrot hasn’t said a word yet!”
            “Does it have a mirror?” asked the store keeper.  “Parrots like to look at themselves in the mirror.”  So she bought the mirror and returned home.
             The next day she was back, explaining that the bird still wasn’t speaking.  “What about a ladder?  The storekeeper said, “Parrots enjoy walking up and down a ladder.  So she bought a ladder and returned home again.
            Sure enough, the next day she was back with the same story---still no talk.  “Does the parrot have a swing?  Birds enjoy relaxing on a swing.”  She bought the swing and returned home.
            The next day she returned and announced that the bird had died. “I terribly sorry to hear that,” said the storekeeper, “Did he every saying anything before he died?”
            ‘Yes,” the lady said,  “It said, Don’t they sell any food down there?”  (As quoted in The Ripe Life, Abingdon Press, 1993, by  C. Thomas Hilton, p. 31-32).

            If we want to have peace in our heart, spiritually speaking, Jesus is reminding us that negotiating peace is as much about what we need to feel called to do as what we need to have stop from happening to us.   Finding peace is something you start making, when you put God first and you surrender yourself to what you know you need to do, and you take the first step to start doing it.   When you are willing to see that you can’t win the battle, and you begin to negotiate the conditions of peace, this is when you will feed your soul what it needs to find it. Amen.  


© 2010 All rights reserved Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, B.A., M.Div. D.Mi

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