Discovering Peace
sermon preached by Rev. Brian Frederick-Gray
on January 12, 2020
First Reading: Proverbs 3:13-18
Second Reading: Excerpts from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech
Coffee Talk
Once upon a time, not so long ago, a young pastor and their mentor in the faith sat down together at a coffee shop. The young pastor, at the very beginning of their professional career and the mentor a distinguished minister who had served churches big and small for decades, and was now nearing retirement.
And they did what pastors do whenever they get together: They talked church; and tried not to gossip too much.
Mostly the young pastor listened. Listened as their mentor talked over decades of local, congregational ministry. The mentor talked about the highs and the lows and all of the ordinary, everyday mundane middles. Talked about presiding at funerals for beloved church leaders that will break your heart and weddings in church member backyards that will sent your soul soaring. Talked about marching in the street for justice and counseling a couple after the loss of a child. Talked about the loneliness and self-doubt that sets in when you are staring a blank computer screen desperate for inspiration to strike for sermon after sermon after sermon. And talked about the joy of watching one from your own flock discern a call to ministry themselves, do all of the preparation necessary, and now seeing them standing at the very beginning of this self same journey.
With that the conversation started to wind down (the coffee cups had long since run dry) and so the young pastor asked one last question of their mentor. “What gives you the strength to do this? To follow a call that is surrounded with uncertainty. And to do it with such grace and care. How do you do it?” To which the mentor responded, “I believe in a peace that surpasses all human understanding. I just hope that one day we’ll catch up to it. That’s what the work is all about.”
Defining Peace
“I believe in a peace that surpasses all human understanding. I just hope that one day we’ll catch up to it. That’s what the work is all about.” Alright, let’s talk about peace, shall we.
We have a hard time defining peace. Too often we end up trying to describe in the negation — describing what it is not. Someone asks, “What is peace?” and all we can manage to say is, “Well, it’s the opposite of war.” And listen, that is important right now. Standing up to decry fear mongering and saber-rattling that makes war seem inevitable is important. We are coming off a scary few days in that regard. I hope that you will join me in opposing war, in the name of peace.
But when peace is defined as merely the opposite of war, in this sense peace is only found via negation. It is a limited understanding whereby peace becomes merely that empty space that is left when war isn’t happening. Which is…troubling. Shortsighted. Extremely limited. And not terribly helpful.
It is as if someone asked you, “What is a dog?” and all you could say back to them is “Well, it is not a cat.”
Or if someone inquired of you, “What’s it feel like to be in love?” and all you could muster up is “It’s only the opposite of hate!”
We get ourselves in trouble when we can only define something by what it is not. And I daresay that is a trouble that progressives get ourselves into a lot. “What do you believe?” Well, let me tell you what I don’t believe in and leave it that! “What do you stand for?” Ya know, I’d rather rail about what I’m against.
To define peace as merely the absence of war or violence or animosity is to say that those things are the standard, the default, the given order of things. Which would seem to indicate that peace has no place in the midst of the fight, in the midst of the struggle, in the process of overcoming oppression. Which is ridiculous!
It is why the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. begins his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech the way that he does — with a question. “I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement…which has not won the very peace…which is the essence of [the prize.]”
And it is why he proceeds to expand beyond that conventional, shallow, worldly mis-understanding of peace to help us discover what true peace is all about. True peace is aspirational, inspirational, and the very driver of our best efforts.
“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time – the need for [humanity] to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.” Oh, that is important. Peace isn’t just a lack of war, rather peace is an entire way of life that overcomes the very ways of violence, injustice, oppression, and division without forcing us to become that which we stand firmly against. As Dr. King was rather fond of reminding us, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. And hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” “Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts…Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace.”
We are getting closer to discovering a stand-alone definition of peace. The esteemed theologian of my faith tradition, Disciples of Christ theologian extraordinaire Dr. Clark Williamson dared to define the good news of the gospel as “a way of blessing and a way of life.” I think that is beautiful. The good news of the gospel is more than a simple declaration, more than a catchecism that needs to be memorized, more than any restrictively limiting creedal formulation. The good news of the gospel is “a way of blessing and a way of life.” And I think of peace in exactly the same way. Peace is a blessing to be shared. A gift to be nurtured, a precious benefit to be cultivated by giving it away. Peace is a way of life, not simply a blank nothingness where war once was waged, but rather a way of living into the very fullness of life where compassion, grace, and forgiveness thrive; where we are free to be our own truest selves and crucially where others are empowered to do the same; where we gather and are made whole through the transformative power of a beloved community and a calling that is bigger than ourselves.
Why, it is just like the poet at the heart of the book of Proverbs has recorded in our scripture reading this morning, in describing the grace and power of the gift of wisdom. According to the Proverbs poet this embodied notion of Wisdom, this Wisdom Woman as she is known, has been a part of God since the very dawning of creation. What’s more, Wisdom is more precious than gold or silver.
She is a tree of life who gifts us with understanding. Her ways are pleasant and happy are those who find her! Most importantly, her paths are peace. Peace isn’t just an absence or a negation. Peace is the path forward for those who have found Wisdom. Peace is a gift of wisdom, a blessing that inspires us, a way of life that calls us beyond the limits of our moral imaginations and the restrictions of our limited understandings to the fullness of life.
Hercules and “Alright”
So I have a puppy. Literally as I wrote this line into my sermon manuscript Hercules (our 14-month old, black and tan Cavalier King Charles puppy) was asleep next to me on the long bench at our kitchen table. I wish that he was always this peaceful.
He is a great dog and has brought so much love to our family, but I have come to realize that a puppy is a great way to detect that you have a verbal crutch, a previously unrecognized tick in your speech patterns. Let me explain.
For a year now we’ve been working hard to teach our puppy all the right words — sit, come, leave it — all the while rewarding the appropriate, corresponding behavior. It takes a lot of patience, and frankly an awful lot of dog treats.
Which made it all the more remarkable when at a point of transition in our day a while back, without even thinking about it, I said out loud, “Alright…” and the dog immediately popped up from a nap and raced to my side. And then he kept doing it. Anytime I said the word “alright” whether I was addressing him or not. Evidently, my entire adult life I have said, “Alright” at moments of transition…and no one has ever pointed it out to me. But Hercules my 14-month old black and tan Cavalier King Charles puppy…he got it immediately. And now that I’m aware of my verbal tick, I notice it all the time! Not just because every time I say it the dog races from the other side of the apartment to be by my side!
That is the way that the word “peace” works in the Biblical witness. Once you have the ears to listen for it, you discover the word over and over and over again, leaving you with a fuller, richer, and dare I say more faithful understanding of peace.
Alright, the word “peace” appears in the Bible 330 times — 234 times in the Old Testament and 96 more times in the New Testament.
Just for comparison’s sake that is more appearances in the Bible for the word “peace” than for grace (129 times), salvation (141 times), forgiveness (27 times), or redemption (29 times) all added together!
Listen, I get that Biblical exploration and interpretation needs to be about more than a simple word search. What I need you to hear is that peace is an integral and consistent part of the Biblical narrative. That is particularly true in the teachings of Jesus, where you find that time and time and time again at moments of transition he has a particular turn of phrase that he uses over and over and over again. And no, he does not say “Alright…” That is my thing. Don’t put it on Jesus. No, at those crucial moments of import and transition Jesus consistently says, “Go in peace.”
Look, “Go in peace,” is not the same as “Go and be the opposite of war.” It doesn’t make any sense as a negation. “Go in peace” is a blessing. It is a gift. It is a tangible something to take with you, keep you rooted in the promise, pass along to others, and watch them thrive too. It is something given away with the expectation that it is to be put to use in the wider world.
It is inspiration in the truest sense of the word — may the Spirit of all Things Holy and Good fill you and use you; Go in peace.
MLK and Peace
Which brings us all the way back to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his witness for peace. Nonviolence was more than just a savvy media strategy for the Civil Rights Movement. It wasn’t just something you did for the cameras so that the rest of the country could recoil at images of the violence inherent in the systems of segregation and oppression. Nonviolence was a moral imperative, rooted in an understanding of peace as a way of blessing and a way of life. You cannot topple an unjust system by working in ways that are just as unjust, corrupt, and destructive. You have to embody something more, live the fullness of the dream, be a living parable to illustrate the power and possibility of peace — not just in your own life, but for everyone. It is what Dr. King meant when he concluded his remarks by saying, “This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom.”
Peace is not just an absence of war and struggle, because in the midst of the struggle it is peace that inspires us and empowers us to be a living parable testifying to what is possible.
Peace is a gift of wisdom, a blessing that inspires us, a way of life that calls us beyond the limits of our moral imaginations and the restrictions of our narrow understandings to the fullness of life. Peace is more than just the absence of war. Peace is the very fullness of life. It is a way of blessing, and a way of life. It is a vision for the promise of the future. A living parable that we embody in the face of oppression and injustice. Peace is a precious gift — more precious than gold or silver or diamonds — not to be hidden away and protected at all costs but rather to be shared in abundance that everyone might know the promises of grace and compassion, care and fulfillment. “I believe in a peace that surpasses all human understanding. I hope that one day we’ll catch up to it. That’s what the work is all about.” May it be so for you, for me, and for all of creation. Amen.