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No such thing as false peace
Date: 19th August 2007
Preacher: The Revd Canon Jeremy Fletcher
For most of the year at the Minster there is a chaplain on duty during the day. The job is to lead our prayers on the hour, to be involved in the lunchtime communion, and for the rest of the time to be obviously around, looking like a Christian minister, and then to see what happens. I did it last week, and described it to someone as being ‘benevolently available’. Even though you are obviously a cleric you still get asked where the toilets are, but there are brilliant conversations too.
At the end of the day, after Evensong, I was still looking benevolently available and feeling fairly pleased that I had been something of a force for good, and perhaps brought the kingdom of God near to people, when a man sought me out, fixed his features into something fairly fierce, and said “A clergyman. You’re just a wolf in sheep’s clothing”. What to say in reply? I was in such a state of benevolence that, though taken aback I smiled and said something about trying my best and hoped he had a nice day. He went off to have what I presume was a fierce look round the Minster.
What might I have said if I had time to think? What would Jesus have said? Something tells me that if that man had met the Jesus of Luke chapter 12 he would have had a splendidly robust if not violent reply. Luke 12 is all about conflict and decision, about crisis and judgement. And Jesus is nothing like “benevolently available” here. He is at the centre of the crisis. He calls religious leaders, and then all the people, ‘hypocrites’. He talks about judgement and sudden death. He puts his followers on their guard, lest the Son of Man come at an unexpected time, like a thief. And in our Gospel reading he says something remarkable: “Do you think that I have come to bring peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division”. I think my ‘wolf in sheep’s’ clothing man would have had the full half hour argument with that Jesus.
It is all the more remarkable because Luke has Jesus saying the word ‘peace’ – a direct translation of the Jewish word shalom – more than any other of the Gospel writers. Time and again Jesus blesses people by telling them to “go in peace”. He tells his disciples to pronounce peace when they enter a house. Up to now, the answer to Jesus’s question ‘have I come to bring peace’ is ‘yes, yes and yes’. So why is it ‘no’ here? Why does Jesus stir things up, confront his enemies, spoil for fight and stand at the centre of a crisis? It does not look or sound too peaceful.
It is because, as one commentator has put it, “there is no such thing as false peace”. In my example, I didn’t follow up on the man’s accusation because it was time to finish the day. So I preserved the semblance of peace by not arguing, but there is now no peace between us, and the world is still a broken and wounded place because of it. He may well have a real axe to grind. I prevented him from swinging it at me, but he’s still carrying it: there is no violence, but no peace either. Clearly peace can simply mean the absence of fighting, but the concept of eirene in Greek, and shalom in Hebrew is much deeper than that. Peace is about creating the conditions for prosperity and justice in society, and that itself is sustained by right relationships between people and the healing and wholeness of individuals. Shalom is a state of blessing for the individual which pours out into the wholeness and righteousness of a community and a nation.
What Jesus does in Luke 12 is to make clear that such peace has to be fought for and lived out. It does not consist of material well being if that means that others have nothing. It does not consist in the oppression of the many by the few. It does not consist of the dominance of the faithful by a religious hierarchy driven by power rather than service. True peace will be found by the servant shown to be faithful at the unexpected return of the Master. True peace will be found by the one who proclaims Christ in time of persecution. True peace will be found by the one who submits to Christ and turns away from false hopes and false Gods.
Jesus faces his hearers then, and his hearers now, with that choice. In what, in whom, will you find your peace? If it is in Jesus Christ, then you are going against the trend in such a way that what happens around you will be anything other than peaceful. From the intellectual outpourings of A C Grayling and Richard Dawkins, to the mocking that takes place in the playground to the silent ridicule of the workplace, people who follow Christ will find that not all agree, and some are violently opposed. In other settings father and son are divided because one faith will attack another, and Christians find themselves not only ostracised but physically attacked. No ‘peace’ here. That is what Jesus is talking about.
True peace will finally be found when the kingdom of heaven is fully revealed. In being welcomed and healed by Christ we find that peace and are given that wholeness. But that may well be the cause of division in our present life, and Jesus almost says that if we are not the cause of controversy we are probably not following him closely. That does not mean to say, I think, that causing a scandal is a proof that we are proclaiming the Gospel. Not everything done in the name of God is an agent of the shalom of Christ: sometimes Christians do ridiculous and anti-Christian things, and are rightly challenged. But we should be unafraid at causing division if our scandal is the Gospel. Such division, and genuine and humble Christian presence in the situation, may well lead to true peace.
Reading about the Anglican Communion in recent weeks made that verse about bringing division resonate all the more. Look up the Anglican Church in the newspapers and it’s our own arguments which predominate. It may be that some of our divisions arise out of different ways of being faithful to the same gospel, but I would say that there is scandal enough in the Gospel of Christ without us fighting among ourselves. We are more famous for the fight than the message at the moment. Perhaps we should make our priority something about disagreeing in such a way that we stay together: it is quite a witness when opponents worship together and take communion together. By proclaiming that what unites us is the Christ who has made true peace will put our divisions in their true context, and offer a message of hope to a world which has fighting enough of its own.
We are called to bring peace, and bless people with the peace of Christ. But to receive the peace of Christ can bring dismay and division if it means discarding some ways of living and thinking. We are not here then just to be benevolent and peaceful. I might have done that man who didn’t like the clergy more good if I’d challenged him as to why he said it. There might have been more tension, but perhaps a resolution too. Another time. Till then, may we be peace bringers, peace proclaimers, and peace winners, for the sake of the prince of peace. Amen.