Midweek Faith Lift
December 11, 2024
Where is Peace?
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
December 2, 2024
As a restaurant owner, Jerry did something you are never supposed to do. After a busy weekend, he left the back door open to receive deliveries. Instead, he got three robbers ready to take the weekend receipts. While he tried to open the safe, one of the men panicked and shot him. After 18 hours of surgery, the procedure was deemed a success and Jerry would recover. When asked if he was scared just before going into surgery, he said, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the operating room and I saw the faces of the doctors and nurses, that’s when I got scared. I could see that they believed I was going to die. So I knew I needed to change the atmosphere in the room. Just before I went under the anesthesia, a nurse asked me if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them the most important thing: 'I'm choosing to live. Operate on me in that spirit.'"
"Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is
in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being."
- Mahatma Gandhi
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
Our theme today for this second Sunday in Advent is Peace, and the opening story illustrates the human capacity to hold both peace and not-peace. We are surely living in an age where we are holding both peace and not-peace particularly in race consciousness. Jerry, the hero of our opening story had an incredible presence of holding peace in the face of the possibility of his death such that he was able to be fully present to his circumstances, realize what the doctors needed and change the energy of the room. That story, while funny, is also inspiring and instructive.
Let’s take a moment to really explore what happened to Jerry and how he reacted to this horrible turn of events. His responses were to hold both peace and not-peace. Clearly, as a gunshot victim of a robbery gone wrong, he is the middle of not-peace in a huge way. His responses as the story tells us were not focused on revenge, on getting the robbers, even as their actions threatened his very life. We know from the story that Jerry survived, and what he is reflecting on is how that happened, not on what happened to him that put his life in danger. While Gandhi does not exactly describe how non-violence is “an inseparable part of our being,” it seems to me that Jerry certainly lived that truth in this experience.
His sense of humor and capacity to be fully present to the reality of his condition was an exquisite example of holding both peace and not-peace. He had the presence of mind to realize that the paramedics were claiming life and the medical staff in the operating room had a different, less optimistic response, more one of not-peace, but worry. And to think so quickly to tell the medical staff that he had an allergy to bullets well, that to me is a moment of pure inspiration- a God moment for sure! It got them focused on him even as they were laughing, a sure-fire way to clarity and peace.
That is our challenge, dear friends, during this time of intense not-peace, how to gain clarity and the holy resilience to hold both peace and not-peace. For, I do believe with Dr. King, that the bright daybreak of peace is possible, but we have to first come to grips with what gets in the way of that dawn breaking for us all. We have to understand that as humans, all of us hold the energy of not-peace and we are conditioned to do that in our culture. The energy of not-peace is in the foreground right now, in a big way, so we are called to listen and learn from Jerry how to hold humor, presence, clear focus and the intense desire for what is life-giving, life-affirming, for that will carry the energy of peace and healing.
Gandhi said, “There is no path to peace; peace is the path.” Jesus said, 27 Peace I leave with you; 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. John 14:27 (NRSV-UE) Gandhi and Jesus are telling us the same thing, do not seek peace as the world or race consciousness says to do. Instead, calm your fears, and find the strength and capacity to hold space for both peace and not-peace. When you are able to do that, you are free to choose the path of peace.
What is it that frees us to find and walk the path of peace with hearts untroubled and unafraid? How to we do that? When we are able to navigate conflict without holding grudges and harbor resentments, then we will be skilled and know how to walk the path of peace. How do we do that? How do we show up like Jerry? I am fairly sure that at some point, Jerry did have the more typical human responses of anger and perhaps a desire for revenge and the need to bring the robbers to justice. What is noteworthy however, is that in the moment of greatest need, when his life as at greatest risk, that is not where his attention went. His focus was on life and humor, not hate or vengeance.
We all have the negative emotions, the hurt, the anger and resentments that this human existence brings. We are not going to escape our human experiences and the human responses that we have to the hurtful, crazy and sometimes lethal behavior of our fellow humans. How do we stay openhearted, pure energy, hopeful, peaceful in the midst of that? It for sure takes practice to hold a place of peace and keep a sense of humor. Well, as Jesus told us, his peace is not as the world gives it. What Jesus speaks of frequently throughout his ministry is forgiveness. His message over and over and over again is that of mercy and forgiveness, something that God extends to us on a constant ongoing basis.
In his Sept. 13, 2024 Blog, “Receiving God’s Mercy”, Richard Rohr writes:
Mercy is a way to describe the mystery of forgiveness. More than a description of something God does now and then, it is who God is. According to Jesus, “Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13, 12:7). The word is hesed in Hebrew, and it means steadfast, enduring, unbreakable love. Sometimes the word is translated as “lovingkindness” or “covenant love.”
God has made a covenant with all of creation (see Genesis 9:8–17) and will never break the divine side of the covenant. It’s only broken from our side. God’s love is steadfast. It is written in the divine image within us. It’s given; it sits there. We are the ones who clutch at our sins and beat ourselves instead of surrendering to divine mercy.
And the truth is friends, when we don’t allow mercy and forgiveness for ourselves; it is virtually impossible to allow it for others who may have offended us. When we withhold forgiveness, we are engulfed in a kind of pride that is a dead end, it is not the humility of a God who pours out endless love and mercy no matter what we have said or done or failed to do. Jesus does not tell us not to feel our negative emotions; he just guides us clearly to a path that doesn’t let us stay there. That is our challenge, to feel them, express them and then move out of those emotions, memories, etc. into a place of mercy and forgiveness. All spiritual paths ask us to do this, acknowledge the hurts, the wrongs, the stupidity and shortsightedness and then step into mercy and forgiveness.
Learning to hold both not-peace and peace is a practice and process, it is not a one and done. We will always be challenged as long as we are alive; that is our human condition. We learn to observe our not-peace reactions and to be present to them as fully as we are present to all other emotions and reactions we experience. When we cultivate compassion, a capacity to HEAR, and truly listen and be fully present in each now moment, we will begin to live in peace, which is the only place we can be in peace, within our own hearts. Peace on earth is not a cessation of war; it happens one heart at a time, one mind at a time.
Richard Rohr says it like this:
If Jesus is the revelation of what is going on inside the eternal God, which is the core of Christian faith, then we are forced to conclude that God is very humble. That is amazing, and difficult to imagine. This God seems never to hold rightful claims against us. Abdicating what we thought was the proper role of God; this God “has thrust all my sins behind God’s back” (see Isaiah 38:17).
We do not attain anything by our own holiness but by ten thousand surrenders to mercy. A lifetime of received forgiveness allows us to become mercy. Mercy becomes our energy, our meaning. Perhaps we are finally enlightened and free when we can both receive mercy and give it away—without payment or punishment.
May it be so….
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb