Peace: What are we talking about?
from (Rev Dr) Lorraine Parkinson
I don’t know about you, but I’ve almost forgotten what a totally peaceful Planet Earth is like. If I ever knew! We should try it some time. Trouble is, you get two groups of human beings with different opinions together, and swoosh – peace is deleted. We all know what has happened in the Ukraine and Israel during these past weeks. I don’t need to spell that out.
Humans have always talked about peace. We’re very good at talking about peace. We’ve always known perfectly well that a peaceful world is a good thing. But what kind of peace have we been talking about? In the century before Jesus was born, the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus prided himself on creating what he called the Pax Romana: the Peace of Rome.
It was a time of great economic development. People got on with building and growing food and trading and travelling all around the Empire. It stretched from England in the North to Morocco in the South and Persia/Iraq in the East. The Pax Romana lasted from 27 BCE to 180CE. Sounds great, but what kind of peace was it?
Well, it was the kind of peace that features riots, rebellions and insurrections. I wonder why. It stretched across the lifetime of the Palestinian Jew, Jesus of Nazareth. His country, which the Romans called Palestine, was part of the Pax Romana. So how was that created? Was it through diplomatic agreements? Treaties? Political summits? Leaders of nations all wearing different coloured togas? Meetings of RAPE? You know: Roman Association of Politics and Economics. That one.
You know very well that the Pax Romana came about through fear and violence. People across the Empire knew that Roman peace meant living in fear of invading and occupying armies. It meant submitting to Roman leadership that just took over your country. Roman peace followed invasion, conquest and occupation. It was peace through violence. Unfortunately, Caesar Augustus would find parts of today’s world very familiar.
So if it’s not a kind of Roman peace that we’re talking about on the second Sunday of Advent, is it a more ‘peaceful’ peace? Is it the kind of peace that many of us go to church to find?
The English novelist Rita Snowden wrote a book about her experience on a walking tour in the south of England. One Sunday she and a friend saw an ancient and lovely village church, and decided to go to worship there. She describes the service:
It was all very simple. There couldn’t have been more than twenty people besides the Vicar and the organist and ourselves. The little choir of three led the congregation out on dignified adventures in song, but all with such gentleness that, but for one soprano and an uncertain bass four seats away from us, the old church was not greatly disturbed. Hymn and psalm and prayer, and the quiet murmuring voice of the Vicar, tended to take my thoughts out of the windows into the morning sunlight and over the fields and far away.
The pity is, it was all so harmless, so gentle, so proper. There was nothing about it, save perhaps the beautiful language in which the prayers were couched and the reading of Mark’s Gospel to remind one of that Young Man who strode the countryside and talked with the country people of Galilee, in burning words.
Sometimes the church can be so peaceful, and harmless, that it simply wouldn’t be worth the bother of crucifying it! So what kind of peace does the church give you? Does it give you peace that cuts you off from the world, or does it lead you to the kind of peace that helps you to live in the world?
We’ve consulted Mark’s gospel this afternoon for guidance about that. It begins with a couple of quotes from scripture. It says: “As it is written in the prophet Isaiah”, and then it quotes from the Book of Malachi. It does: “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way.” Ah. We then get to Isaiah: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
So who is this messenger who will be crying in the wilderness? Mark says it’s John the Baptist. Malachi makes it clear that the messenger is the prophet Elijah, returned from heaven, of course. So it’s not surprising that John looks, sounds and acts like – Elijah. But there’s a slight hitch there, when you consider that in Malachi, when Elijah comes back, he’ll be pointing to the arrival of God, on the “great and terrible Day of the Lord”. There’s no mention of a Messiah.
But Mark has John the Baptist pointing to someone coming after him, who will baptise the people with the Holy Spirit. So this is Mark identifying Jesus as the Messiah.
The second biblical quote in Mark is from Isaiah chapter 40. We read the first 11 verses. On the second Sunday of Advent, the day designated to represent peace, this reading carries imagery of God the tender shepherd, feeding the sheep, carrying the weaker lambs and leading pregnant ewes to safety. This is what it will be like for Israel, when God appears.
Having been invaded by the Assyrians and taken into exile, the people will now return to Jerusalem. Their needs will be taken care of and they will be comforted. Presumably that means they will live in peace. No more foreign invaders.
All of that is summed up in the second last chapter of Isaiah. There will be no more crying in Jerusalem, babies will live to old age. Houses people build will not be taken away, and no one will destroy or steal their crops of food. But that’s just for Israel. Their enemies? They’ll be destroyed. So when it’s all said and done, it’s another example of peace through violence.
And yet all of that is preceded by the description of a coming king of Israel in Isaiah chapter 9. There we hear of someone yet to be born. He will be called “Wonderful Counsellor-Mighty God-Everlasting Father-Prince of peace”. Yes, it’s all one name. It’s the last bit of the name that Christians tend to focus on around Advent: Prince of Peace.
In the original language of Isaiah it is Sar Shalom. That means someone who is making, or doing, shalom. Jesus would have used that term in what we call the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” In other words, blessed are people who are making shalom. Now Shalom does mean the absence of conflict. It also means good health, prosperity and completeness, or wholeness. This is what you wish someone when you use Shalom as a greeting – hello or goodbye.
So the prince of peace in Isaiah 9, is the Sar Shalom, who is going to bring about much more than the absence of conflict, or violence. Verse 7 identifies him. He will be a righteous king, on the throne of the house of David. Of course Christians see this verse as prediction of the coming of Messiah Jesus.
But has Jesus’ vision of the world – defined by the making and continued presence of Shalom – actually eventuated? Has his vision for the world come true? What about absence of conflict? Where relationships between nations are concerned, history tells us that treaties made following war very often set up the conditions for the next war. So is there any point in hoping for a world at peace? Well, don’t give up!
Let me take you back to that Beatitude. Jesus says, Those who get to live in the kingdom of God on earth, are blessed. They are the makers of peace. They’ve done something about creating peace. They’ve removed peace-disturbing features from the world around them. And chief among the disturbers of peace – always – is the absence of forgiveness.
Even where there’s surrender and peace treaties, if the opponents cannot forgive each other, war will raise its head again. The unforgiving, deeply humiliating Treaty of Versailles imposed on the German nation, ensured that World War I led directly to World War II.
So, here’s a good question. After World War II, why didn’t Germany and Japan rise up again to wage war? That did not happen because of remarkable acts of forgiveness of enemies. And yes. We’re hearing words of Jesus, right there. In the case of Germany, the Marshall Plan ensured that the West German people were fed and resourced to rebuild their society. That prevented the kind of bitter resentment that followed World War I. The people of East Germany were locked down under the harsh occupation of the Soviet Union. It was their non-violent resistance to the Soviets and the enlightened leadership of Mikhail Gorbechov that eventually tore down that wall of separation between East and West.
The case of Japan is very interesting. When Japan surrendered, the supreme allied commander was the redoubtable General Douglas (I shall return) MacArthur. He insisted that the occupation of Japan be in accord with both democratic and Christian principles. His aim was that Japan not become a pariah – an humiliated outcast from the world, looking for revenge against the Allies. MacArthur said, “All previous occupiers everywhere had failed, because of their harsh, unforgiving policies.”
Among many reforms he put in place, the system of wealthy land owners and tenant farmers was abolished, trade unions were established to bring justice for workers, and the Japanese women were given the vote. Japan became a much more inclusive, egalitarian society. And Australia and the UK helped to put these provisions into place.
So – through the help of none other than the very people who’d been subjected to their brutality and aggression, Japan and Germany were accepted back into the family of nations. 78 peaceful years have now gone by. Germany and Japan are the staunch allies of those who had the wisdom to bring to it forgiving healing – healing that brought inclusion and peace.
Jesus’ teaching is all intertwined. Every one single part of it leads to all the rest. It does! Pick one and try investigating that some time. His teachings are all connected because together they represent wholeness and completeness for human life – like Shalom.
Finally, the prayer Jesus gave us. All our lives we’ve repeated those familiar words, haven’t we? But how much notice do we really take of what we’re saying? Jesus actually gave us the ‘kingdom’ prayer. Your kingdom come! Your will be done on earth, as in heaven! Do we even realise we’re saying that?
But most importantly, in asking forgiveness for ourselves, do we really intend to forgive others – “as we forgive those who sin against us”? The most accurate translation of those words, is “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”. Our debtors are people who owe us. Even people who owe us big time!
Each one of Jesus’ teachings is linked to all the rest. Right there is one of many links between the Lord’s Prayer and the Beatitudes; in this case the one about the peacemakers. They are the forgiving people who can remove obstacles in the way of peace – between individuals and between nations. What was it that Jesus said about loving your enemies?
He continually shows us that God is love. And the primary characteristic of love is forgiveness. Jesus is saying that we who forgive people who hurt us, have within ourselves a characteristic of God. That’s why we can be called children of God – makers of peace, makers of Shalom.
As children of God, sisters and brothers of Jesus, we can truly welcome into this world, the Prince of Peace.
oOo