Peace be with you.

By Andrew Bradstock in Sermons

Andrew Bradstock is Professor of Theology and Public Issues at the University of Otago.

Text: John 20: 21 - 'Jesus said to them again [he had already said it in v 20] "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you'".

"Peace be with you". This verse reminds us of Jesus' commitment to peace, a fundamental part of his whole ministry. It was central to his teaching before his death - now it is to be a feature of his ongoing ministry, through his disciples, after his death and resurrection.

We might recall that earlier, in John 14, he had promised to leave his peace with the disciples (v.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.'

- and in fact his whole life was concerned with bringing and preaching peace:
- from the message of the heavenly host proclaiming his birth, "peace on earth among those whom the Lord favours"
- through his messages to those who were sick - 'go in peace and be whole'
- to his injunction to love your enemies (Matt 5.44)
- to his rebuke of the sword in Gethsemane (Matt 26.52)
- he lived his whole live as he taught - make peace
Perhaps his best-known saying is: 'blessed are the peacemakers', significantly placed by Matthew at the outset of his ministry - Matt 5.9

The curious thing is that, while those outside of Christianity acknowledge Jesus' commitment to peace, seeing it as one of the most noticeable features of his life and work - within the church it has largely been ignored, or seen as an embarrassment!

- in history the church has not been slow to condone and even provoke wars
- has come up with 'just war' theory, blessed tanks, used force to pursue its aims, whether in the Crusades or subjugation of the Americas...
One has only to look at some of our hymns with their talk of armies, soldiers, battles, vowing allegiance to our country right or wrong, to see how much this thinking has permeated Christian thinking...

This is not the time or place for a run-down of the church's crimes!
- but worth noting that it was not always so:
- for first couple of centuries Christians always in trouble for refusing to conscript or take part in wars
- early church treated soldiers and all who governed by the sword much the same as brothel keepers, self-mutilators and astrologers!
- but since the Church sided with power it has been heavily implicated in much that states have done, often in the name of God
- such that now Christian groups associated with peace-making and living non-violently tend to be found on the margins of the church - Quakers, Anabaptists, Amish, and so on, even though Jesus himself was committed through his ministry to establishing 'shalom'
- which is not just an absence of conflict, papering over cracks, attending to symptoms
- but that deep and lasting wholeness, integrity, well-being and flourishing that comes from overcoming injustice and transforming lives at both the individual and the communal levels.

Jesus' commitment to bringing peace seems to me to personify the genius of the gospel that he taught and now entrusts to us.
On one level he wants us to know peace as individuals
- just as he brought peace to those who came to him who were anxious, troubled (like the disciples in our reading), grieving, sick in body or mind, so he offers us his peace
- just as he brought 'peace with God' to those weighed down by feelings of separation from God, of insecurity, worthlessness, guilt, sin, things which we all experience, so we can know forgiveness and peace with God through Christ
- just as he wanted all with whom he came into contact to experience that 'shalom' which he himself personified, so he offers us that 'life in all its fulness'.

But he also wants his peace to be known more widely
- in our families, our communities, our nation and even globally.
What else can he mean when he says 'blessed are the peace-makers' than to affirm those who build bridges where there are gulfs between people, who repair hurts, who break down barriers and walls, who seek wholeness where there is tension and conflict - and to encourage all of us to do that?

So what I mean by the genius of the gospel is that it seeks both to offer us the possibility of change at the personal level
- the chance of a fresh start, opportunity to know personally 'the peace of Christ'
but also at the public level
- as a challenge to bring change and healing to our communities and the wider world.

As one of the best public theologians around at the moment, Jim Wallis, often says, 'faith in always personal but never private'. It always has a public dimension.
I don't believe that we cannot respond as individuals to the gospel, and experience it, without also recognising that it must impact in our world as well.

This huge emphasis you get in some churches today on 'getting right with God', on 'discovering God's wonderful purpose for your life' on - God forbid - God wanting us each to be blessed with riches, prosperity, happiness, success
- in some cases is a travesty of the gospel, but even at best only goes half-way
- the gospel is not just about us, it's also about the world
- it's not just about our search for inner peace, it's about the search for peace and wholeness in the world at large.

When Jesus spoke about 'the kingdom' - the central core of his message - he wasn't thinking of something that related to the interior world, or to the 'soul', or life after death
- his preaching about the kingdom challenged his whole society
- the values that informed and underpinned that society, its relationships (how they are structured)
- the assumptions people had about what - and who - is important or significant
- the nature of power and authority - even the economy (overthrowing moneychangers)
- and stressed - and showed - the overriding power of love
- what it means to serve others, going himself even to the very extreme of laying down his life so that others might live.

The emphasis on this world is important - the 'individualistic' gospel is often about getting us ready for the next life - and while of course we need to consider eternity, salvation in the Bible (or according to the Creeds) is not to some far off world but here - in a new heaven and a new earth - the resurrection powerfully reminds us of that.

The challenge of my job is to highlight this 'public' dimension of our faith
- to show its relevance to current debates and issues
- how the kingdom impacts on our society
So for example, the challenge related to our discussion this morning might be:
What does Jesus' call to us to be peacemakers mean today
- where we see conflict among families and neighbourhoods
- wars both within and between countries
- where our world seems increasingly to be a theatre for international terrorism
- when we constantly hear fears of nuclear weapons getting into the wrong hands
- a world in which 35 people are killed every hour as a result of warfare, 90% of them civilians and 50% children.
How do we even begin to think about building shalom in such a context?

Well, whether we start locally or go wider, just like Jesus did, it might require asking very different questions and proposing very different responses from those we generally hear:

- suggesting that more emphasis is placed on treating the causes of conflict, the circumstances that might give rise to conflict, rather than just the symptoms (Jesus was never just interested in symptoms)
- in the case of our communities, seeking to bring people together to heal situations and resolve conflict, to seek restoration rather than retaliation (Zacchaeus a powerful example)
- in the case of the international situation, the prevalence of terror, to look perhaps - as some influential theologians in the US are arguing -at spending more on development, or improving people's stake in their society, instead of more troops;
- suggesting that the Christian categories of forgiveness and metanoia have as much to say to governments as to individuals - urge governments to take risk. As Tutu says, could the consequences be any worse that when we adopt the usual response?
- suggesting that the intrinsic worth of every individual, as someone created in the image of God, is treated seriously.

And as our reading from Acts reminds us, asking these sort of questions, taking the gospel seriously, might mean that sometimes our commitment to 'peace-making' puts us in difficult situations with respect to the 'authorities': when faced with the challenge to go against what the gospel calls us to do 'we must obey God rather than any human authority'

We have just looked very briefly at one way in which 'theology' can contribute to debates in the public square
- it also has much to say about issues such as the wealth and poverty, the environment, law and order, public spending, health and wellbeing - so much.
Scripture gives powerful, suggestive insights into God's concern for us as societies.

I'm sure I'm preaching to the converted this morning - you already have a strong sense of the gospel's call to all of us to pursue justice and peace
- but it's sometimes good to remind ourselves of the challenge at the heart of the gospel
- of the message we have that can bring hope where so often there is no hope - and real hope,
not pie-in-the-sky hope.

Because we must not forget the second half of our text "as the Father has sent me so I send you".
We have a responsibility, having experienced the peace that Christ brings, to go and take that peace into the wider world, starting first, as the disciples themselves did, where we are.

-- Andrew Bradstock.

Sermon preached at Mornington Church on April 11, 2010.