Peace I Give
“Peace I Give”
Acts 16:9-15, John 14:23-29
Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year C, May 22, 2022 RM2
Pastor Andy Kennaly, First Presbyterian Church, Sandpoint, Idaho
God is the infinity of peace, the infinity of peace. Not only peace in terms of non-violence, or some sort of political agreement, but peace in terms of wholeness, completeness, a soul that has confidence and rest. God is the infinity of peace. Whatever form peace takes in the world, whether it’s a political truce, or even a sense of satisfaction; the world’s peace is finite and our thoughts about it, or experiences of it, are limited. God’s peace, different that the worlds, has no limit and no end. This is the peace Jesus the Christ shares as gift.
In John’s reading this morning, Jesus calls us to base our lives on this peace. He puts into words what’s at the heart of his actions, of God’s desire and intention. Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”
We also read from Acts, and we see the Apostle Paul takes action. He has a vision during the night, a vision from God that changes his life and redirects his path. He goes from Troas, which is today on the western coast of Turkey, and travels to what is today Greece, the region called Macedonia, to Philippi, which was a Roman colony. It took three days of constant travel to get there.
It was on the Sabbath Paul and his group of companions go outside the gate, by the river, and they sit down and speak with the women, one of whom is named in this passage, Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, a woman with financial resources. She “opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.” Lydia and her household are baptized, and she talks Paul’s group into staying at her house.
These two passages have very active dynamics and an edginess, an underlying current. Jesus and the disciples on the verge of his arrest, like they’ve found temporary safety in this house. And with Paul, it is on the Sabbath he speaks with women, Gentiles, outside the gate, by the river, and later stays at the home of Lydia. These are not normal actions for that culture. It’s from this marginal place, this place on the margins, that God speaks to Lydia’s heart, and, surprisingly, even on the margin, God is already at work in her life.
Jesus also talks about heart, saying, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” “Do not let” means we’re invited to action and activity, but this does not promise to be easy. Christian life is not a spectator sport, nor a passive event or identity. Our hearts will be troubled, we will have fear. But we’re called to “not let” these define our reality, “not let” fear or troubled hearts have the last word. Our experience of living in Christ is an invitation to another dynamic: relationship.
Paul and the women sit down and speak with each other, and they cross boundaries to do this. This is an image of neighborhood, of community, of relationship in action as people come together, share with one another, expand perspectives and gain encouragement. Going it alone is not part of this equation. Both passages show groups interacting.
The reading from John is one part of a larger narrative called “the Farewell Discourse” in which Jesus gathers the disciples, washes their feet, shares a meal, prays with them and, on the verge of his death, teaches them that “God’s love will remain present in the world and the community’s life will be shaped by that love.” (NRSV, The New Interpreter’s Study Bible, Abingdon Press, footnotes, NT pg. 1934).
This message of community and love broadening the heart is countercultural. It seems most people get trapped by siloed thinking, they only accept the media and churches that simply tell them what they want to hear to validate their worldview. Culture wars are raging, and society wrestles with one issue after another. Even our congregation is facing numeric decline, much like the larger church, even as we continue to deepen spiritually and grow in the depths of faith.
I remember 28 years ago as a new pastor going to presbytery meetings and sitting in workshops that had titles like, “Who Moved My Cheese?” We were talking about church decline in a rapidly changing cultural context. That trend has not reversed, and the effects are more evident. Church decline has been going on for a long time, some say even as far back as the 1920’s, definitely since the 1960’s. Older, more established churches with traditional ways of doing things don’t tend to fair very well, nor do progressive churches that cater to post-modern sensibilities.
So we’re in good company as we come alongside Paul by the river and Jesus teaching the disciples. The church has left a period of cultural support and the “if you build it they will come” kind of assumptions. We are in a more apostolic period, like those disciples hearing Jesus teach them that the Holy Spirit will reveal something new to them, but what it is, hasn’t been shown quite yet. This is like uncertainty, decline, losses, mixed with the inspiration of faith, love, joy, community, and other aspects of being church. In these struggles, we hear the words of Jesus: “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.”
Deep down, there is a sense of wholeness, even rightness, of and in one’s very being. A key ingredient to life-changing transformation is humility. Like Lydia, to open our hearts to allow God room to work, to invite the Divine to do to us what we cannot do ourselves. If we could do spiritual renewal ourselves, this would be finite, limited. Peace beyond understanding is a divine, spiritual gift rooted in the dynamic promise of God’s love in Christ. God’s peace has a sense of harmony, a sense of contentment, even more, fulfillment. This peace is a gift of God, something we sense most keenly when we give over to God a certain amount of control of all the things that we worry about as we recognize there are limits to what we can achieve on our own, and sensing those limits, we place ourselves, our loved ones, our fortunes, and our future in God’s hands.
Centering Prayer and other spiritual disciplines help us cultivate a contemplative life, one that helps dive into the depths of this grace, into the depths of God’s Presence. The gift of Peace beyond understanding is there to teach us, lead us, and help us live in loving ways deeper than thought because God’s Holy Spirit is with us in loving ways, just as Jesus says the Spirit, our Advocate, will be.
The goodness of God affects everything, from a cosmic level to our own lives because everything’s connected, and God’s loving grace is effective. We’re called to confront fear with love, to replace worry with waiting, and to faithfully invite God’s Holy Spirit to encourage us, lead us, and claim God’s blessing for all the world as we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus!” And as we pray this, may God be glorified, now, even as forever. Amen.