Breathe — An Audience-Participation-Required Sermon on Peace

Grace and peace from God our Creator, Hope in our Redeemer Jesus the Christ, and the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit are with you, always.

Let’s all take a few deep breaths. A few counts in through your nose and then out again. And again. It’s May, y’all. Can you believe it? Don’t let that heart rate jump back up! Another deep breath.

You probably have a lot to worry about. Whether it’s school—we’re nearing the end of the year! Or work—finding a job, keeping your job, doing your job well. Or money—earning money, saving money, spending money smartly. Or your relationships—good ones with friends or significant others, not-so-good ones with maybe soon-to-be not friends or significant others, roommates, classmates, coworkers. Or your future—what’s next for you? What does the summer hold? Or your family—if they’re nearby or far away, healthy or struggling, supportive of you or a little more challenging. I can understand why we need to sit here, tonight, and take deep breaths together.

And, you know, Jesus knew about a few of those things. No, he was not a UC Davis student or a LEVNeer, but he was a human person. He had parents and siblings and friends. He had politics to lament about and looming wars to furrow his brow. He had a community whose livelihood concerned him. And he lived his adult life with a bunch of dudes who never stopped asking nervous questions. One declarative sentence could hardly escape Jesus’ mouth before Peter’s hand shot into the air with whowhatwhenwherewhyhow tumbling out of his mouth. You can just see Jesus' nostrils flare, eyes close, deep breath in and out before he replies.

This week, the question-asker is Judas. No, not that Judas. There are two, apparently. Just before the text for this week’s lectionary, this other Judas asks “But Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us?” Jesus gives a classic response—not exactly answering the question, and pivoting back to his important talking points about the constancy of God. “Those who love me will keep my word,” he says, “and my father will love them.”

Easy! Love and be loved! Now, I don’t want to mislead you. I don’t want you to think that what I’m saying is that, if you are a Christian, you will never have to worry about anything ever again. If only! But what I can tell you, is that, as a beloved child of God, you do not ever have to worry about your beloved-ness. You are always beloved by God. About that, my dear ones, do not let your hearts be troubled.

A professor from PLTS wrote a book about the Gospel According to John, and he had this to say about today’s gospel lesson:

“The teaching of Jesus is certainly not a self-help program, a path to a tranquil inner life immune to the ills and cares of a troubled world….Jesus is surely a teacher of powerful truth and transformative knowledge, but his teaching and life focus relentlessly on God’s astonishing agape enacted on the cross.”

There are a few weeks each year where I prepare a sermon on a text that is speaking right at me. You who have known me for a little while have noticed that I spend a lot of time planning, anxiously anticipating, playing through worst-case scenarios in my mind. Today, I stand before you and repeat the words of Jesus I so often forget to hear—”do not let your heart be troubled” and “do not be afraid.” Every week, I proclaim “the peace of the Lord be with you, always” and you obediently reply “and also with you.” We say that because right here, in the 14th chapter of the Gospel According to John, Jesus says, “peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.”

So let’s take him seriously today. We’re going to do something a little unusual. I have these papers for you, and we’re going to take five minutes, silently, and I want you to write down—not for the group, just for me to read—all the things that trouble your heart. All the things that you’re carrying around right now that make you afraid. You can write your name on it if you want me to know, but you can also stay anonymous. They can be small things, big things, personal things, global things, anything. I’m going trade you. I’m going to take these pieces of paper from you, on which you’ve written things I can pray about, things you want to just get out of your head. Things you want to hand over. And I’m going to give you a different piece of paper, in exchange. One that reminds you that the peace of the risen Christ is with you, always. So everybody get a paper and a pen, excellent. Five minutes starts now.

I bought this image from WordsxWatercolor; you can, too!

And now, here. As you go in peace, take this with you. Stick it to your bulletin board, put it by your desk, put it in your planner or binder or wherever you spend the most time forgetting that the peace of the risen Christ is always with you.

For He is Our Peace -- A sermon on Ephesians, mostly.

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Psalm 23

Ephesians 2:11-22

Mark 6:30-34, 50-56

I bring you greetings this morning from the Belfry, the Lutheran-Episcopal Campus Ministry at UC Davis, and LEVN, the Lutheran-Episcopal Volunteer Network. I spend my days with a gaggle of young adults—some Lutheran, some Episcopalian, a whole bunch trying to figure out just where they fit in God’s world. 

My favorite thing about this—about my job, about ministry—is that not a single one of them is going it alone. For centuries—millennia, even—people of faith have been grappling with just what that means, what that looks like, and what to do about it. Sometimes, we do really well and life is good—we love our selves, we love our neighbors, we love our God. 

Other times, we do less well, and life is less good. We doubt ourselves, we hurt our neighbors, we ignore our God. 

If we look at the texts before us this morning, there’s some of this confusion. The prophet Jeremiah is lamenting that the flocks have been scattered; Psalm 23—a crowd favorite—acknowledges that we do occasionally walk through the valley of the shadow of death; Paul’s letter to the Ephesians centers on a schism between early Christians; and Mark’s gospel recounts a story of Jesus teaching wayward people who “were like sheep without a shepherd.” These stories take place hundreds of years apart, and yet carry with them the same idea—we cannot go it alone.

I want to focus on the Ephesians passage this morning; it feels like the real gut of these stories. The Apostle Paul is writing to a group of folks who are together, in some way, as a religious community in Ephesus, but who seem to have lost the spirit of that. They’ve tried to set up barriers. They’re all Gentiles, he says, so it’s not the classic Jewish Christian versus Gentile Christian argument. It’s a bunch of people who were once excluded now using their religion to exclude others. 

“Remember,” Paul writes, “that you were at one time without Christ…strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” How soon they have forgotten who they once were. “But now,” he continues, “now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” How soon they have forgotten the promise. 

These texts can speak to all of us. Whether we are “in” or “out”—or whether we’re not sure if we’re “in” or “out”, or whether we’ll remain “in” or “out” for long!

Just like these ancient Ephesians, we as 21st-century Americans have forgotten the promise. We have forgotten that all of our fellow humans are created in the image of God, and we have forgotten that all of us have been created equal. We have treated our neighbor in ways unworthy of the gospel. 

We have slandered our neighbor, we have enslaved our neighbor, we have terrorized our neighbor, we have assaulted our neighbor, we have deported our neighbor, we have incarcerated our neighbor, we have subjugated our neighbor, we have murdered our neighbor. 

Some among us are bold enough to call this a Christian nation—would the Apostle Paul? He begs the Ephesians, and us, to remember that Jesus “is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” 

We have gone and rebuilt that wall, time and time again. We have built that wall between members of our congregations—between those who prefer the hymnal and those who prefer the electric guitar; between those with small, noisy children and those without; between those who give a lot and those who give a little. 

We have built that wall between ourselves and our communities, offering our space to the AA meeting, but not inviting addicts to join our worshipping community. 

We have built that wall between ourselves and the poor—donating to the food bank but not asking why children go hungry. 

We have built that wall between ourselves and other people of faith—proclaiming the love of God through Jesus applies only through our particular set of circumstances. 

We have built that wall between ourselves and the LGBT community—proclaiming that the unconditional love of God does, in fact, have conditions. 

We have built that wall between white americans and black americans—by refusing to acknowledge the racist system that continues to oppress and enslave.

We have built that wall between ourselves and God—blaming our struggles on God’s absence, yet failing to praise God’s presence for our every blessing.

The Apostle Paul reminds the Ephesians, and us, that Jesus the Christ “has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death hostility through it.”

In Christ there is no more need for division. In Christ there is a new creation. We are made whole, new, and unified through our baptism into the body of Christ. 

“So then,” Paul writes, “you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” 

Here in the household of God, the challenge and the solution are the same—Jesus the Christ lived, died, and was resurrected to end divisions. To free us from the power of sin and death, to liberate us from powers and principalities. In this new, undivided world we are free to love ourselves and one another—and we must.

I know I said that the Ephesians text was the meat of this week’s lectionary selection, but it’s the last two sentences of the passage from Mark that really seal the deal. Jesus and the disciples get out of the boat, and “people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.”

The people who meet Jesus, who know Jesus, immediately bring all of their people that they know and love who are sick to also meet him. They rushed about the whole region, it says! They understand that what Jesus is bringing to them is life. They do not hoard that for themselves, they do not keep it quiet. They tell everyone they know, they crowd him, they are relentless in their pursuit of the opportunity to share in the love of God through Jesus. 

That, too, is what we should be doing! Since we, through our baptism, meet Jesus and know Jesus, we should prioritize bringing everyone else into the love we know and that we receive, and that we therefore reflect. The way in which we do that is by proclaiming the good news, loving our neighbors, fighting for justice, tearing down walls, seeking reconciliation—all of these are the deeply rooted challenges that come with being people who are oriented in love. 

That is a blessing. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Peace be yours.

Just now, we prayed the Healing of the Nations liturgy of Holden Prayer Around the Cross. I am overwhelmed. In the middle, there’s a litany for the nations that includes a sung prayer for 85 nations around the globe. It’s so simple—just a nation or two sung by the cantor with a response from the assembly of “peace be yours.” Think about how long it takes to sing the names of 85 nations. I was hesitant, at first, thinking that people (including me) were not going to be affected by it and that it was going to seem like it took forever. As Marcia sang of war-torn nations, hungry nations, and some with deeply intentional pairings…

Palestine and Israel, peace be yours.

North and South Korea, peace be yours.

Taiwan and China, peace be yours.

Iraq and Iran, peace be yours.

Kenya and Congo, peace be yours.

Syria and Turkey, peace be yours.

United States and Cuba, peace be yours.

Tanzania and Sudan, peace be yours.

Ethiopia, Somalia, peace be yours.

…I could hardly sing. As I imagined, even just for a second, what is happening at this moment in those places, it was only fitting that all I could muster was, “peace be yours.”

In these places we have just named there is a first free election, there is a dead President, there is a wall, there is a nuclear bomb, there is a holy war, there is a dictator, there is famine, there is rape, there is murder, there is fear.

As we name aloud these hurts, we name aloud this healing. We name aloud peace that comes only from God.

We weep with those who weep.