My friends, today I would like to speak about “peace” –personal peace, national peace, and world peace.  This topic of peace is one that I think a great deal about because on many levels, in our world, there seems to be so little of it.  And additionally, I am inclined to do so because today’s Scriptures speak either directly, or indirectly to the issue of peace. 

   The prophet Zechariah says very directly, “The warrior’s bow will be banished, and peace will be proclaimed to the nations.”  Paul, in his letter to the Romans speaks more indirectly about the goodness of peace and searching for this alternative to personal and worldly problems experienced in our lives: “You are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.” 

   We as humans are capable of great good, but equally, of great evil.  The daily news lets us know this to be true.  I personally crave stories that tell of the goodness of us humans as opposed to the failures within humankind to meet that bar of goodness.  CBS news correspondent, Steve Hartman, in his “On the Road” segments, each Friday night, never fails in finding and producing good, human stories. 

   Several years ago, we had the opportunity of seeing a one-person play, entitled, An Iliad, through the Great River Shakespeare Festival (GRSF).  The play was a take-off on Homer’s, The Iliad and viewers were confronted with humankind’s propensity to make war, instead of peace.  Clearly, when one thinks about it, making “war” is the easier solution to any conflict. Making peace will always be the harder action because it calls for restraint, listening –being willing to hear another side –basically, calling forth the best in us. 

   Now I, like you, struggle with the hard work that making peace calls for and at times, tend to think that it can’t be done.  At times like this, Jesus’ words in Matthew’s Gospel today are good to reflect on: “Come to me, all you who labor and find life hard, and I will refresh you.”  In other words, take the burden of following me—being true to the way of life that I have given you, upon your shoulders, learn from me, my gentleness, my humility—for that is how it must be done—not through angry words, or the violence of war. 

   When it comes to “making peace,” big enough to cover our war-torn world, most of us realize that the job is bigger than any one person can handle.  But, one person, added to another person, to another, can do great things.  That is why I love the work of Steve Hartman, who routinely shows us examples of some-one-person, doing something wonderfully good, and just like those who do evil in this world, will find followers, those who do, not only good, but good beyond measure seemingly, will find followers too.  World peace does indeed start small, in individual cases, and grows from there. 

   It is also good for us to remember that we are truly capable of great goodness, if we live more so, in the Spirit, as opposed to the body.  I love the person who originally said, “We are spiritual beings here, having a human experience.”  In other words, we came into existence with “original” goodness, not “sin,” as Matthew Fox has said so well.  That kind of shoots the whole theology of redemption, doesn’t it?! We aren’t here, in our humanity to become more spiritual—we are of God already, attempting through our humanity to be true, ultimately to God’s Spirit already within us!

   So, as An Iliad stated, since B.C.E. times to the present, there have been more than 100 wars. If that solution was what was needed, our world should be without war and conflict today! Right?

   It seems to me, when we truly think about it, even if we can come up with a justifiable reason, this decision to go to war is to have failed in our humanity to be our very best.  War should only come about as truly the last thing we try.  Sending our young men and women to fight these endless wars seems to me to be an insane action; unworthy of a God who has first loved us so much and trusted us to care for others in like manner.

   These are tough times my friends, when every week it seems, sometimes even every day, in our country, we must continually hear of mass shootings because we don’t, as a country, have the “intestinal fortitude,” as my friend, Paul Nelson used to say, or even the wisdom of children, as Matthew speaks of today, to do the right thing—to make it impossible to easily pick up a weapon to express one’s anger, hurt, whatever it might be, on our unsuspecting sisters and brothers in our world. We might well consider directing the millions used today to prop up the National Rifle Association, towards cleaning up the arsenals that litter our towns and cities and truly assist those needing psychological and emotional help so as to live more constructive lives. 

   Our God truly calls us to so much more goodness than our country and world is displaying today. And even though it may seem an impossible task, I would challenge each of us, this week, to make our world better by writing or calling someone in power to demand a world that is safer, freer from evil and violence than it is today.  Let’s demand a world that is more equal and fair for all; being unable to truly be happy with all we have, when so many have not even the basics.  Let’s advocate for goodness, for becoming our best selves—for everyone.  Jesus merely got this started, and when he left us physically, in time, he said that we would do greater things than he did.  Amen? Amen!