Giving peace a chance

Reflections for Sunday 5th December, 2010. Advent 2 Is 11:1-10, Ps 72: 1-7, 18-19;Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

One of the great themes of Christmas and Advent is the reign of peace that is to be ushered in by this new king

Peace is not a difficult concept to grasp though we need to be careful to do it justice

In the Hebrew Scriptures the word we use is "shalom"

it speaks of a peace which is not just the absence of war

but a time of harmony, justice and prosperity

for all people

We would hardly say that we live in a time of peace

because if harmony, justice and prosperity are the measures

then none of these seem to fully exist at this point in history.

At most what we seem to be able to achieve

is a closed world in which we shut ourselves in.

But this shallow view of peace

is not the shalom

that is being talked about here.

It is not the peace with which we greet each other when we say

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

Peace at all times and in all ways

A couple of ideas that may help us think of peace-shalom

Because we are overwhelmed by how to bring about peace in Afghanistan or Iraq or Pakistan

we seem to think that we cannot do anything at all, ever.

But of course the very fact that biblical peace is about how life is lived

must bear fruit in the way we actually live.

As the song puts it

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me

It is easy to invite someone else to do the hard yards;

but the call of the gospel

first by John the Baptist and then by Jesus himself

is to lay into it ourselves.

We are to be righteous, holy and active in living our life.

And not leave it up to someone else.

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me

How to begin

Paul talks in Ephesians (picking up Isaiah) about

peace to those who are far off

and peace to those are near

most of us will need to focus on the near rather than the far.

It is those who are near who affect our shalom.

Yes we need to forgive and seek to be forgiven

in Advent in order that there may be genuine peace!

Do not let this week go without paying some attention to that!

But we also thought last week about one of the major contributing factors

to the lack of peace

and that is poverty.

It is often noted

that what underlies the East-West bitterness

is not so much the Muslim-Christian-Hindu-Jewish-Buddhist division

but the rich-poor divide

Iran and Iraq and anti-Western hatreds are fuelled by the great inequalities

We HAVE and they HAVE-NOT.

If we threw the energies and money into addressing inequalities

rather than in waging war at the cost of billions upon billions of dollars,

if we took seriously the addressing of poverty;

then the fomenting of hatred becomes harder

because most people long

not for domination

but that there may be peace on earth.

So we are invited to give some of what we HAVE

which seems like little

and place it in the Christmas Bowl

or wherever we want to help

We can lament that governments can give millions and billions

(and maybe we need to be articulating this more strongly

and advocating for more overseas aid)

and we only give tens and hundreds but we hear that refrain

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.

We are called to be signs and sacraments of what God wants to happen.

We are struck as we read of the John the Baptist in Matthew that he is strident

he says Do this!

the Lord requires that an axe be laid into the situation

that we not just water it

but allow the Spirit to consume it like a ferocious fire.

Wherever else we can strive for peace,

we should!

Do not be seduced by the shallow Christmas

but hear the call for real and genuine peace.

It has some sense of rigour about it.

We should look both close and far off

but let us hear that song....

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.