Peace Where There is No Peace

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.

I have lived long enough to have witnessed how elusive peace on earth really is. For my father’s generation, there were the very real dangers of German expansionism that resulted in two world wars. For my generation, there was the more elusive threat of Communism and the country-dividing conflict in Viet Nam that it spawned. Now, even as weapons have become more precise and more destructive, the combat zone has become murkier and the weapons more useless against a shadowy enemy. No longer are imperialist countries the issue; instead, there are “cells” that create fear simply by planting crude bombs made from readily available goods.

The Christian Church has been for many people a refuge from the world of fear, a place that is reliably the same, week after week. For them, change in the Church is threatening. For others, lack of change is stifling. For yet others who have suffered mental or physical abuse by Christians, the Church is itself a source of fear. And increasingly “Christian” is an adjective attached to newsworthy examples of prejudice or narrow-mindedness.

Why is the peace of Jesus so elusive? Perhaps it is because the name of Jesus has been used so many times as a battle cry. Ever since coming of draft age during the Viet Nam era, I have been fascinated by the historic peace churches, the Friends (Quakers) and the Mennonites, in particular. They believe that the teachings of Jesus are essentially pacifist, and refuse to engage in combat under any circumstances. I know the world would be very different had that view prevailed in our history, yet I will say that most Christians have accepted precious little of the gift of peace which Jesus has tried to give us. Instead, we have sought the world’s peace, a tense absence of conflict held in place by power.

Paul’s vision of the man who said, “Come over to Macedonia and help us,” was used by missionary-minded Western Christians who “viewed peoples of other races and religions as living in darkness and deep despair and as imploring Westerners to come to their aid.”* We still suffer from the consequences of that missionary imperative, for it created lasting instability in many parts of the Global South, and for some, rejection of Christianity as a Western religion.

We cannot undo the past. But we can do a better job of seeking the peace of God rather than the peace of the world. If the Church as a whole were to do that, perhaps “Christian” in the news would no longer be pejorative.

May God be merciful to us and bless us; show us the light of his countenance and be gracious unto us.

Easter 6: Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; Revelation 21:1-10, 22-22:5; John 14:23-29. *David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, p. 340. It’s a tome, but well worth the read. For those who have trouble getting through it, there’s also a reader’s guide to Bosch's book.