Emmanuel Church, Bungay, Suffolk

The Minister's Sermons

"The Peace of God" by Revd Bruce Waldron - 30th January 2005
The Peace of God that is promised so often in the Scriptures, can seem as elusive as God. If we imagine it can be gained without endeavour, or that it is a gift that comes without cost, we fool ourselves.
Peace, sometimes, has to be fought for but what is often misunderstood is that the way in which you fight for peace is very different to the way you fight for domination. So often, people and countries say they are fighting for peace when what they are fighting for is the ascendancy of their way of being, for their way of life - so that they can have that kind of peace they want, and the way to get it is to ensure that those who don't want that way cannot raise their voice, cannot oppose.
But you cannot fight for peace with violence. You can fight for domination by violence. You can even fight for the overthrow of a violent oppressor by violence. But peace requires a different sort of battle. It is often said that after the war is over, the real battle for peace is just beginning.
Peace requires courage as much as war does. On Thursday afternoon I watched the Memorial Service at Auschwitz, 60 years after its survivors were liberated. Professor Webber was saying how hard it had been for the survivors to tell their stories. People who had escaped the horrors, who wanted to move on in their lives, to another country, another language, had come back to tell the story - to them we owe a debt of gratitude, because the horror must not be forgotten. We must not forget how easily a civilized people could slip into such unimaginable violence.
A different courage... I watched the old men and women, 80+, standing out there in the freezing snow for hours. A different courage. Unless we know the potential of seemingly civilised humanity to do these things, we do not remember. It is by knowing that such evil can occur that we are motivated to maintain the constant vigilance against the erosion of goodness that allows a society, or an individual, to slide into the kind of evil where destruction results.
It is very naive to imagine that any society, any individual is not capable of falling into evil. Professor Webber was talking, in quiet moments during the ceremony, of how the whole process was insinuated into the lives of ordinary people who did the killing - without any one person feeling responsible. I thought as I was watching, how important it is that we each have the will and the courage to face our responsibility in any involvement, in any process that brings about pain and destruction, that participates in cruelty or dehumanisation.
Each person counts. Our faith in Christ calls us to a battle, but not the sort of battle that soldiers speak of, not the sort that requires macho muscled Schwarzeneger heroics and pumping adrenalin fixes. The battle for peace requires a different courage, a much quieter courage, a courage that resides in the deepest recesses of who we are and how we think.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote: "To do and dare - not what you would, but what is right. Never to hesitate over what is in your power, but boldly to grasp what lies before you. Not in the flight of fancy, but only in the deed there is freedom. Away with timidity and reluctance! Out into the storm of event, sustained only by the commandment of God and your faith, and freedom will receive your spirit with exultation."
The commandment of God is this that we have heard in our reading from Deuteronomy, "To love God with all your heart." To do that engenders an allegiance to what is right, a burning commitment that doesn't simmer down into a comfortable warm glowing ember but consumes all other allegiances.
This commandment and this faith act as a compass in the storms of life that always swings true north. The illusion of bureaucracy - that you are not involved - just doing what you are required - does not wash in the presence of God. We each know that we have a part to play in the lives of others, and God hasn't given us breath for nothing.
In the words of the Deuteronomist, this is a choice between life and death. Whatever illusion life might throw at us, the Deuteronomist reminds us, through the words of Moses, that we are not playing for kids' stakes.
As the Australian phrase puts it, "We're playing for sheep stations here." And not just for ourselves but for those whose lives we touch. This is a life and death battle. Our faith, and our allegiance to the commandment, isn't about just being good or not being good. It's about whether our living is an instrument of life or death.
The Apostle John wrote: We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death.
In true Hebrew tradition, John knew that the business of living a life-giving existence depends on our love of one another, founded upon our love of God. And this involves both internal moral effort as well as physical effort as well as faith.
Little children," he writes, "let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action."
Peace comes from a compounding of the three elements of faith, love and truth, mobilizing the person of faith into action.
Peace is not just about an absence of war and noise. It is a state that comes from equilibrium with God, resulting in equilibrium with God's world. In Christian theology, faith is always incarnate; it has its feet on the ground and is active.
Peace has to be fought for but this battle is fought with the weapons of faith, and love, and truth.
The peace that we fight for is not an absence of war. The Peace we fight for is the unity of our hearts with God and God's purpose, and it is from that unity that we might find the tools, the courage and the will for us too to become the bringers of God's peace. But it is a battle and like all battles, it takes courage and vigilance and sacrifice.
It is a battle worth fighting because unlike war it doesn't bring death and despair, it brings life and hope. For this, God has given us life. For this, God has given us faith. For this, God has given us Jesus Christ.