Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw; based on John 14:23-29
Finding a Piece of Peace
Easter 6, John 14:23-29
St. David's Episcopal Church, Southfield, MI
The Very Rev. Chris Yaw
So, who’s been keeping up with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard?
Me neither… at least not much...
I read the headlines about these two actors and one-time husband and wife - who are now suing each other for tens of millions of dollars over abuse each admit to, sort of - and as the stories come out, I feel so sorry for this couple - one might assume were looking to find peace and contentment in their marriage, but it seems to have come only in glimmers and glimpses if at all.
And I just want to break open my Bible and show them this morning’s Gospel -
In fact, when I see people who are struggling to be content, hungering for happiness, seeking peace in their lives — and are trying to get there through obvious dead ends - drugs, alcohol abuse, promiscuous sex, etc. - and not through the One who called himself the Prince of Peace - I just want to stand up and shout those magical words of Jesus: ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives.’
I realize that there are many here, especially myself, who are looking for peace this morning.
Life is not easy.
Conflict and loss come at us from all sides.
The chaotic world we live in where change comes fast, unexpected, and often surprising.
And so, we are looking for calm amidst the storm - and we are here in church because we think Jesus is getting to something when he tells us, ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives.’ And in this morning’s sermon, we’re going to look at this -
We’ll look at two things -
First, how is Jesus’ peace different? What is he talking about?
Won’t any kind of peace work?
What makes this peace the “I” give to you so special?
And second, we’re going to look at how you and I get that peace -
What do we do? Where do we go?
How do we make the Peace of Christ, Our Peace?
My friend lost his watch in the fall.
His favorite watch - refused to wear another unless he found it - which he didn’t - for months.
So, he got used to looking at wall clocks - the car clock - sometimes just taking a guess by looking at where the sun was in the sky.
Then when Spring hit and he took out a light jacket, there it was, in the pocket.
‘Ah!’ he said, ‘What a relief to have my favorite watch back and to tell time whenever I want to.’
Friends, I pray this sermon would be like that - that each one of us would be able to discover something we already have and love, all over again - the Peace of Christ - and that our worlds, upon leaving this place, would be changed for the better.
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If I’m on social media on Friday nights - right before the Jewish Sabbath begins - I often see a post by a Jewish friend of mine that says this: Shabbat Shalom.
This literally means ’Sabbath Peace’ and it is the appropriate greeting among family members in Jewish homes on the Sabbath. My friend posts this greeting right before he begins his Sabbath, which he starts when he arrives home from work.
That’s when he opens the front door to greet his family. And that's when he will place his hands upon the heads of his children, saying to his sons, “May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh” and for his daughters, “May God make you like Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance up on you, and give you peace (shalom).” to which the children all reply, “Amen.”
Thus, the Sabbath, the holiest day of the Jewish week, begins with a prayer for peace.
And when we look more deeply at the Jewish understanding of peace, which is where Jesus would have gotten it, we see that for our Jewish brothers and sisters, Shalom means more than the cessation of war, or the presence of silence and calm.
No, shalom in the Jewish tradition, is incredibly comprehensive.
The word comes from a verb made up of three letters - sh-l-m and it means “to be whole, sound, entire, well, complete, perfect.”
In the Bible when someone inquires concerning another’s well-being, he or she simply asks, ‘How is your peace?’ - as the word refers to a person's health, spiritual state, or even her prosperity - in essence it includes every aspect of an individual’s well-being and inner strength.
In fact, the rabbis often used shalom as a name for God, in that God is the sum of perfection, and accordingly God's Messiah is described as ’sar shalom.’ or ‘prince of peace’ - which we find in Isaiah 9:6.
Furthermore, the Hebrew Bible often employs the word “shalom" in the sense of “being in friendship, in right relation, in harmony with others."
It may also convey the idea of tranquility, the freedom from strife both eternally and internally.
And this is what Jesus is getting at when he talks about His peace -
It is all-encompassing.
Its source is God, it is god.
It is permanent.
And it is as fulfilling as it is comprehensive.
The promise of Jesus is that we have God in and around us.
We have God next to us to help us through all this crazy stuff we’re going through.
We have God going ahead of us to prepare a place for us.
And we have God reminding us, right now, that everything is going to be all right.
It's as if God is saying to us:
I see your struggles.
I know your pain.
I know the chaos you are enduring.
But I also know peace, and peace I give to you. My own peace I leave with you. I do not give you the world's peace.
It's like that favorite watch that got lost sometime ago, we can get it back, we can find it.
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My daughter had a cello recital on Thursday evening.
There is no better way to grow and appreciation for the Detroit symphony Orchestra then to listen to a sixth grade orchestra recital...
Anyway, following the performance one of my daughter's friends came up to her and said "You played so well! How did you get to be so good?"
"Simple, my daughter said, I practiced."
Her friend, so innocently, said:
"Oh, that's how you do it!"
Christianity is often made to look like a simple affair, which it is, knowing Jesus, asking Jesus into our hearts, is simple…
But we often confuse simple with easy.
And while Christianity may be simple, it's not easy.
It means making room for Jesus - in a world that wants to push Jesus away.
It and making room for the Divine by pushing others things out of the way.
It means prioritizing.
It means inconvenience.
It means rigor.
It means dedication.
There’s no other way to improve cello playing.
There’s no other way to follow Christ more nearly.
And Jesus gave an example of what we are to be busying ourselves with when he walked the earth and he, himself, was utterly consumed with prayer, scripture, surrounding himself with Godly influences, and actively seeking out acts of charity.
This is what makes Jesus a ‘Prince of Peace’ -
This is what can get you and I more peace.
Because when we immerse ourselves in the story of God we remind ourselves that God will care for us - that God will provide for us - that God alone can keep the ship from capsizing in the rough seas.
And while you may be listening to me and thinking that to change my habits and take on some of these things will be really hard - I’m not asking you to consider anything that’s very far from your nature.
After all, we are always changing - we are always carving out evolving images and new identities for ourselves.
Heed the words of a poet named Diane Ackerman who thinks that you and I are built to change - that we are people of change:
"Living things,” she says, "tend to change unrecognizably as they grow. Who would deduce the dragonfly from the larva, the iris from the bud, the lawyer from the infant? Flora or fauna, we are all shapeshifters and magical re-inventors. Life is really a plural noun, a caravan of selves."
And what our Gospel invites us to do this morning is to move into our next self with intention and dedication to the witness of Jesus - which makes us better receptors of the Peace Jesus desires to give us - to be more disciplined in the ways we mirror Jesus - to be more open to the magic that happens when prayer, scripture, positive influences, and a preoccupation with acts of charity become bigger blips on our radar screens.
Friends, we live in unprecedented chaotic times -
Yet we are not forgotten.
And we have not been abandoned.
Let us move together as a family of faith - toward mimicking the example of Jesus - that we might be more like him - and that his peace may dwell more completely in us.
Amen.