In thinking about peace-making, being at peace, and being disturbers of the peace, I recently spent time on retreat praying and reflecting about peace, shalom, and its characteristics; how we define peace and what we experience in being peace activists, sent by God to share God’s peace with the world. In understanding what it means to be ‘disturbers of the peace’. The hope and invitation from Jesus to bring peace to the world is starkly realistic in Mark’s Gospel:
If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel will save it. (Mark 8:34-36)
Our lives are built on violence, socially, culturally, economically and for some, spiritually. We are as human beings addicted to violence, and after 2000 years, we still have not heard, listened to or acted upon Jesus’ message about peace and love in any meaningful way.
The successful commercialisation of violence is evident in all walks of life. The wealth built out of the global weapons industry and in our demands to be kept safe from other aggressors, underpins the violence and the demand for power and control which exists in every country in the world, in all communities, homes, schools and businesses. We export and import violence globally. Violence is also built into our democracy, as we structurally, systemically and deliberately sustain poverty, inequality of wealth and intergenerational homelessness, inadequate education and healthcare, and with our racism and unwillingness to challenge strongly held unjust belief systems which benefit us. Our laws are unequal and are unequally applied. The gap between rich and poor is widening. Violence stalks our homes, our streets, our businesses and governments. Our parishes also know our arguments, our contempt for one another on occasion, and our divisive behaviour contributes to feeding violence in our hearts and words. Our Church has been violent for too many people who left when we ignored their calls for justice; or who turned away from God altogether because they can no longer see God in our lives.
I know many will want to challenge this broad, sweeping critique of our culture, society and economy, but let us come at this from another angle to test my words.
How often do we practically reconcile rather than argue and demand our rights? Do we renew friendships when disrespected rather than wanting to give back as good as we have received? How often do we give our cloak to the thief, when our coat is stolen and then ask if we can help? How often do we refuse the satisfaction of inflicting vengeance on top of punishment when given the opportunity? Our calls for children to be imprisoned as adults, locked up in conditions that break human rights laws because we want to punish and demand their total submission for their crime sprees, broken property and injured people, far beyond what is lawful in the application of appropriate consequences for illegal acts.
What about our demands for refugees to be held in detention without any time limit, and without any capacity to appeal or have justice? Our willingness to let racist commentary go because he’s a good AFL player or when disparaging comments are made about women and their place in life by a mate, keeping silent, looking away? I know I’m saying things you will disagree with. That’s ok, please disagree, but please also think about when was the last time you practiced peace as Jesus preached rather than responded with a motive for violence because it was your right?
We can have the immediate satisfaction of watching the person, group, country suffer because our violence is seen as good violence, done in self-defence. Clearly their violence is bad violence because we disagree with them and they are not us, they are ‘other’, so we can go after them. The redemptive violence myth would have us believe we can have power over others held in place by the threat of violence without losing our own lives, our ethics and moral stance.
And, actually, we can’t! Jesus tells us this is not possible, ever, anywhere with anyone. So where does this leave you and me because Jesus is very clear!
For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. (Mark 8:36-38)
In my reflections at this point, I found a story by Sharon Brous, in a book called ‘The Amen Effect’. She writes about ancient wisdom focussed on helping us to bring peace – mending broken hearts and the world. She reminds us: Violence is incompatible with life. She adds, ‘I don’t believe in a God who hurts us so we can learn life’s lessons; and I don’t believe in a God who hurts other people so we can learn lessons. But I do believe we have the opportunity to orient ourselves towards the blessings of peace, of shalom. There is always something to learn, some way to grow in all circumstances, however hard.’
She describes a young priest at a Church in Chicago, where he and his community were under physical attack with threats of violence being received every week. He was also a young father. One night he heard a noise in their home and he went with trepidation to see what was going on. He describes what he found:
There was my daughter Makayla dancing in the darkness – just spinning around, saying, ‘Look at me, Daddy’. I said, ‘Makayla, you need to go to bed, its 3 am. You need to go to bed.’ But she said, ‘No, look at me, Daddy. Look at me.’ And she was spinning, barrettes going back and forth, pigtails going back and forth. I was getting huffy and puffy wanting her to go to bed, then God spoke to me. ‘Look at your daughter! She’s dancing in the dark. The darkness is all around her but it is not in her!’ Makayla reminded me that weeping may endure for a night, but if you dance long enough joy will come in the morning. It is the job of preachers….to [send] this word to us in the hardest of times: do not let the darkness find its way in you. (Brous 2024:130)
Our work as followers of Christ, is to make sense of the blessings, of peace unseen and not yet known or recognised, even in the midst of darkness, even in the midst of temptation for violence; and we need to practice recognising the violence embedded in our normal daily lives, practices, and unthinking behaviour; and in the visceral temptation to use violence in times of stillness, or when waiting with anxiety, in dismay and suffering as a way of pushing the suffering away. Resisting this and offering peace is true hope, true shalom. It is God’s peace.
As we think about our hopes for peace, we lean into the reality, knowing the future has many meaningful possibilities for peace in ourselves and with one another in our communities.
We practice looking around us, to see glimpses of our hope for peace in the world, in the face of God.
In our work of peace, we answer the requests for violence with different pathways, different thinking and always in relationship with God as we become disturbers of the world’s peace and we choose to be God’s peace bringers, peace makers, peace activists.
We pray God’s love to take away our fear of responding peacefully in the face of violence, as Jesus invited us to do always. The Lord be with you.