The Peace of God

Preached on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 at Low Mass.
(Easter 5, Tuesday: Acts 14:19-28, Psalm 145:9-14, John 14:27-31a)

Often when people talk about peace, they speak as if peace were the same thing as security and safety. Life is full of things we all use to keep us and our things secure: homes with locked door after locked door, alarms, passwords, combinations, and keys; circles of friends that rarely expand; and of course borders that keep us in and other people out. Not only does every safety net have holes; everything that I am safeguarding will at some point crumble away and be forgotten.

The need for endless layers of security and safety stems from fear and it does not lead to peace at all. The Peace which Jesus speaks about is not security or safety. In fact it seems to be the opposite: it’s the peace to be able to let go of all the fears that keep us holding on to things that will fade and separated from all the people that we’ve never met. Having that Peace doesn’t mean I should drop everything and live without a care in the world, but it does mean that I am called to live my life moving forward to the unexpected and not try always to stay in the same place doing the same things with the same people.

After Jesus’ death, the first thing his disciples did was to gather in a room and lock the door. They were afraid and they responded to this by closing themselves off from the world and locking the door. Jesus appeared to them in the middle of the locked room. He said to them: "Peace be with you," and he sent them, as we all are, to leave behind their locked up lives and go forth into the world spreading the good news of the risen Lord. In the Acts of the Apostles we see how through the work of these same disciples a door of faith was opened not only to the Jews in Jerusalem but Gentiles throughout the whole world.

The Peace of God takes us beyond false security and fear. It is spread to others by sharing the knowledge and love of God with one another, with our friends, with our neighbors, with those we don't know and have never met and even with our enemies. Like the first disciples may each of us unlock our hearts so that we too can spread the Peace of God to each other and be an open door for the love of God to pass through to all people.