Courage
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Acts
16:9-15; John 14:23-29
Peace I give you
my peace
not
peace like the world gives
do not be afraid
Do not be
afraid? Are you kidding, Jesus? Peace is tenuous at best, often fought over,
usually involving violence…do not be afraid?
Many of us live
in fear much of the time, lurking just below the surface
of our usually safe and sedate suburban lives,
a dis-ease infected by violence and spread by media hype.
As Thomas
Merton once wrote in “Day of a Stranger” the hills are blue and hot; there is a
brown, dusty field in the bottom of the valley.
I hear a machine, a bird, a clock. The clouds are high and enormous. In
them, the inevitable jet plane passes: this time probably full of fat
passengers from Miami to Chicago, but presently it will be a plan with a bomb
in it. I have seen the plane with the
bomb fly low over me and I have looked up out of the woods directly at the
closed bay. Like everyone else I live
under the bomb.
We live under the bomb, or the bombing, or the threat, or the
uncertainty.
Our own
building’s security came up because of this barely buried fear, so CC invited Police
Chief Maureen Chisholm to come and talk to us, and we did learn of some simple,
maybe inconvenient precautions we could take to make us feel safer. But she said, You’re a church, you have to
make choices because what you choose says something about who you are.
Yes we will
take sensible precautions. But I tell you who we are: we are people who must
not bow to the cultural climate of fear; we bow to too many cultural idols as
it is. We are people of Christ’s peace,
and we will not be ruled by fear.
You see, we
didn’t really hear what Jesus was saying, we missed the bit about not like the world’s peace
Peace I give
you deep
peace deep
down peace
deep down to the soles of your feet
deep in to the soul of your being
peace
This is the
holy, inner peace that only God offers, a peace within the deepest place, a
peace we open ourselves to, and actively develop with deliberate practices,
like worship, prayer, meditation, holy conversations in community that grow us
into who God calls us to be.
It’s the
peace I am finding in the practices and attitudes of Benedictine spirituality,
or that others find in centering prayer for example…..peace that keeps us
centred in a society torn apart by random and state-sponsored violence.
There is a
group that uses our facility, called “Courage to Change”—what a great
name! Change does take courage, and as
we go through a time of uncertainty, that’s what we need.
I choose-we can choose- not
to live under the bomb, but under the Peace.
It is that
peace that gives us courage instead of fear…the courage of Paul in our first
reading that was inspired by his visionary experiences that were so much a part
of Jewish mysticism in his day….
courage to go,
courage to
leave the comfort of his life of rigid certainty,
courage to re-imagine his deeply held beliefs into something new called
Christianity
Through practicing
paying attention to God’s various ways of communicating, through his mystical
experiences, Paul had in a sense heard Jesus say
Peace…not like the
worlds peace…do not be afraid
And that’s
where we will get the courage to go where God calls,
courage to leave our comfort zones and try a new ministry,
courage to risk giving a little more so we can have a second
pastor,
courage to go deeper into our relationship with God with a new spiritual
practice…..
Peace…not like the
worlds peace…do not be afraid
….
It is also
that peace that gave courage to Lydia—well-to-do businesswoman for whom work and worship were not
enough:
the courage to believe something new, and the
courage to invite others into her space
Through the
practice of listening, listening carefully the story says, she assumes God is
still speaking (do we?)
Through the
act of baptism, a physical, public sign of her faith, she was empowered, en-couraged to invite them to stay,
offering hospitality to a stranger
Lydia had,
in a sense, heard Jesus say
Peace…not like the
worlds peace…do not be afraid
And that’s
where we’ll get the courage to invite a stranger, speak to someone new, risk
hospitality
And so it
was for those first disciples:
The
challenge Jesus gives them, even before he offers the peace: love one
another – a challenge because this is not love as the world generally knows it
either…
not love those who’re like us but not “them” (Chris’ sermon last week)
but love as God loves us
Last weekend
at the Project Urge conference some young people had t shirts that said
Love God
Love people
no difference,
no exceptions
Love as in
love your neighbor whose name might be Joe Smith or Dzhokar
Tsarnaev
Now THAT takes courage, because it’s
completely counter-cultural and won’t make you popular.
But Christianity isn’t about popular, its
about peace
deep
peace
deep down peace
deep down to the soles of your feet and in to the soul of your being
peace
And it’s the
only place we are going to get that kind of courage to love, courage
to change, courage in the uncertainty and
fear, courage to
invite others, maybe quite different, into our space.
Listen,
listen carefully, like Lydia,hear Jesus say it to you
Peace…not like the
worlds peace…do not be afraid
Following
communion, you will be offered a
blessing of peace—just hold out your hands, palms up and someone will place
their hands on yours with these words Peace……do not be
afraid
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