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"Peace Is Always A Thought Away" Sermon Delivered By Reverend Richard E. Stetler
– December 22, 2013 Centenary United
Isaiah 7:10-16; John 14:25-31 The day has come for the lighting of our fourth Advent candle.
As we have noted, this candle
represents Peace. As most of us
have realized, peace is a very difficult topic to discuss because few of
us can hold on to it for any length of time.
There are times during the average day when we feel like that
little steel ball in a pinball machine.
We can be slapped around by those little flippers that send us
all over the emotional landscape.
Some experiences are exhilarating while others bring worries and
still others create tears.
How do we hold on to peace when even the most insignificant events can
reach into our minds and snatch away what peace we have in the blink of
an eye? Last week I went to SALs to pick up a number of articles.
There was a man in there that was extremely agitated.
You would not believe what he was complaining about.
He was telling the cashier that he had gone to an ATM and
requested $500. The machine
responded by spewing forth the amount in ten dollar bills.
It was all the cashier could do to keep from bursting into
laughter. The man was fairly adamant with his disgust with that ATM. Can
we imagine allowing 50 ten-dollar bills to cause us to lose our peace?
Sure, we can! Quite
often we surrender our peace for a lot less. When the Bible Study class concluded last Tuesday, I told them to
see how long they can last before they get caught up in some drama that
comes like a thief-in-the-night
and steals their peace.
Most of us neglect an
irrefutable fact: we are in
control of every thought we make.
Many of us, however, have our lives on automatic pilot or cruise
control and we do not think before we respond. We are easy prey to
giving up our peaceful attitudes when we are not thinking.
Please listen to a response from a taxi driver who thinks about
his responses every moment of his life.
He has succeeded to a great extent in stopping that
thief-in-the-night.
He has taught himself how to
keep his peace even when he comes into contact with someone’s
insensitive, stupidity or calloused nature.
Here is his technique that was sent to me in an email from a
friend who was in this fellow’s taxi cab. I hopped into a
taxi cab and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the
appropriate lane when suddenly a car
jumped out from its parking
space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes,
skidded and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the
other car rolled down his window and shouted obscenities at us.
My taxi driver just
smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean it was an authentic,
sincere smile. So I asked him, “Why did you do that? That
guy almost caused a crash.” This is when this taxi driver taught
me what I now call, The Law of the Garbage Truck.
He explained that
many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of
garbage. This garbage
consists of frustrations, anger, and
me-first attitudes that
suggest that life somehow owes them a living.
As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it from time
to time and sometimes they dump it on us. We must not take
their behavior personally. That’s who they are. It is best to smile and
wave, wish them well and move on.
If we fail to do so, we might
take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home or on
the streets when we are driving.
The bottom line is
that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day.
Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so love the
people who treat you well. Pray for the ones who don’t. Life is
ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it.
No one ruins your day unless unwittingly, you give them permission to
do so. This taxi driver
provides us with a useful tool.
The garbage truck
metaphor acts as a sentinel
that guards his peace. He
gives us a clear example of what it looks like when a person is not
offended when adults act like children.
He was not going to allow the childish behavior of others to
spoil his day no matter what they do.
Peace is always a thought away
if we allow ourselves to get there.
Think what this one thought
would have meant to curbing all the pushing and shoving as people
entered Walmarts on Black Friday in the United States.
Think of what this one thought would have meant to Jordan Graham,
the Peace is always one
thought away, but we have to want it prior to our knee jerk
response that can send our lives in a direction that limits our options.
No one is immune to impulsive
responses. Some years ago I remember listening to a conversation a friend of
mine was having with a woman who was a very conservative Christian.
She had just told him what would happen to his soul if he did not
accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior.
He thought for a moment and responded: Why should I
subscribe to your kind of faith when what you believe does not appear to
be working in your own life?
You have just made an assumption about my eternal destiny that I
thought was a decision only God can make.
Am I right about this or have I also made a false assumption? She became silent.
Unbeknownst to her, Bill was a fellow-pastor friend of mine that had
decided to use her theology to challenge her beliefs. Bill is a great
guy and knew better than to put other Christians in their place, but he
could not resist. No one
is immune from the desire to strike back. What Jesus
developed during his brief life-time on earth was the desire to awaken
people to be open to the skills of spirit they have within them.
Jesus had to practice to keep his own spirit of peace working
for him. The fact that Jesus had trouble holding on to his peace should
give us hope when we repeatedly miss the mark at doing so ourselves. There were a number of occasions when Jesus ran out of patience
with his listeners. Jesus
once turned to a group of them and said, “How unbelieving and wrong you
people are. How long must I
stay with you? How long do
I have to put up with you?”
(Matthew 17:17) His peace
went right out the window because of circumstances in which he found
himself. We recall his anger when he overturned the tables of the money
changers on the An example of such an indictment came when Jesus confronted a
group of these individuals and said, “You are like white washed tombs
that look fine on the outside but are full of bones and decaying corpses
on the inside.” (Matthew
23:27). No doubt Jesus was
having a bad day and he was expressing his feelings at the moment and
was too honest to pretend otherwise. It was toward the end of Jesus’ ministry that his understanding
of peace blossomed for him. In our lesson today, Jesus said, “Peace is
what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you.
I do not give it as the world does.
Never worry or become upset about anything.
Also, remember that you never
need to be fearful of anything in your lives.”
(John 14:27) We have to remember that, by this time, Jesus had been in contact
with spirit-beings on the Jesus knew that what matters in life is the spirit we bring to
everything that confronts us.
He thoroughly understood that no one can behave
perfectly in this world.
Our world is simply too challenging to our values for us to
remain on the sidelines and remain complacent.
No matter what we say or do there will always be people that
disagree with us. Once Jesus
declared, “Why do you call me
good? No one is good
but God alone.” (Mark 10:18)
He was correct and he knew enough to include himself among the
rest of us. Our peace can be preserved by one thought -- God is in charge and
all of us are students in our world whether we label ourselves as that
or not. As students we are
always being tested. We have to
let go of the behavior of others just as that taxi driver advised my
friend to do. The theology we
Christians hold sacred will
not matter in the grand scheme of things if we cannot make visible the
message from our Creator, a message that came through a humble carpenter
whose birthday we will celebrate on Wednesday! Peace is our
choice to make.
Once made, that choice prevents a host of unloving attitudes and
responses from being energized into action.
Hopefully, perfecting the peace that Jesus found will be our
homework assignment or a Christmas gift to ourselves that will serve us
well in the New Year and beyond. |