“Jesus Brought Us Peace?”

Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – December 20, 2015

Centenary United Methodist Church

Isaiah 2:1-5; Micah 5:2-5a

 

    The sermon title this morning is a question, "Jesus Brought Us Peace?"  Any of us could say, "Give me a break!  Look around. Where is the evidence that Jesus brought anything associated with peace?"  We can look in the Scriptures and find repeated references where the prophetic authors were looking forward to a world where all the nations would be living together in peace and harmony.  Our Isaiah passage this morning is a primary example.

    Today, after lighting our fourth candle, we are going to consider what Jesus did bring.  In terms of world peace, it is very doubtful that such global acceptance will happen until long into the future.  The world was not created to give peace to its inhabitants any more than a physical fitness center is set up to give us physically fit bodies.  If we desire such things, we have to be willing to pay any emotional, spiritual or physical costs associated with having them. 

    We may wonder if Jesus or any religious leader could possibly think that they could bring peace. The world will always be filled with problems.  Jesus clearly understood this. (Matthew 6:34)  Every spiritual teacher in history has understood this.  Even though Jesus could not transfer the peace he had found to his listeners, he taught them where such a state-of-mind could be found.

    Maybe a problem rests with our not fully understanding the purpose of the world's design.  Its design was to give us an environment to support life.  The rest is up to us. We could quiet ourselves and spend hours of peaceful meditation while staring at a lighted candle and still experience moments when our peace instantly evaporates.

    If we can recall last year's Christmas Eve Service, it started in total chaos when I discovered that our new sound system failed to work.  I had to leave and retrieve a public address system.  The congregation had to sit patiently as the unit was set up and tested.  Any peace that I had left me.

    What emerged from that experience was a dose of reality.  We can lose our peace over issues that we can scarcely remember a year later.  We may be highly skilled at controlling our emotions when our circumstances suddenly go south, but not all of us have that kind of training.

    If we multiply such surprises over an average day in our lives, we could estimate how many times we have to struggle to hold on to our patience.  Next, consider the interpretation of life's events made by the 7.3 billion individuals that currently occupy the earth.  Their responses to various experiences would be all over the landscape depending on the maturity level of the personalities and spirit of each person.  It is a miracle that we communicate as well as we do.   

    There is one more thought that we could add to the headwinds that resist the dawning of world peace. For each new generation that enters the world, is anyone teaching our children the art of living peacefully among such a unique, diverse species?  Where is the universal curriculum that the world's billions of people have signed off on as worthy of being taught?  This is not happening at this stage of our evolution. 

    Added to all of these handicapping conditions to our personal peace is that at anytime something can happen that absolutely no one could have foreseen.  Life is filled with unexpected surprises that can sabotage our peace.

    Years ago, I accompanied my parents to a couple's celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary.  During a time when they both had the microphone, they began telling us how their married lives began. At their wedding reception two men were positioning a very large, multi-layered wedding cake on a table.  Unfortunately, the legs at the other end of the table had not been properly locked into place.  

    The legs collapsed sending the wedding cake cascading down the sliding board against the mints, nuts, olives, crab dip, crackers and a full punch bowl.  All of them splattered on the concrete floor of the outdoor pavilion.  This appeared to be the ultimate horror show for wedding guests and the caterer.

    However, the couple was not finished with their story.  They went on to tell their listeners about an infestation of very hungry vampire mosquitoes that found the wedding guests a virtual buffet of tasty treats.  The afternoon was topped off with a violent thunderstorm that brought gale-force winds and torrential rain.

    Most of the people there had heard this story repeated countless times.  For those of us who were hearing it for the first time, the couple's picturesque storytelling created considerable laughter. The couple's concluding comment was, "From such a dramatic beginning, everything else that came up for us during our marriage was mere innocent child's play."  It was interesting that their wedding reception disaster was one of their fondest memories.  Such episodes make life the adventure that it is.

    We can recall the time when the Old Testament Prophet Elijah stood at the entrance of a cave in which he had been hiding.  He experienced a powerful wind, an earthquake and finally a fire.  These experiences are symbolic of many of our life-experiences that can shake us to the core while they are happening.  God, however, was not in any of them. Then Elijah heard the voice from the stillness within.  The voice said, "Why are you choosing to stay with these fear-producing events?  Go home and trust me to be with you." (I Kings 19:11f)

    We need to stop insisting that the world become something other than what it is.  Most of us find ourselves facing in the wrong direction.  We are looking for the solutions to our personal upsets in the external world.  We want the government to do this or that.  We want the police to catch those responsible.  We want our spouse to be one of our cheerleaders.  We want our children to make us proud.  Where we are looking can never deliver the fulfillment we are seeking.

    We need to face in the opposite direction, where our mind's eye can find the place within us where there is no wind, earthquakes or fire.  When we choose to take full responsibility for our attitudes, responses and state-of-mind, we can row our boats gently down the stream while singing.

    Our lesson today from Micah says:

When the chosen leader comes, he will rule his people with the strength that comes from God.  He will possess the same spirit as God.  His people will live in safety because people everywhere will acknowledge his greatness.  He will bring peace. 

    Jesus did not bring peace, but he gave instructions to his listeners of how to find and cultivate it. To experience peace we must creatively detach from the symbolic conditions of the world that will tempt us to make a response. "Does this not offend you?  Does this not excite your need for justice? Are you a do-nothing or a go-getter?" On and on will go our inner voice that wants us to correct our circumstances by blaming the attitudes and the lack of accountability of others for how we feel. 

    We all know the saying, "This, too, shall pass."  Everything does eventually pass.  We may keep alive the memory of some experiences, but the pain initially associated with them evaporates just like what took place at the couple's wedding reception fifty years earlier. This is the life we came here to experience.  All experiences are stepping stones across the river.

    What kind of peace will we discover within ourselves?  When our internal dialogue says over and over again, "How can I serve others in this circumstance," we are well on our way to finding the internal environment where our inner peace permanently resides.  Life-experiences are always testing us.  We are most fortunate that we have a place to go.

    Some people walk around with their opinions as though they are preparing for a press conference.  What is the purpose of an opinion unless it is complimentary? Think about that.  How can we love anyone while harboring toxic thoughts?  Our verbalized thoughts advertise to others what we are feeding our spirits.

    Years ago, Lois and I were invited to perform a wedding at Disney World.  While there, I took the trip to Mars.  Lois refused to go because the mechanism that takes you to Mars is a centrifuge.  Rapid spinning simulates the G-force on an astronaut's body during lift off from the earth.  The father of the bride was a scientist. He gave to me specific instructions:

Never take your eyes off the large screen in front of you. If you do, you will experience vertigo for hours.  When you watch that screen, your eyes will fool your brain into thinking that you are moving forward, flying to and landing on Mars.

    The ride was spectacular and what he told me turned out to be sound advice.  However, while leaving the ride, I noticed a good number of people that did not keep their eyes on that screen.  They were not doing well.  Disney had installed benches for people who were having trouble.  I knew when the adventure was over that I was fine and was ready for what happens next.

    Life in these bodies is very much like that experience.  One day our spirits will leave our vehicles and go on to our next adventure.  This happens like child birth.  We have no control over what will happen to all of us whether we are a petty tyrant or a saint.       We need to look at our lives as though we are actors in a movie.

    A movie of any quality sends us through every emotion imaginable, i.e., fear, love, adventure, seduction, sadness, loss, discovery, surprise, treachery and self-sacrifice.  We can easily leave a movie emotionally drained. That was my experience when I saw the movie, Jaws.  I was kicking sharks off my legs all night while I was trying to sleep.  Life is filled with all of this and more.   

    When we remember that we go home when our movie is over, that thought comes from the place within us where our center of peace can be found.  Fear does not exist in the next realm where our existence continues. Love would not allow any of us to fall through the cracks.  This thought, alone, should bring back to us the centering presence of peace whenever we want it. (Matthew 10:31)