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“Radical…Peace?” Psalm 67 and John 14:23-29
I
grew up in the country, where a fairly reasonable estimate for how
long it took to get somewhere was how many miles away it was. 5
miles, 5 minutes. 2 miles, 2 minutes. A few years after moving to
Schenectady I discovered that I was inherently annoyed at stoplights.
At every stop light. Because, in my internal narrative, they kept
me from getting to where I was going in the time frame I thought
reasonable.
(It
is OK to laugh.)
Once
I realized that, I was able to change my narrative. While they are
not the only way to do this, stoplights exist to 1. keep us safe and
2. take care of conflicting needs. They’re just a part of communal
use of shared space.
They
aren’t to slow me down (how arrogant!), but rather to keep things
going.
And
just like that, I stopped being annoyed at every stoplight. I
stopped taking them personally. I started accounting for them.
Mostly, I just let them be without existing in tension with them.
This
is not a story I’m particularly proud of. I sound self-centered and
impatient. But I hope it is a story that has some resonance. The
narratives we tell ourselves have a big impact on our perceptions of
reality, not to mention on our emotional responses to that reality.
I
also mention this story because I think it has to do with living
“life abundant” or “life with God” or “a spiritual life”
or “life eternal” or participating in “shalom.” Those are
all the same thing as far as I’m concerned.
Much
of life is outside of our control, and the way we respond to it is
going to impact us and those around us. Often it is easier to focus
on what we can control, right? To talk about what we can do
together, to focus on what we can do with God, to dream about change,
and to work towards justice.
I
like those topics a lot. But the truth is that there are a lot of
things we can’t control, and that’s really hard. REALLY hard. We
cannot control how long we live or when we die, nor how long those we
love live or when they die. REALLY hard. We cannot control other
people or their choices. REALLY hard. We cannot control or change
our past nor its traumas. We cannot control how other people treat
us. Most of us cannot control our income streams, and whether or not
they are sufficient.
There
are a lot of things we can’t control, and that’s really hard.
And
when we are facing things we can’t control, the only control have is
how we respond. This can feel too small. But, actually, it is a big
huge deal. Because, truly, I can spend my days annoyed at stoplights
or not. And the only thing that changes is my level of annoyance.
When
I read wise spiritual teachers, I am rather shocked at how often they
talk about doing the dishes. For such a mundane task, spiritual
teachers seem to love talking about it. I think this is because
spiritual teachers tend to think that life abundant is in the actual,
mundane lives we live.
I
recently came across this story, attributed to a John Perricone who I
know nothing about1:
Several years ago I invited a
Buddhist monk to speak to my Senior elective class, and quite
interestingly as he entered the room he didn’t say a word (that
caught everyone’s attention). He just walked to the board and wrote
this: “EVERYONE WANTS TO SAVE THE WORLD, BUT NO ONE WANTS TO HELP
MOM DO THE THE DISHES.” We all laughed, but then he went on to say
this to my students:
“Statistically, it’s highly
unlikely that any of you will ever have the opportunity to run into a
burning orphanage and rescue an infant. But,
it is the smallest gesture of kindness – – a warm
smile, holding the door for the person behind you, shoveling the
driveway of the elderly person next door – – you have committed an
act of immeasurable profundity, because to each of us, our life is
our universe.”
Brother
Lawrence was a monk in the 17th century who was assigned
to doing dishes in the monastery. He wrote:
The time of business, does not
with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clutter
of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for
different things, I possess GOD in as great tranquillity as if I were
upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament.
Many
others are on this dishes bandwagon too. The gist seems to be that
you can do dishes and be annoyed by them (easy!), you can do dishes
and distract yourself from them (TV! Podcasts!), AND you can also do
dishes mindfully. You can let yourself be in the present. You can
notice the warmth of the water, the shine of the bubbles, the drip
drying, the ground under your feet, the way the light dances around
the room. You can do dishes and be alive! You can do dishes and
notice that this is the one life you have to live and whether or not
dishes are what you’d most like to be doing right now, dishes are
what you ARE doing right now and you can be attentive to life itself
while you are doing them if you want. You can notice how your body
is feeling, attend to emotions, see what stories are going through
your head, see if peace is at hand. Dishes can be a conduit to a
full life because a full life can be lived while doing dishes. Or
because life is life, and it involves a lot of dishes.
Minor
confession, I am actually not the dish-washer in my own home. Good
news is that dishes are just one of many mundane domestic tasks.
This all seems like it can apply to cooking, cleaning, grass cutting,
grocery shopping, etc.
A
writer named Matt Haig (who I believe is an atheist) says, “To be
calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act. To be happy with your own
non-upgraded existence. To be comfortable with our messy, human
selves, would not be good for business.” Peace. Peace isn’t good
for business. Peace, calm, being present IS abundant life though.
And it is part of how we steel ourselves to continue doing the work
towards justice instead of just being crushed by the brokenness of
the world.
Our
texts today take on big topics. God’s grace, God’s blessing’s.
Peace, which is shalom, which is communal well-being and shared
abundant life. Living as God asks us to. Learning.
But
in the end, our faith lives are a part of our “real” lives, the
normal every day lives that for most of us involve plenty of mundane
tasks. Most of us, most of the time, aren’t pursuing shalom in big
and glorious ways. We’re trying to find it in the midst of what
already is.
Most
of us, most of the time, aren’t experiencing blessing in big loud
ways either. They’re sort of quiet, most blessings.
But
peace, shalom, abundant life. “Peace I leave with you; my
peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not
let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” The
peace Jesus gives, that’s what we’re allowing to take up residence in
us.
And
while there are a lot of ways of getting there, they seem to me to
sum up to two imperative and interconnected pieces: be present in
your own life – often, and be present in relationships.
Because
that’s where it all is! Presence, and relationships. That’s
abundant life. Relationships with others, relationships with God,
and while we’re at it, relationships even with ourselves. Which is
another way of saying being present to our own lives.
Jesus
was all about relationships, his ministry was spending time with
people and helping people connect with each other. The Bible is about
how to build societies full of good relationships. Good lives are
ones with good relationships. Good relationships with God ARE
spirituality.
Now,
I’m saying this to a congregation where people are struggling because
1. being together with those we love STILL isn’t safe and that hurts
our hearts and 2. many people are just so overwhelmed by life and its
demands that they aren’t able to find the time for the relationships
they value. And it is not my intention to place additional burdens
on those already struggling.
But
I do wish to remind you to use the control you have to move your life
towards connection and relationship. And, I will go back to the
beginning. The things you can’t control, you can at least change
some of the narrative on. There isn’t much value in spending life
being annoyed at stoplights.
In
fact, you could take stoplights as an invitation to pray, or to
listen to emotions, or to stretch, or to just breathe.
That’s
probably one easy way forward towards abundant life. May we together
find lots of others! Amen
1I
did google the name, and a viable candidate for these words emerged,
but I have no way of knowing if it is indeed the right person.
Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady
Image: Tree of LIfe
Notes:Four
artists created this work: Adelino Serafim Maté, Fiel dos Santos,
Hilario Nhatugueja et Christavao Canhavato (Kester), in Maputo,
Mozambique, 2004.It is a product of the Transforming Arms into Tools
(TAE) project and is made from decommissioned weapons. TAE was set up by
Bishop Dom Dinis Sengulane in 1995 and is supported by Christian Aid.
During Mozambique’s civil war, which lasted from 1976 to 1992, millions
of guns and other weapons poured into the country and most of them
remain hidden or buried in the bush. The project is an attempt to
eliminate the threat presented by the hidden weapons. Mozambicans are
encouraged to hand them over in exchange for items like ploughs,
bicycles and sewing machines. In one case a whole village gave up its
weapons in exchange for a tractor. [African Department, British Museum}
May 22, 2022