Isaiah 2:1-4, Matthew 5:38-48; Romans 12:9-21
Did you notice anything about the hymn we just sang? Voices Together 797 – We Are People of God’s Peace. For those who have been around awhile in the Mennonite Church, this is a very familiar hymn. It first appeared for Sunday morning worship in the 1992 Hymnal: A Worship Book and became an instant favourite. We liked the music – its syncopated rhythms, soaring melody and solid harmonizations. But more than that, the text was written by none other than early Anabaptist Menno Simons, from whom the name Mennonite comes from. This is a text that gets at the heart of our Mennonite Peace Theology and our understandings of ourselves as a people of peace. We sing it often on a Peace Sunday like this. But did you notice anything? There is an extra verse in this Voices Together version of this hymn that was not in the last hymnal – verse 2. If you look at the small little notes at the bottom of the page, you will see that this verse 2 was put together by the Mennonite Worship and Song Committee in 2017, as they prepared for this new hymnal, still based on the same 1552 writing by Menno Simons – Reply to False Accusations. Why this additional verse? It comes down to the Hymnal Committee not feeling quite comfortable with the hymn as it stood, and recognizing the complexity and nuance of how our peace theology plays out in real life. The original hymn can sound triumphalistic. The hymn can make it sounds like we always succeed at being people of God’s peace, with total faithfulness, devotion and confidence. Yet we know that is not always true. We struggle so often with living out our vision of peace. We fall short, and often do not even know what peace might look like in a particular situation, even as we are committed to peace. Thus, verse 2. We are heralds of God’s peace – heralds witness to something but don’t necessarily bring it about themselves – they point to a peace that can only happen by the grace of God – ‘and by grace the word of peace reaches ev’ry nation.’ It goes on -‘Thought we falter and we fail, Christ will still renew us.’ That faltering and failing is also a part of who we are. We fail, often. We do not always live up to this pure Anabaptist Ideal and Vision. It is only through the Holy Spirit that God might work through us. This is a significant verse for us to now sing within this favourite hymn. It keeps us honest. It keeps us searching for peace. We need to sing this verse too on Peace Sunday.
I wanted us to sing this hymn before my sermon, the last in our Shalom worship series of ‘The Things That Make for Peace.’ Like this hymn, this worship series has rooted us again in our Anabaptist Peace Theology and Witness, while also asking lots of questions about what this theology means in our current setting and world situation, and how we might live this out faithfully, even as we recognize our own shortcomings and how much we are caught up in and complicit with the violence and injustice of our world. We have travelled far during this series. Janet started us off by setting out the broad parameters of a Biblical vision for Shalom – that word that encompasses peace, wholeness, overall well being, to have enough, contentment, completeness. It is a rich term. We also began by recognizing we needed a broader definition of violence. Yes, armed conflict and weapons and war, but also exclusion, rejection, oppression based on gender, skin colour, age, sexuality, economic status. Violence includes poverty, injustice, discrimination, displacement from the land, and so many of the systems of our world that operate by power and favor some people over others. It is all those things that are broken and torn and disconnected and polarized in our world today. This broader definition of violence is also what complicates this Sunday and this theme of peace. Like that 2nd verse of the hymn, we recognize how much we are complicit in the systems and violence of our world and how often we ourselves are broken, even as we work towards peace and Shalom.
As we travelled through these weeks, we were also introduced to the 4 siblings of Truth, Mercy, Justice and today Peace – 4 siblings that often want to pull the conversation in their direction only, but when they work together can bring us into a fuller expression of what Shalom can mean. Today we look at the small ‘p’ character of peace, but hopefully, that also brings us full circle back to an enlarged vision of big ‘P’ Peace, or Shalom. In describing the sibling of ‘peace’, Janet wrote ‘Peace (shalom)–Is good natured and agreeable. Peace doesn’t like conflict and is quick to step in to stop disagreements, accusations, bitterness, name calling and physical fights. Peace will pull the sides apart, and get in between in order to restore calm. Peace just wants to hold the family together and move on from the conflict. Sometimes peace can come across as arrogant and more important than the others. Peace just wants the conflict to end, and sometimes makes it too easy to forgive and forget and move on. Peace sometimes forgets the need for the others to have their say, or the need for somebody to be accountable for what happened.’
Like Janet said, and probably many of us, I can identify with this character. My personality is not one that likes conflict. I can move easily to a peace that just ends things, even if it is not really resolved underneath. You sometimes get this kind of peace in a ceasefire or truce that ends the fighting, but is only temporary. Is this what we have right now in this in-between time with the CUPE education workers, and the Ontario Government – a truce or pause, but not yet any sort of long term labour peace. Is this what we sometimes get within a family or a congregation, or among neighbours, where we are all civil and get along by not talking about what is really going on underneath, the hidden conflict or disagreement? A peace that just eases things over needs the other siblings of Truth, Mercy and Justice to bring a fuller peace, and yet sometimes those 3 siblings need that base level of peace in order to communicate with each other and work together. As we heard in the dialogue that first week, ‘peace is both before and after…, it clears the space to break out of the vicious cycle of accusation, bitterness, and bloodshed…Peace is the soil for the others to work and bear fruit, and it holds the community together with the encouragement of security, respect and well-being.’ This small ‘p’ peace is about creating space that can allow for a larger peace or shalom to emerge and thrive.
You may have noticed that in our worship this morning, we read together, out loud, some of the key Biblical passages that have been lifted up by Anabaptist Mennonites, and we sang some of our key peace hymns and songs. Maybe for us, that is part of the base level of our faith that we need to come back to again and again. This is that creation of space we need. We need to hear those Scriptures and sing those hymns. We are part of a Peace Church tradition. We have said over and over again that peace is the will of God and God’s intention for humanity, and that we will not as Christians participate in violence or war. We need to hear that ‘they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.’ (Isaiah 2:4) We need to hear ‘love your enemies and prayer for those who persecute you.’ (Matthew 5:44). We need to hear ‘Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them… Do not repay evil for evil… If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, leave peaceably with all… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’ (Romans 12: 9, 14, 18, 21) I remember when 9-11 happened, and that night Sue Steiner, then pastor here at SJMC, and myself as a musician, and several others, planned a spontaneous evening of worship, prayer and lament held at First Mennonite – and these are the passages that we read, that we needed to hear, to be reminded of the core of the gospel of peace, even in the face of violence and threat.
When you create that space, good and creative solutions can emerge. A number of us watched the well done Theatre of the Beat music on Friday night – Selah’s Song. In the story, in the midst of a repressive war, a young girl creatively opens up the possibility of peace by singing a song of peace. In our day, showing this musical is also an act of peace that creates space in our imaginations for another way.
I went back to our 1995 Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective (Herald Press, 1995) this week. We are a denomination that unlike most, in our Confession has a whole article on ‘Peace, Justice and Nonresistance.’ (Article 22) As the commentary says, ‘Peace and Justice are not optional teachings, counsel that Christians can take or leave. They belong to the heart of gospel message.’ (Ibid, p.83) The Confession article itself states in part – ‘We believe that peace is the will of God… and God’s peace is most fully revealed in Jesus Christ, who is our peace and the peace of the whole world. Led by the Holy Spirit, we follow Christ in the way of peace, doing justice, bringing reconciliation, and practicing nonresistance even in the face of violence and warfare. .. The peace God intends for humanity and creation was revealed most fully in Jesus Christ… who taught love of enemies, forgave wrongdoers, and called for right relationships. When threatened, he chose not to resist, but gave his life freely…. As followers of Jesus, we participate in his ministry of peace and justice…we do not prepare for war or participate in war or military service… We witness against all forms of violence.’ (Ibid, p.81-82) I am struck again how peace is at the core of the gospel message, and the core of who Jesus was. We are called to follow the example and witness of Jesus. We read the whole of Scripture through Jesus, and we read our very lives through the message and witness of Jesus. This is core Anabaptist-Mennonite faith.
Which brings us back to our current world realities, and complexity and to the recognition and confession that we do not always live up to this ideal and to the heart of our faith. How do we hold our core convictions when some in our world live in hunger and poverty, when we see the effects of racism and gender violence, when we sit with the truth of Indigenous Residential Schools, including Mennonite run schools, when, as we heard from Allegra Friesen Epp last Sunday, we are complicit with the injustice of taking away Indigenous land, when we see violence at times within our own families or communities, when our churches are not always safe or welcoming to all, when we contribute to the destruction of God’s created world and start to see the effects of climate change, when we struggle within our own hearts with violence? What do we say about the current aggressive war in Ukraine? How do we respond?
On Wednesday, several of us gathered in our SJMC library to have a discussion on peace and non-resistance. We raised some of these same questions. There are no easy answers. But I did have 2 take aways from this group and our conversation. Both were expressions of holding 2 opposites at the same time. The first was the comment that we can and should absolutely affirm and believe and proclaim the Biblical Message of Peace as expressed in the life and death and example of Jesus and know this to be true, while also knowing that carrying it out in real life is hard, and that this is aspirational, as we will always fall short. We don’t know how we might personally react in a particular situation when push literally comes to pull, but we hold on to this ideal, this model, this desire, this goal. The second comment was that pacifism, peace-making, is incredibly simple and incredibly complex. As one person said, you just treat others as you would have them treat you. You turn the other cheek. You go the second mile. You just act in peaceful ways to those around you. It’s simple. It’s doable. But it is also so complex, for all the reasons we have named already this morning. It is comforting to know that it has always been complex. It was complex for Jesus, living in Roman occupation, with his life always under threat, to the point of the cross. It was complex for early Christianity as it was persecuted and yet spread the gospel. It was complex for the early Anabaptists in a time of Holy War and Reformation and their own persecution and martyrdom for living and proclaiming this message of peace. It was complex for Mennonites coming from Pennsylvania to Ontario and sorting through their responses to everything from the War of 1812 to World War I. It was complex as I heard my own grandfather, or Opa, talk about his experience in the tumultuous 1920’s in the same area of Ukraine that is now under siege, when he was tempted but chose not to join the SelbtStutz, or Mennonite self defense army, and saw his father shot and killed in front of him before fleeing to Canada. It was complex for this local Mennonite community in World War II, in the midst of anti-German sentiment, when many chose to become Conscientious Objectors. It is complex now in a divided pandemic world, with terrorism and current global conflicts, and the pervasive presence of social media, and the growing awareness of the systems we are a part of. It will always be complex, and yet we can still hold that basic simple message of love your enemies and overcome evil with good.
So I am left his week, on a Peace Sunday, in a place of holding some of these tensions, some of these opposites. We hold these with gentleness and humility. I cannot judge what others might do. I do not know how I would respond or react if I was in their situation of violence or threat. We hold these with prayers of lament for our world and the many places of violence. We hold these with solidarity with those who are suffering. We hold these with a commitment to live into the peace God calls us to as best we can – as Pauls says ‘if it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.’ We hold these by responding in the practical ways we can – while we can’t put ourselves into the shoes of the Ukrainian people, we did decide to help with the opening of the Guest House here in town, and to help provide food and gift cards and support – and its been so good to have these new friends with us in worship today. We hold these with the wisdom we have heard when we bring together the 4 siblings of Truth, Mercy, Justice and Peace. It is this creating of space that we heard from the character or sibling of peace. In the end, peace comes as a gift from God. We cannot make it happen. We receive it as a gift. We rejoice. We give thanks for strength that is given, and for creative solutions that emerge as alternatives to the way of violence.
We began with an Anabaptist Mennonite hymn and I want to end with another one, but this time from a contemporary Mennonite text writer, Adam Tice, who was also text editor of Voices Together. You can turn already to VT 168 – Peace to You. When I first heard this hymn a few years ago at the Laurelville Music and Worship weekend, I was so struck by the music, but also by the text – by its vision for the many different images of what peace is. There is both that simplicity and complexity in this hymn text. Peace is promised from Jesus. Peace is far off and near at hand. Peace confounds and disrupts. Peace reveals a new world. Peace is action and deed. Peace is a gift, a garden sprung up from seed. Peace fills the cosmos and sets us free. Let us keep reading and singing and living into God’s vision for peace, for Shalom. And may God grant that peace for our world. Amen.