{"id":75,"date":"2011-03-02T11:56:07","date_gmt":"2011-03-02T17:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sensingt\/?p=75"},"modified":"2011-03-24T16:07:20","modified_gmt":"2011-03-24T21:07:20","slug":"passing-the-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sensingt\/2011\/03\/passing-the-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Passing the Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading: Matthew 5: 3-12 <the Beatitudes<\/em>><\/p>\n

I am happy to be asked to speak about the beatitudes today. The beatitudes have always served the church and me personally as words of comfort and beauty. Not only do these words appear on calendars, bookmarks, and plaques, they are often used as children\u2019s first memory verses. One of my first sermons @ age 13 walked through each beatitude exhorting the church to go and do likewise. So even as a teen, I witnessed to their goodness and grace. We who are blessed easily give the beatitudes our mental agreement. As words of truth, the beatitudes orient our lives and comfort our hearts.<\/p>\n

Of course, the beatitudes are also disrupting words for others. The world characterizes the American Dream by fidelity investments and net worth. Resumes and ePortfolios describe our identities. Around ACU, the list includes vitae, GPAs, and social clubs. Every image on ESPN, Vogue, & Macys proclaims that we don’t believe the picture portrayed in the Beatitudes. We believe other<\/span> definitions of what it means to be a Real Man or an American Woman. We go for: the noble, sophisticated, educated, rich, powerful, beautiful, and other acts of competition. This is how you will possess the world. These are the ones who will be successful, who will accomplish mighty things in the name of God. But Jesus said, “Blessed are the Meek for they will inherit the world.” In America we say, “Not a chance.” Just read the books on leadership and the picture painted stands in stark contrast with these words. Jesus certainly had a strange way of starting a kingdom. The beatitudes are disrupting words for those who define the pursuit of happiness as a right protected by the American Dream.<\/p>\n

But more than disrupting, the words often don\u2019t disrupt at all because we are immune, just plain platitudes for calendars, plaques, children\u2019s memory verses, and a teen\u2019s first sermon.\u00a0The church domesticates the words in such a way that though they are memorized, we do not know them by heart.<\/p>\n

Let me tell you a story about my daughter\u2019s computer. As she was moving into the dorm, her new roommate decided to check her email. So, she plugged the phone cable into the Ethernet port smashing and crumpling all the wires. When something that does not belong in a space, tries to locate itself there, great damage occurs. The difficulty of the repair required time and expertise. The repair of the damage came at a high cost. Sometimes, damage is so great that we trash the item, recycle it, or put it on the shelf in the garage.<\/p>\n

I recalled that story in January while visiting Puerto Rico and the biennial conference of ATFE. The theme was La Plaza\u2026A Place of Encounter<\/em>. As contextual theologians, we are always listening and watching our immediate surroundings, our social location. San Juan is known for its beautiful and historic plazas; places of community. Especially before AC and TV, the plaza served the community by being the central location for social interaction. The plaza is a place to meet new friends, to catch up with old friends, to hear the news of the day, and to celebrate life. And plazas around the world are often places that provide spaces for people to move and be. Whether it is the marketplace, City Park, Town Square, little league complex, church, or a social media or networking site, plazas are places for people to live in the polis, a neighborhood, and a society.<\/p>\n

Michael Walzer defines civil society<\/em> as \u201cthe space of un-coerced human association and also the set of relational networks\u2014formed for the sake of family, faith, interest, and ideology, that fill this space.\u201d\u00a0Likewise, Plazas are places of inclusion (you don\u2019t block folk or defriend them in a Plaza). Plazas are places of Fiesta; fiesta for celebration but also fiesta as a place of resistance against oppression and darkness. Plazas as places of support, sustenance, and hopefulness. I could go on, but you get the idea.<\/p>\n

But while in San Juan, a cultural anthropologist asked us to consider the plaza as it is rather than a romantic notion of days gone by. The inquirer was disturbing because I was on the Steering Committee that had planned the event. I had spent time for two years paying attention to the theme of plaza in such a way that it would be meaningful to others. But, the questioner noted that the old neighborhoods are no more as upward mobility creates an exodus to the suburbs. If you observe the plaza today, you will see the same suspects often found in many city parks, namely, folks looking for a bench to use as a bed, drug traffickers, sex peddlers, and lost souls. And you will see security officers designated to sweep the area so that when tourists from the cruise ships come to port and visit the plazas, they will see clean, beautiful, and historic places that were described in the travel brochures.<\/p>\n

Both the tourists and the ATFE contextual theologians saw only a sanitized version of the plaza and the fiesta. When we watched the mariachi band and dancers, we were not participating in fiesta; we were being entertained. Both groups pushed themselves into a location and did not see the reality of the space. We caused damage, disrupted peace, and unknowingly contributed to oppression. While our dollars fuel the local economy, our presence participated in dislocation and damaged the underlying world of the plaza.<\/p>\n

And to a greater extent, Stan Saunders and Chuck Campbell in The Word on the Street<\/em>, describe the tragic dislocation of the poor when the summer games of the Olympics came to Atlanta in 1996.<\/p>\n

How do you repair such damage?\u00a0Blessed are the peacemakers, for you are the children of God. Blessed are the repairers of damage, for you are God\u2019s offspring<\/em>. These are disrupting words to us who cause damage, who create social dislocation, and who participate in marginalizing others based on gender, identity issues, economic location, educational status, ethnicity, nationality, or denominational affiliation.<\/p>\n

We cry out, Peace! Peace! <\/em>But there is no peace. Like a scraped knee, we ask our mommies to blow on it instead of using the iodine. We want a spoonful of sugar to make our medicine go down. Often we do not participate in the hard work of repairing the damage.<\/p>\n

Yet, among us can be found persons of meekness, ministers of mercy, and wagers of peace. And their presence is odd for it defies the American dream and our right to pursue happiness. These meek, poor, mourners, and peacemakers are disruptive. They exchange peace with us and bless us with all God\u2019s goodness. Their presence and activity among us is a sign of God’s blessing, that we are living in God’s Kingdom ahead of time, that God’s redemptive life is coming true.<\/p>\n

Blessed are the repairers of damage, for you are God\u2019s offspring.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>So, how do you repair such damage? Let me offer a starting point. A simple act of passing the peace that signifies an alternative possibility\u2014to help us imagine what peace might look like ahead of time. A simple practice that is faithfully enacted week after week in the sanctuary, can move outside the walls and bless others. It begins with a Christian practice not found in my home church. Dorothy Bass defines a Christian practice as a formative activity that \u201cChristian people do together over time in response to and in the light of God\u2019s active presence for the life of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Passing the Peace<\/em> is a practice of hospitality and peacemaking. It is not designed as a socializing exercise, a \u201cgreet and meet,\u201d but an intentional act of hospitality that extends Christ\u2019s peace to another. Gregory Jones states, \u201cThe exchange of peace, one of the most disarming as well as disconcerting activities for some worshippers, is God\u2019s tender movement toward us and God\u2019s gentle nudging of our lives towards others\u2014and towards a kingdom not yet fully realized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes, I hear stories of Christians who experience deep damage in their social relationships. For example, the person who caused damage at the finance committee meeting, moves down the aisle, takes the hand of the one attacked, and says, \u201cThe peace of God be unto you.\u201d And he hears back the forgiveness, \u201cand also unto you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Words of repair\u2014the exchanging of peace, begin in the sanctuary. \u201cPeace unto you\u201d are performative words that reorient the world.<\/p>\n

Paul always greeted and closed with the words, \u201cThe peace of God be with you\u201d in his pastoral letters. This is an appropriate way to greet fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and so we say, \u201cThe peace of the Lord be with you\u201d and respond, \u201cAnd also with you.\u201d We then pass this greeting of peace to one another. At the passing of the peace we should earnestly desire God\u2019s peace upon each person we greet. The passing of the peace is also a sign of obedience to Jesus\u2019 words that we make peace with one another before offering our gifts at the altar (Matt. 5:23-24).<\/p>\n

[Instructions for Passing the Peace.<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Leader:<\/strong> The peace of the Lord be with you always.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>People:<\/strong> And also with you.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Leader:<\/strong> Please share the peace with one another.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Words of repair are spoken, and words of repair are spoken back.<\/p>\n

Sing\u2014Doxology<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>[Read Text\u2014the Beatitudes<\/em> as an inclusio]<\/span><\/p>\n

Sending: \u201cMay the peace that is given to you today go forth and multiply to others who are outside these walls.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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