#1 - The True Meaning of Shalom {Reflections}

Well, shalom, everybody.

Shalom, Mike.

Shalom.

What's up, everyone?

My name is Ryan Brayley.

I'm the pastor of Central.

I'm here in the studio with Mike Lauer, our director of music.

How are you doing, Mike?

I'm living the dream.

Shalom, my brother.

Shalom.

Hey, shalom, if you haven't heard already, is one of my favorite words in the Hebrew language.

I love it.

It's this ancient Hebrew word.

I talk about it all the time.

In fact, in every wedding ceremony that I do, I always include this idea of shalom when talking about the rings.

Now, shalom is this ancient Hebrew word, often used as it's a greeting meaning goodbye or hello, even, that simply means peace, or is translated as peace in the English.

And so when Jews or other people use it as a greeting, it's something like saying, Hey, peace to you, or peace be upon you as we part ways.

And it's beautiful, actually.

The book of Leviticus, I mean, look, every good podcaster knows that one way to gain an audience is to quote from the wonderful and thoroughly timeless book of Leviticus.

Amen, Mike?

Amen.

The book of Leviticus says this, I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down, and no one will make you afraid.

I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country.

The word peace there is the word shalom.

I will grant you shalom in the land.

But I think that maybe we've lost our sense of what the word peace actually means in English.

I mean, for most of us, peace means something like an absence of conflict or an absence of violence or war.

But shalom, in the Hebraic sense, uh isn't just simply an absence of something.

Rather, it's the presence of something.

It's a hint that there's something much deeper besides just nonviolence or not war.

It's something much better, a profound presence.

The most basic meaning for shalom is like complete or wholeness in the original context.

So shalom is not simply the absence of conflict, but the presence of completeness or wholeness within community.

So shalom means to be whole or to be safe or sound.

It's the fundamental idea of totality, it's like a wholeness.

So things that contribute to this wholeness in community or in uh in sort of a social sense, they make for shalom.

And things stand in the way of wholeness, those things disrupt shalom.

So to bring shalom or to offer shalom, even in a greeting, means to complete something or make something whole.

And most often it's a relational sense.

So I mean, life is full of moving parts, right?

Of relationships, situations, and when any of these things are out of alignment, out of place, or missing, it's a breakdown of shalom.

And life no longer is whole but needs to be restored.

So Daniel Erlander, a famous Lutheran pastor, says it like this Shalom means a wholeness in community, a social reality where all have enough, where forgiveness abounds, and all live in harmony.

I have a good friend who loved this word as well.

He had actually on a bracelet he owned, and this same friend of mine actually has a really uh strong anger problem.

He's like consistently trying to rein in his anger.

And one day, while wearing the bracelet, he had this absolute, almost like an adult temper tantrum and banged his fist on his steering wheel while in his car having this meltdown.

And ironically enough, the bracelet with the word shalom on it broke and like shattered all across the car that he was in.

And as we were chatting about it one day, I thought that's interesting that that this anger outburst that led you to kind of have this sort of adult temper tantrum broke the bracelet with shalom on it.

I'm like, man, this is like a breaking of shalom and on many levels.

Now, Jerusalem, the capital city of Israel, literally means the people of Shalom, Jerusalem.

So the name stands for what the city was ideally meant to be.

This city was supposed to be a city on a hill, a light in the darkness, a place of peace.

And a biblical Hebraic understanding of this word shalom applied to the individual for sure, but also to the whole village, if you will, and to the nation, the entire nation of Israel.

And also then to the entire world.

Shalom is a community of wholeness in our individual lives, in our family lives, in our neighborhoods, and also this global community.

And look, I get it.

I mean, this sounds like a fantasy for many of us.

And maybe conjures up some images from the 1960s and Kat Stevens' wonderful song, Peace Train.

Or maybe you think that there's just like no way this will ever happen in our world today.

Like this world will never have shalom.

And some days, maybe even most days, I'm totally with you.

It seems like a pie in the sky fantasy dream.

But this was the Jewish hope that one day God would bring shalom to a broken world and restore and repair this place back to its original goodness.

And Jesus shows up and he talks again and again about this kingdom of God, a picture of the world made whole, complete and filled with shalom, order, wholeness, completeness, community in my own individual family, uh in my neighborhood, at central and all around the world.

And this is what I pray for and work for on a weekly or daily basis.

And I invite you to do the same.

We, as the people of God, are to be people of shalom and build and bring shalom to a broken world.

So may we be known for our shalom.

May the shalom of God be with you today, and may you find ways to restore shalom today in your neighborhood, even if only in small ways, here or there.

And remember that when you do this, you are living in tune with the peace and the shalom of God.

So shalom, everyone, and we'll see you next week.