Rooted in the Spirit: Peace

As John Daniel just shared with the children,

we are now in week three of a summer sermon series

that we are calling Rooted in the Spirit, looking

at the fruit of the Spirit, which are presented

to us in Paul's letter to the Galatians. One

note as we prepare to hear those verses from

Galatians once again, the word fruit here in

these verses is not plural. It's singular. All

the fruit of the Spirit you can almost think

of, as one church member described to me right

before worship today, as being blossoms of the

same fruit. So let us listen now for a word from

God as we hear once again these verses from the

fifth chapter of Galatians. By contrast, Paul

writes, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy.

Peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,

gentleness, and self -control. There is no law

against such things. Each week, as we visit a

different one of those characteristics of the

fruit of the Spirit, we are doing so through

the lens of a different passage of Scripture.

And so this week, we sit with that word, peace,

and we look at it through the lens of John's

gospel, the 20th chapter. Just a bit of framing,

we are picking up the story late in the day on

that first Easter as John tells the story. The

women have discovered the tomb to be empty, but

the disciples are huddled in fear. And Jesus

comes to them in this manner. So let us continue

listening now for a word from God as we hear

these verses from the 20th chapter of John's

Gospel, beginning with the 19th verse. When it

was evening on that Easter day, the first day

of the week, and the doors of the house where

the disciples had met were locked for fear of

the Jews, Jesus came. and stood among them and

said, Peace be with you. After he had said this,

he showed them his hands and his side. And then

the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

And Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you. When

he had said this, he breathed on them and said

to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive

the sins of any, they are forgiven them. And

if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

Friends, this is the word of God for the people

of God. Thanks be to God. Today's sermon is titled,

The Second Song. Will you join me in prayer?

Let us pray. Gracious and loving God, breathe

your spirit once more upon us that we might know

your peace. Whatever it is that we are troubled

by this day, whatever it is that has stirred

the churning waters of our souls, we pray. We

pray that we might receive once more that great

gift of your peace which surpasses all understanding.

And in that peace, O God, we pray that through

your Spirit you would take not only the words

of my mouth, but also the meditations of all

of our hearts, gather together here in your sight,

and use them to your glory. For you and you alone

are our rock. and our Redeemer. Amen. I couldn't

help but chuckle to myself a little bit when

in God's divine providence, God took this sermon

series that we set on a calendar many months

ago and assigned the word peace to a Sunday That

comes after a week where the world feels unsettled.

What I might even call un -peace. Los Angeles.

Yesterday, Minnesota. The day before that, Tehran,

Tel Aviv, Gaza. I watched a video this week of

people literally climbing over themselves just

to get a scoop of rice to feed their families.

India. I don't even need to tell you what's going

on in these places. It's just instinctual. And

all of that before we even start to talk about

our own lives, the unsettledness, the unpeace

of grief that wracks so many of our hearts, of

estrangement from people we know, people we love.

Here again, there's verses that open this passage

today. When it was evening on that day, the first

day of the week, and the doors of the house where

the disciples had met were locked for fear, fear

on account of the unsettledness, the unpeace

of the world around them. A world where dictators

seem to have their way unimpeded. A world where

the righteous are cut down, or worse yet, hung

up upon a cross. A world where not just the disciples,

but everyone around them, wonder if there actually

is a path forward. When it was evening on that

day, the first day of the week, and the doors

of the house where the disciples had met were

locked for fear, Jesus came and stood among them

and said to them, Peace be with you. There's

a distinct feeling I get as I read these verses

that the peace Jesus offers to us and to this

world is distinctly different than the kind of

peace we see people talking about on TV or the

kind of peace we read about in the history books.

There's a feeling here that the kind of peace

that Jesus offers to us is a peace that does

not wait for the bombs to stop dropping or for

the world to suddenly be made safe. or for us

to be brave. There's no signing ceremony with

this kind of peace. There's no official -looking

document. There's no handshake agreement. No,

instead, Jesus comes to the disciples. Jesus

comes to us behind our locked doors of unsettledness.

of fear, of worry, of anguish, and brings us

peace through a singular fact, the fact that

he is alive. Remember before we reach this point

of the story, there's a different fact that is

controlling the disciples' lives, and that's

the fact that Jesus is dead. The story is done.

But suddenly here comes Jesus very much alive

in telling them that by the work of the Spirit,

he will remain with them and all of us always.

It reminds me of that incredible story later

in the book of Acts. You all remember the story

of Paul and Silas? They're out there on one of

these missionary journeys, and they're preaching

the gospel, and simply for preaching the gospel,

they are beaten and arrested and thrown in jail,

and literally, I love the details Luke gives

us in Acts, they're chained to the wall. There

is no hope for them. Sure, there might be a trial,

but they... would not delude themselves to believe

that there will be a fair trial. It's a dead

end. There's no way forward. It is only danger

and death that is ahead of them. And yet in this

story, do you remember this? They have total

peace. They sit there at midnight, Acts tells

us, bruised and beaten, and they pray. and they

sing out hymns of the faith. They turn their

jail cell into a sanctuary. And later in the

story, we discover that they turn an enemy into

a brother. Now, why? How could people in a situation

like that, literally behind the locked doors,

how could they have peace? There's only one thing.

that we can possibly point towards to make any

of it make sense. They find peace because the

living Christ is there with them. I think it's

Frederick Buechner who said something once like,

Jesus Christ did not promise us that we will

be safe. What Jesus did promise us, though, is

that we will never be alone. That is the truth

that Jesus shares with us and sends us out to

share with others. Peace be with you, he says.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you. But

friends, can we be honest for a moment? That

is hard, hard work. I don't know about you. But

there are moments when I am consuming the news

of the world. There are moments when I am sitting

in my own worry, my own anguish, where it is

just hard to believe that the living Christ is

present still. Have you ever felt like that?

If you've ever sat with a parent who's lost a

child, if you've ever sat with someone who has

experienced such darkness that they literally

cannot imagine the next thing they will do, it

is hard in those spaces to believe that it is

true that Jesus is still with us. And even in

our better moments, when we can believe it for

ourselves or for others, it's hard to believe

that sharing that peace with someone else will

make even a lick of difference. How can my phone

call, how can a note, how can a prayer possibly

even begin to erase an iota of the destruction

of war or solve the hunger of the starving? Or

take away the fear of an immigrant. Or somehow

pull back together that relationship that has

irrevocably been severed. It's hard. But then

I remember something. I remember that it is not

our peace that saves the world. No, it is Christ's.

Peace. Somewhere earlier in John's Gospel, Jesus

says, it is my peace I give to you. I do not

give to you as the world gives to you. Do not

let your hearts be troubled. Do not be afraid.

It's not our peace that will save the world.

It is Christ's peace so that when we embody that

peace that is not of this world. when we seek

to be reconcilers in a culture of division, when

we seek to practice forgiveness, when, let's

be real, resentment is a lot easier, when we

seek to be vessels of justice in the face of

systems that perpetuate harm, when we invite

that person to whom we are estranged out for

lunch. When we embody that peace that is not

ours but Christ's, what we do is become doorways

where the risen Christ slips into the world again

and again and again. When we do those things,

it is how the Spirit plants signs in this world

that is so unsettled. And these days that feel

so defined by unpeace, when we become those doorways,

it is how the Spirit plants signs of God's kingdom

here and now. Once a month we have a... A little

chapel service for the staff of our congregation.

We usually do it on the first Tuesday of every

month, but this month there was VBS. Some of

us were in Scotland, so we bumped it to this

last Tuesday. And the staff, pastors, program,

facility staff, all of us, we gathered in here

right over in this section of the sanctuary.

And we take turns leading it as pastors and program

staff. And this month, Pastor Rachel was leading

our devotion. And the devotion she offered to

us was two songs. No words, just two songs played

from the piano right here. And the first song

she explained to us was purposefully an unsettled

song. Had a lot of minor chords, a lot of dissonance

about it. It was slow, methodical. As you listened

to the song, you couldn't help but just kind

of feel all those images that are consuming so

many of us in these days and these weeks. They

just sort of flood into your mind. Both the images

of a world that is unsettled and broken, but

also just all of the challenges that we face

in our own individual lives as well. And when

that song finished, There was a brief silence.

And then she began playing a second song. I'm

not a musical person, so I'm making all this

up. It may not actually be anything you intended,

Rachel, but this is what I felt in that moment.

What I heard in the second song were some of

the same notes, some of the same themes of that

first song. But there was a peacefulness to the

second song. Some of those minor chords shifted

into major. It was a little more upbeat. It grew

in volume as the song continued. Am I making

this up, Holden Marshall? Does this sound right?

These are my music savants back here. I should

have checked with them before, but I'm going

to go with it regardless. There was even a bit

of harmony that started to come through. And

there was a piece of me late in that second song

where I almost felt perhaps a little bit of what

Paul and Silas might have felt there in that

prison cell so long ago. There's something like

peace. It was almost as if the Holy Spirit was

saying to me and maybe others who were there,

peace be with you. It occurred to me, the similarities

but also the distinctiveness of the first and

second song, it occurred to me that, you know,

that second song is always there. It's always

there around us and in us all the time. Right?

The risen Christ has planted that song in each

of our hearts by His Spirit. It is a song that

the world... especially now, friends, the world

is aching to hear. What the Spirit needs is people

who are willing to play it, to play that song

with our words, to play that song with our forgiveness,

to play that song with our kindness, to play

that song with our stubborn hope. Peace be with

you, Jesus says. But I think what he actually

means is peace be through you. Friends, will

you join me in prayer? Gracious and loving God,

today is a day for celebration as we lift up

and give thanks for all those who have served

like a father for us in our lives. And yet in

the midst of gratitude for that and so many other

things, God, we are consumed at all times by

the unsettledness and the unpeace of so much

around us. God, we know that your peace was not

just for a day long ago. It was a peace and is

a peace that is granted to us now. We know, God,

that even in this moment, that second song is

playing like a low hum in the background of this

world. God, sometimes it feels like... Nothing

we can do or say could possibly make any difference,

and yet we know that you have called us to be

purveyors of that song. And so we pray that you

would give us the courage, yes, but also the

hope that by singing the tune of your peace in

every situation that we encounter in our lives,

that they may be vessels not of our peace, but

of yours. And as your peace is shared, O God,

your peace would come to reign once more on earth

as it is in heaven. We pray this all in the strong

name of the one who has promised us that it is

possible, your Son, the crucified and risen Lord

Jesus Christ. Amen.