“ON BEING A PERSON OF PEACE”
“Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house. “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.”
– Luke 10:3-9
Of all the Christian holy days… other than Christmas and Easter I have come to love and appreciate All Saints Day the most! It shows up on the church calendar each year on November 1st! In fact… as far back as the fourth century, Christians in many places on many different days commemorated those persons who ‘loved us to death’ and were ‘martyred’ for their faith in Jesus… this going on for centuries until Pope Gregory IV set the date of November 1st in the ninth century.
And over the years of my life I have come to cherish that the saints we celebrate are not only those who have died… but those who walk beside us now as well as those who we’ve yet to meet where one day… hopefully… they will include us in their list of those who offered love and peace to our dying day… in a world where hate surfaces far too much… and wars and rumors of wars get the headline on the five o’clock news.
What does it mean to be a person of peace? Are you one? Do you know any? How can we tell? If you google the word, ‘peace,’ you will find an answer that sounds like… ‘where there is an absence of conflict, no fighting or war… where there is harmony and tranquility.’ Sound right? Mostly. But I think being a person of peace is more than that… deeper than that… more centered and more balanced than that.
When Jesus was napping in the boat one afternoon a violent storm came up on the Sea of Galilee and Jesus’ disciples thought they were all going to die. They woke Jesus and he went to the bow of the boat and yelled… “Peace, be still!” Then the wind and the rain stopped. Immediately!
They knew Jesus’ voice.
Remember, he called them into creation in the beginning… and in this moment Jesus presented himself as the ‘peace which passes all human understanding’… to quote a line from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians… as Jesus was already a person of peace in the midst of the storm… something ancient-futurist Dr. Len Sweet called… ‘cha-ordic’… that the order of life includes chaos… and staying close to Jesus in the midst of life’s storms provides safety! So, peace is not just the absence of violence… it is the calm we experience in the midst of life’s uncertainties staying close to Jessus each and every day.
Faith matters!
At the end of St. John’s gospel Jesus says to his disciples… ‘My peace I leave with you…’ something Jesus had… but something he wanted to give away… meaning we all need some peace in our lives and when we have some… we dare not hold on to it too, too tightly… but rather put if to use for the good of the world.
This All Saints Day I will remember many of God’s saints… including my grandmother, Irene… who’s name in Koine’ Greek… the language of the New Testament… means… ‘peace.’ Gram modelled her name for me…and so many others… being a person of peace… having a deep and abiding faith… never wavering… despite her life having much disruption and pain.
Our world needs each of us to be a person of peace. Be one. Look for one. On Easter morning Jesus said, ‘peace be with you!’ It’s still out there!
The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Gigee is a long-time resident of Pearland, having pastored four churches over the last four decades in Texas and Louisiana. Read more following Brian’s blog ‘murmurings’ at https://briangigee.wordpress.com/. Send comments and/or questions to godworks247365@gmail.com.
