Peace that Passes Understanding
Last week, we hoped that maybe the Sunday School class would regale us with the VBS classic:
I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart!
(Where?)
Down in my heart!
(Where?)
Down in my heart!
I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart! Down in my heart to stay.
And that would have set us up beautifully for this week – as I have keen childhood memories of VBS and this peculiar verse:
I’ve got the peace that passes understanding down in my heart..
(actually, I believe I learned it as a child in the King James version – I’ve got the peace that passeth understanding…”)
I can remember being so puzzled by those words. First I had to figure out the words themselves because they all ran together in the song… and then as a five or six or seven year old, I had to figure out what peace was, and then what it meant for peace to “pass understanding”, and then for that to somehow be in me…down in my heart.
It was so confusing. In truth, I think that all I took from it in my childhood was that this “peace that passes understanding” was somewhere in the Bible.
I am pretty sure that I was trying to use what the world was telling me about what “peace” meant at that point in my young life – and in truth, in the mid-70s, my definition of peace was probably grounded in the immediate post-Vietnam era understanding of peace signs and such.
Eventually in our study of scripture, along comes the promise of peace in that big list of fruit alluded to in Galatians 5. And it all has something to do with the Holy Spirit.
So let’s begin by remembering a bit about the Holy Spirit.
In John’s gospel, Jesus promised his disciples that if they would love him and follow him, if they would keep his commandments to love God and neighbor, then God would send an advocate – the Holy Spirit – to be a comfort and an ongoing teacher when Jesus could no longer be with them.
In light of that promise, I like to think of the fruits that Paul mentions as evidence of the ways that the Holy Spirit is shaping us, softening our edges, perfecting us, calling forth better things in us.
Somehow as we follow Jesus closely, as we work to be real disciples, learning and living in Jesus’ teaching, we bear more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control as the Holy Spirit works on us.
Today, we are exploring the fruit that is “peace.”
The Greek word for peace, in both Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia and today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, is - εἰρήνη (eirēnē) (ayr - ren – ae) – a state of being that is not really the absence of conflict (because in truth, conflict seems to be part of the human condition that we cannot escape), but instead a kind of well-being and unity in community that is God-given rather than self-manufactured.
Would you do some work with me right now before we go forward? Will you listen deeply to that definition of peace again?
A state of being that is not really the absence of conflict (because in truth, conflict seems to be part of the human condition that we cannot escape), but instead a kind of well-being and unity in community that is God-given rather than self-manufactured.
Now, will you take just a couple of breaths to either call to mind your experience of that kind of peace OR your imagination of what that kind of peace might feel like in your body and spirit.
(Give that three breaths.)
Ok…let’s move ahead.
We have a tendency to turn all of Paul’s letters into significant theological treatises, but in reality, Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi was probably written for pretty “minor” reasons – to assure the community that Paul is alright although he is imprisoned, to thank them for their gifts of support, and to encourage them in their continued work without him.
The letter includes gentle reminders about what matters most. In the portion you heard today, he is wrapping up the message – and he gently urges two women in leadership, Euodia (Yoo-O-dia) and Syntyche (Sin – te -key), be of the same mind – an echo of something he said much earlier in the letter. There must have been some conflict that they were working through. Both in his specific counsel to the women and throughout the letter, Paul is reminding folks to keep the main thing the main thing – emulate Christ and work to live in harmony and good relationship with one another.
The peace about which Paul speaks is a by-product of this kind of work to follow Christ. Specifically, it seems to come from turning to God in prayer, laying aside anxieties. Paul’s counsel and assurance is:
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
I want to spend time with the idea of this peace, as the word is used across Paul’s writing, as being God – given rather than self-manufactured. This is God’s peace in us.
We live in a world where the self-help industry offers us a lot of opportunity for improving our lives – if we just do the right exercise, commit to the right kind of meditation, get enough sleep.
We do this because we desperately want to have some control over our well-being.
And we DO have some control over our well-being, but Paul’s letter suggests that there is also an element of our well-being in the world – our peace - that is related to our relationship with God.
There it is again – that has been a theme in our reflections on fruit of the Spirit. Somehow our fruitfulness is contingent upon our relationship with God.
Paul’s counsel is that by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, we let our requests be known to God. Then the peace of God will guard our hearts and minds.
We took a moment earlier to call to mind your experience or our imagination of that kind of peace that is God-given. Was there a clear sense of your connection to God in that experience, in that visualization?
NOW let’s take a moment now to call to mind the kind of peace or sense of well-being that we create for ourselves. Maybe thinking about the self-help books you’ve read or the kinds of ways you try to be in control of your own life and reaction to the world, what are some ways you try to create peace for yourself. What does it look like when YOU strive to control your well-being?
Ok. Was there a difference between the two kinds of peace that you imagined?
What if God’s peace isn’t necessarily “peaceful” in the common (maybe more worldly) understanding of peace?
Is it possible that there a kind of peace that comes when one is in the midst of hard things but still connected to God?
Is it possible that God’s peace – a kind of deep-felt well-being and unity in community – sometimes involves being in the midst of hard things and yet feeling confident that God is with you in the midst of the hard thing.
Maybe there is some sort of felt assurance (oh…there’s that John Wesley Aldersgate feeling again!). But maybe it doesn’t feel like the world’s peace.
Paul is in prison when he offers an assurance of peace to the people at Philippi – he is writing from his cell. We don’t know exactly which imprisonment this is for Paul. Some scholars suggest that this is his LAST imprisonment – which ended when he was martyred by capital punishment at the hands of the Roman empire.
He’s in prison, maybe facing death, and he’s talking about peace.
Now that…that feels like a peace that passes understanding to me.
I think about our baptismal vows.
What if we experience God’s peace – a peace that passes understanding, – when we renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of the world, and resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.
Even when that is hard.
What if it is in THOSE moments that we are most aligned with God?
Most connected to how God loves the world?
What if those moments offer us True peace?
May the Holy Spirit work in us to renew our understanding of God’s peace so that we will lean into the places where we are aligned with God, best able to be channels of God’s love and peace in the world.
May it be so.
Amen.
Prompt:
Some people think a dove is a good metaphor for peace. Others say peace is like a river. What image or metaphor speaks of peace to you? Peace is …
If you are joining us online, please feel free to respond to that prompt either in the chat or in e-mail to the office at office@faithworkshere.com
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