Henrietta United
Rev.
David Inglis Luke
2:8-14
“Peace–A Promise and a Plan”
“On earth peace, and goodwill among people.” That was the good news the angels sang about
when Jesus entered our world. Imagine
it– Peace between Shi’ites, Sunnis, al-Quaeda, and the
This promise of peace seems
as far out of reach for us today as it did to the people who lived in
Roman-occupied Palestine 2000 years ago.
And here’s the reason why. The
good news the angels announced wasn’t just a promise. It was also a plan. We have embraced the promise, but we’ve
overlooked the plan that would translate the dream into reality in our
real-life relationships.
I read something recently
that helped bring
that plan into focus for me. It turns
out the angels that announced the good news of peace weren’t just posing for
sparkly Christmas cards that carry a benign general wish that doesn’t offend
anyone or require anything of us. Those angels were making a
rather pointed political statement as to what does and doesn’t bring peace on
earth and goodwill among people.
The very term “good news”
that the angel used was politically loaded.
“Good news” wasn’t a religious phrase back then. “Good news” was the term that the
Do you get a sense of what
this announcement would have sounded like to those who first heard it? They wouldn’t have been sending Christmas
cards about it. They would have been
saying, “Sshhhh!
Be careful who you talk to about this.
Don’t you know the Romans have big ears?”
There’s no question that
any good news of peace coming from anywhere but Caesar would have been seen as
a threat to the established order. Any loyal Roman citizen would have told you,
“Peace on earth? Hey, we practically
have that sewed up. We call it the pax Romana–the
Roman peace. It’s a simple plan,
really. We just centralize all the power
and wealth under Caesar’s control. We call him the king of kings, because he’s
conquered all of the regional kings and forced them to pledge their allegiance
to Rome. We revere him as a god–divine gift sent to unify the world. Our Caesars
have created one centralized
government, a common currency, a coordinated system of roads and aqueduct, and
one penal system for criminals, rebels and insurrectionists. Our dream is for our empire to encompass the
whole world. Then everyone can
experience Roman prosperity, justice and peace.
“Yes, everyone. Well, everyone of course but those backward
tribes who want to keep their own culture and religion–the Jews, for
example. But they could have
peace if they’d stop resisting and just call Caesar god. Everyone else, except of course the slaves
and servants. We need their free labor
to enhance the prosperity of Rome’s citizens.
“Everyone else, except of
course the peasants and artisans, like farmers and carpenters. Keeping our military strong and our empire
great takes a lot of money. So it’s
inevitable that the people who don’t have the know-how or drive to really
succeed in this competitive world might have to lose their land and houses and
sell their children into slavery. But
that should serve as an incentive for them to work harder and make more of a
contribution.
“This peace, prosperity and
equality is for everyone else, well, except of course for the women. Their main role is to produce sons to build
up our military and to produce the goods that will increase the prosperity of
our citizens. But if they’re obedient,
and eager to make their husbands happy, and they stay attractive, we treat them
well enough.
“You know, it makes me
proud to be a citizen of the greatest empire the world has ever known–bringing
justice, equality and peace to everyone–well, everyone like me.”
So now maybe we can see why
the angels’ message of peace on earth for all people was so needed, and why it
was so loaded. But what exactly was God’s
plan for peace that the angels heralded?
It was to reveal the deepest truth of who we human creatures are, who
our fellow travelers through this world are, and what our lives are meant to be
about. The plan was embodied by a man
who had entered the world as a baby dressed in swaddling clothes and was laid
in a feeding trough because there was no room in the inn. He was subject to the same oppression, greed,
fear, and hostility that God’s plan is meant to overcome.
Jesus’ first major teaching
was the Sermon on the Mount. He began
something like this. “You’ve been told
how to make it in this world–what it takes to be successful and satisfied and
on top of the heap. Listen! Happy, fortunate and blessed are the poor in
spirit–those who really know their need for God–God’s compassionate mercy,
God’s guiding light, God’s transforming power.
When you stop living in the kingdom of ego, yours is the kingdom of
heaven. How happy, fortunate and blessed
are those who mourn–whose hearts haven’t become hardened and calloused by all
the suffering and exploitation and abuse we all are part of here. Their open hearts will be comforted and
strengthened by a Love that embraces them and all who suffer. How happy, fortunate and blessed are the
meek. That’s right–not the smug and
arrogant–but those who know they are God’s creatures, and who are willing to
submit to God’s higher purpose and plan.
They are the ones who will inherit the earth from those who presume to
possess it and thereby destroy it”.
I imagine this is how the
beatitudes sounded to Jesus’ listeners.
He was turning everything the world said was important on its head and
opening up a whole new way to live in this world, not driven by fear or greed,
but by faith and trust in a creating, renewing Power that was more powerful
than Caesar could ever offer. This is
how peace begins–from deep within, by humbly aligning our souls with God’s
transforming, loving will.
And then Jesus showed us
with his actions what God’s plan for peace and goodwill among all people looks
like in real human relationships:
It looks like Jesus seeing
a Samaritan woman going to the well in the heat of day so she can avoid the
nasty stares she always gets because she’s had so many husbands, and she’s not
married to the men she’s with. And Jesus
looks through all the prohibitions against talking to a Samaritan woman of
loose morales, and he sees right through all her
struggles to find some love and security in this hostile world, and he sees
through her shame, rejection and self hatred.
He sees in her a child of God in need of something she hasn’t yet found–the
living water of God’s eternal love for her bubbling up from inside her
soul. This is what he offers her,
instead of judgement or exhortations of who she
should and shouldn’t love. And some new
sense of who she is does start bubbling up in her, and it impels her to run to
her village and tell everyone about Jesus, who knows everything about her but
loves her anyway.
Peace on earth and goodwill
among all people looks like Jesus looking up in a tree and talking to a tax
collector named Zacchaeus, who is short on ethics and
long on greed. But Jesus sees through
his betrayal of his own people and siding with their enemy for his own gain,
Jesus sees in him a child of God crying out for acceptance and a place in this
world. And so he invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house as though he were Zacchaeus’
best friend. And some new spirit of
fairness and generosity awakens inside him, and he finds himself promising to
give half his possessions to the poor and to repay four times whatever he has
cheated people out of.
Peace on earth and goodwill
among all people looks like Jesus looking at everyone–the poor the
paralyzed, the prostitutes and the possessed–seeing past the labels, through
the judgements, through their lostness
and mistakes, through their rejection by others and loathing of themselves, and
finding their soul, created by God, and helping them reconnect with their
purpose, and with their power to fulfill it.
And Jesus identified himself
with them! “Whatever you do to the least
of these, my own brothers and sisters, you do to me.” He tried to dismantle all the barriers we
erect between ourselves. “Judge not,” he
said, lest you bring yourself under the same judgement. “Love your enemies, pray for those who
persecute you,” because they are loved by God as much as you are. When you hate them or hurt them, you are
hating or hurting what God loves.
Jesus revealed, embodied
and demonstrated the shalom that we can create when we begin to see each other
as God sees us. And even if we don’t
understand others’ motives or approve of their behavior, or even if we have to
block their actions or remove them from power to protect the innocent, simply
knowing that their soul is created and loved by God compels us to treat them
with respect and compassion, whether they’re our insolent child, our overbearing
boss, or the “loser” next door, an “insurgent,” or a terrorist. How can we hate or hurt who God loves?
So the angels weren’t just being dreamy and
cute when they proclaimed , “Peace on earth, goodwill among all people.” They expected us to do more than celebrate
the promise. They expected us to work
the plan.
And so we here at Henrietta
UCC do work God’s plan for peace, as we open our doors to all of God’s sons and
daughters, no matter who they are or where they are on life’s journey. And as we help Cameron Community Ministries
empower the poor, and build a house for Habitat for Humanity, and give money to
AIDS Rochester and jail ministries, and support our food cupboard and FISH, and
care for creation in the way we use and recycle our resources. In all these ways, we are building
pockets of peace, goodwill among all people.
But our world is going to
need more than pockets of peace if we’re going to avoid chronic or cataclysmic
war, the “tipping point” of devastating global climate change, the depletion of
crucial natural resources, and an intolerable disparity between the rich and
the poor. Our world needs people of
every race and religion, country and culture, to work God’s plan for peace together.
I read about some college
students in engineering who launched the Vehicle Design Summit, that got over
30 college teams from around the world–including South America, Africa, India,
and China–to work together on building a plug-in electric hybrid and bringing
it to market within three years. Their
goal is help gather the same energy, passion, focus and urgency that put
astronauts on the moon and focus it on designing a clean car for the human
race. (See their Website at www.vehicledesignsummit.org.) Their tag line is, “We are the people we have
been waiting for.”
Maybe that should be our
tag line too. Nobody can bring peace to
the world by themselves. Even Jesus
couldn’t do it. All he could do was to
show us God’s plan, embody it, and ask us to follow him. But if we do follow him, each of us in our
own way as individuals, as families, as a church, as classrooms and
organizations and businesses, as a nation, as residents of this global
neighborhood we all live in, peace will grow, and it will transform Caesar’s
kingdom into God’s kingdom.
“We are the people we have been waiting
for.” And we are the people the angels
have been waiting for. Together, as God’s faithful people, we can
fulfill that promise that all God’s children are yearning for: “Peace on earth, goodwill among people.”