Prayer/Poem by Jonathan Martin

There is no place that God is not
not like a specter, a haunting
an apparition.
instead active divinity
attends to us
attends through us:
presence,
presence,
presence.
holiness infuses
everything.
love is inevitable.

SERMON

Galatians 5:22-23 NRSV
…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

“Character is the combination of qualities or traits that make up an individual’s moral or ethical identity”

John 16:33 (NIV) “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Shalom - Hebrew word for peace, defined as peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness.

Nate Loucks: As Christians we are called to speak a word of hope and promise in a world often filled with fear and uncertainty, often despair.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Matt 5:9 (NIV)

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5:1 NIV

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7 (NRSV)

“I believe peace is hard fought in the corners of our own hearts long before it’s demonstrated and enacted. I believe in a peaceful imagination that dares towards joy and hope and challenges the way it is and the way it’s always been and the way it will likely always be done. I believe that the Holy Spirit is more than enough within us.” —Sarah Bessey

We wrestle with our view of self in order to wrestle with our view of others

Jeremiah 29:4-7 (NIV) This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

So much of active peacemaking is tied to presence.

How do we create peace so that love is inevitable?

“The painter is saying Stop, the painter is saying Look, look at each other’s faces the way Rembrandt looked at this old woman’s face. Or look at your own face, maybe that’s the hardest of all, in the mirror the way that Rembrandt looked at the old woman’s face…..look at it for what lies within the face, for the life that makes the face the way it is.” —Frederick Buechner (The Remarkable Ordinary)

So much of peacemaking is having the ability to see.

Our inability to see people is at the heart of our lack of peace in our world.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes,
Over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
Over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.