Who does not want peace of mind? The anxieties in our world, in our personal lives, the worries that we have for our children, our husbands, our wives, our parents, our friends, our community, our country…all of these can seem to be obstacles to what we consider peace of mind. And all of these have seemed to converge with the context of the current coronavirus pandemic.   So what is this peace of mind that we all seek? Is it the comfort of knowing that all those we love are safe, that our job is secure, that we are able to pay the bills, that we know where our next meal is coming from, that we feel we can make it through another day alive, or even just feeling secure in knowing that in this moment, or as Julian of Norwich puts it, “all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” There seems to be a wide range of what we could mean when we speak about peace of mind.

Peace alone is a loaded word with many different interpretations. Many times we think of peace as that which will alleviate the anxieties and fears that we have.  In this sense, peace is operating from a negative point of origin and addressing something that seems over and against it.  We want to be free from something, and it is this peace that will accomplish that.  I wonder if this may be too narrow an understanding of what peace could mean?

As a greeting, when we say peace it can take on a fuller meaning with reference to its relationship to the Jewish term shalom, which means something along the lines of “to be whole,” or as the expression of greeting that wishes upon another the fullness of life in all the ways we encounter it. From this standpoint, we move away from a freedom from something negative approach to an embrace of wholeness that runs quickly beyond simply tolerance and admittance.  It’s the movement from peace of mind into peace of or in the heart!

Could Jesus be speaking about something like this in today’s Gospel (Jn 14:27-31a)?

Jesus said to his disciples: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I.

In the same breath that Jesus leaves, he simultaneously gives peace, but clearly not the normal way that we may look at peace. Jesus is talking about leaving and going away – absence – while at the same time encouraging the disciples to not fear but trust, because He will return.  And then we have mention of the evangelist John’s oft-repeated relationship between Jesus and the Father.  More than simply saying that Jesus and the Father are one, we hear that we should rejoice, because “the Father is greater than I.”

I’m not sure that this is a comparison of  any greatness between Jesus and the Father, so much as the greatness or fullness in the movement of Jesus’ going to the Father. In other words, could the movement itself – into relationship with another, i.e., the Other – be that which exceeds, overflows, and indeed transforms the idea of me alone seeking peace of mind, into we together engaging in a peace that grows out of the heart of God?  This is a peace of community that flows from the relationship within God’s very life (the Trinity)!

Again, we see the pattern of Christ in its Paschal nature – shared life, which involves leaving and absence, but then return…new life…transformed in and through the relationship itself. It is the movement into the relationship, which is a gift received, that brings the peace of wholeness and fullness that overflows.  The mysterious we –  the One God – offers peace as a transformative, often times painful, experience that will not (cannot) exclude or divide.  And why is this so?

…for the ruler of the world is coming. He has no power over me, but the world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded me

What if this “ruler of the world” is a way of describing our fixated mindset of exclusion, protection, defensiveness, in a word…FEAR? The peace that is sought out of fear focuses only on ourselves and seeks protection and defense from everything that assails us in this life. Jesus seems to be telling us that it is the living Love between the Father and Son (through the Spirit’s movement) – AS WE EMBRACE IT IN OUR LIVES – that will grant the peace of transformation.

The scripture reading from Acts today ( Acts 14:19-28) describes what this may look like from the outside…

They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered around him, he got up and entered the city. On the following day he left with Barnabas for Derbe…, They strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Peace is costly because its transformative power occurs within the interaction of diverse people who either embrace or resist, or a combination of both, the possibility for freedom that moves forward and outward as a wave of divine grace leaving the ego stranded and confused. Our God is a Love relationship, or Love relating always.  And the peace that flows from this relationship laps into the wake of our lives, when we begin to let go of some of the ego’s outlandish expectations by standing open-armed in the surf of shared transformation.

There is nothing dispassionate about all of this. As Jesus reminds us today, it involves, leaving, absence, and sometimes painful suffering that can come in so many forms: the price of inclusion when we admit that our privileged lives cost the dignity and livelihood of others; the vulnerability of admitting to ourselves and others that we share fears and shadows that cannot be authentically dealt with outside of solidarity, healing, and communion.  These seem to be some of the many hardships that we must “undergo…to enter the Kingdom of God.”  We may get “stoned” and “dragged” places like Paul, but when the grounding of our hearts and actions are within the Divine Life itself, i.e., the heart of GOD – then peace is transformative.  Not just for you or for me, but for we!  This is the great coming back or return that Jesus is telling the disciples about that flows out from engaging in the Loving relationship of God.

Christ leaves us Peace in the Loving gesture of the Spirit that enables us to receive the gift itself. There is an ever-growing greatness in the engagement of this Love Life that God offers, as we more and more begin to see peace of mind as peace of heart by grasping each other’s hands and hearts to receive and participate in this wonderful experience of Peace coming back to or returning to us.  Then we can truly be the Whole Peace!

Peace,

Thomas

(originally published May 16, 2017)