Choosing Peace
Philippians 4:4-13[1]
If you’re a person who follows the news, you know that the
times in which we are living can make it hard to find our way to personal
peace. Just the wars that are going on in the world right now are troubling
enough. The war in Ukraine is moving toward a third year. And now, we have a
conflict in the Middle East that threatens to engulf several nations. At the
same time, the people of Afghanistan live under the constant threat of
violence. When you add Iraq, Ethiopia, Sudan, Myanmar, Mexico, Nigeria, Niger,
Mali, Colombia, and about 10 other countries where there are conflicts that
have each inflicted thousands of deaths, it becomes a bit overwhelming. I think
we might understand why so many people are frightened by the current state of
the world. Or at the very least troubled.
Unfortunately, the history of the world is a history of
violence and war. Indeed, there was a time when warfare was so common that it
was simply expected that a young man would define his character by going off to
war! It was a rite of passage! And many of those wars were not fought on some
faraway battlefield across oceans. Rather, they were fought among the people.
That’s still the reality with most of the wars going on today. They take place
in the cities and towns and villages where innocent people become casualties.
If you add up all the fatalities just in the last couple of years, it reaches
the hundreds of thousands. And most of these wars have stretched on for
decades, many of them for more than fifty years!
It’s hard for me to imagine entire generations of people
growing up and living their whole lives in a state of war. I can’t begin to
understand what that must be like for them. I don’t know about you, but I find
that life in the relative safety of this country feels stressful enough. To be
sure, we have threats at home as well. Our grandchildren are growing up with
the specter of school shootings hanging over them. We all live with the
knowledge that we cannot anticipate where the next mass shooting will happen.
When you think too much about all of this, you may wonder whether “peace” is
even a choice we can make.
But the truth of the matter for all of us, whether we’re
talking about those of us who live in this country, or those who live in the
midst of an active war, is that we all choose how we are going to respond to
what is happening in our lives. Granted, there are some situations where we
have more choice than others. As I mentioned last week, many of us may allow
fear to control our reactions, and we don’t take the time to respond to the
challenges of life with wisdom, faith, or courage. What we may not be able to
see is that we are choosing that response. And we may not be able to see that
we also have the ability to choose differently. We all can choose peace, no
matter what we may be facing in life. The question is how to do that.
I believe our lesson from St. Paul gives us some practical
help with that. What we should remember is that the people he was writing to in
the church at Philippi faced many dangers because of their faith in Christ.
Some of them had been thrown out of their families. Others had lost their
livelihood, because they would no longer sacrifice to the Greek gods that were
patron deities of their trade unions. Many found themselves at times at the mercy
of mob violence—beaten and humiliated, and sometimes they lost their lives.
These were people who knew danger quite well.
We should also remember that St. Paul himself experienced
threats, even threats against his life! In his various letters he recounts his
life as a Christian Apostle and it definitely was not a storybook life. Paul
lists all that he had been through for the sake of Christ and the churches he
served: he was flogged to the brink of death five times, pelted with stones and
left for dead, shipwrecked three times, spending a night and a day adrift on
the open sea, not to mention spending many a sleepless night in prison, hungry,
and cold (2 Cor. 11:23-27). His life was one that was far from safe: as he said
it himself, he experienced “danger from bandits, danger from my own people,
danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at
sea” (2 Cor. 11:26).
When I think about what the first Christians had to go
through because of their faith, it makes me wonder how they were able to endure
it all. In part, St. Paul answers that question with his call not to give in to
fear, but to turn to God as our source of peace. And the promise he makes is a
familiar one: “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard
your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7). I think that’s where
the battle with fear is won or lost—in our hearts and our minds. We need to
feel safe in our hearts and we need to be able to think of our lives as secure.
And St. Paul promises that we find that safety and security in God alone.
He goes on to assure us that “the God of peace will be with
you” (Phil. 4:9). It’s a wonderful promise that may sometimes get overlooked because
of the previous one. But it’s just as important for our ability to choose peace
in our lives. Promising that “the God of peace will be with you” is something
of a loaded statement. Speaking about the “God of peace” can be a description
of God’s character: He is the God who embodies peace. It can also say something
about the end result of God’s work in our world: He is the God who is working
toward peace that extends to everyone. But, perhaps most importantly for this
context, “the God of peace” can describe how God relates to us: He is the God
who gives us peace. And Paul says that it is this God who is constantly with
us, providing us with an anchor for our souls and a foundation upon which to build
our lives.
I don’t believe we can rely on the circumstances of our
lives as the source for our peace. At least, that’s been my experience. There
will be times when life may seem fairly calm. In those times it’s relatively easy
to find peace. But the challenge is finding peace when life is anything but
calm. We need something more stable to help us face the fear and uncertainty of
those times. For most of us, our fear isn’t about the threat of violence or
war. Rather our fear comes from other threats: the loss of livelihood, the loss
of family, the loss of health, the loss of home. Because the “God of peace” is
always with us, we can always choose to respond to what is happening in our
lives by looking to God to supply the “peace that surpasses all understanding.”
In part, I believe that means recognizing that there are some aspects of life
that we cannot control. We can’t control wars that are taking place around the
world. We can’t control the violence that is overflowing our cities and towns.
We can’t even control the most basic circumstances of our own lives. What we
can do is to trust that our lives are always in God’s hands, and that
regardless of what may happen to us in this life, there is no safer place for
us to be. I would say that’s at least the first step toward choosing peace.
[1] ©
Alan Brehm 2023. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 10/15/2023 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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