Go in Peace

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 4, 2009
World Communion Sunday

Go in Peace
Selected texts

A mother sits on the dry, dusty ground in Darfur,
that brutally hot region in Western Sudan,
the region which has known nothing but death and destruction
for the past 20 years.
She is one of the more than 7 million refugees,
7 million,
displaced by endless warfare and fighting.
There is not enough water, not enough food,
not enough shelter from the relentless sun.
Her little boy is just 18 months old,
and she knows he will not live
to reach his second birthday.
Starvation, malnutrition,
dehydration will draw life from him
a little each day.
He will die in her arms.
The mother knows no peace.

A young man, mature beyond his 15 years,
comes home from another rough day at school.
He’s bright and he works hard; his grades are good.
He will be the first in his family
to finish high school.
His parents, who immigrated to this country
just ten years ago,
never got beyond the 9th grade.

What makes school so hard for him
is not the classwork,
but the bullying
the taunts about his accent,
the color of his skin, his hair, his eyes,
the country where he was born.
It is one of the boys who’s a star on the football team
the young man fears most.
The boy is enormous, a hero to most in the school,
but he is savage with his comments:
“Immigrant.
Why don’t you speak American?
Go back to your own country.”
And that’s only the beginning;
words flow foul and furious,
instilling fear in the young man,
even as all those who hear the bully boy rant
laugh and think it is all great sport.
The football player’s car sports a bumper sticker that says,
“Jocks for Jesus”.
The young man has created his own bumper sticker,
which he has on the wall in his room above his small desk.
It is a verse from the Bible,
part of the law given by God through Moses:
“You shall love the stranger, the foreigner,
for you were once a stranger,
you were once a foreigner….”
(Deuteronomy 10:19)
The young man knows no peace.

A woman sits in the Emergency Room of a hospital.
Her daughter is burning up with fever.
The woman’s husband lost his job more than a year ago
and with it went their health insurance.
“You can always go to the Emergency Room!”
Those were the last words she heard
from the insurance company
when they confirmed the policy
was no longer in effect.
She and her daughter have been sitting
in a crowded, stuffy room for more than 4 hours
and have still not seen a doctor.
The overworked nurse assures her they will be seen soon,
but there were so many other more urgent needs.
As she sits there waiting the woman worries:
What if the doctor treats the girl
by prescribing an antibiotic,
how will she pay for it?
What if the doctor says her daughter needs other tests,
or even needs to be hospitalized?
Her husband has tried so hard to find another job,
but “not hiring” are the words he keeps hearing,
even at places that offer no benefits, no insurance.
The woman knows no peace.

The elderly man sits quietly in his wheelchair in the hall.
He has lived at the nursing home
since his wife died two years ago.
She had taken care of him as his health deteriorated,
and when she died he knew he had no choice:
He could barely see, barely walk.
His children and grandchildren live far away.
The hallway in which he sits is decorated for the season.
Carols come from the small boombox
in the recreation room around the corner.
An aide walks by him and cheerfully chirps,
“I will be off tomorrow for Christmas,
so you have a wonderful day!”
The man is grateful for the care he gets,
but the loneliness gnaws at him.
The man knows no peace.

We think of peace as the absence of war,
the silencing of the sounds of gunfire,
explosions, cries, and screams no longer the night’s backdrop;
Blissful silence,
the still small voice of peace,
at least for the here and now.

God wants us to live with an absence of war.
God wants us to beat swords into plowshares,
spears into pruning hooks, (Isaiah 2:4)
“Violence shall no more be heard in your land,”
says the Lord God through the prophet Isaiah,
“I will appoint Peace as your overseer
and Righteousness your taskmaster.”
(Isaiah 60:17)

That’s God’s hope for us,
if only we would learn history’s lessons
of the futility of war.

But the absence of war is only the beginning of peace.
When God speaks of peace,
when Jesus speaks of peace,
they speak of fullness,
completeness,
health,
wholeness,
contentment.

When Jesus says in his Sermon on the Mount,
“blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called the children of God.”
(Matthew 5:9)
He is talking about those who do more than
help work for an end to war.
He is speaking of those who feed the hungry,
who bring hope to the hopeless,
who welcome the stranger,
who tend the sick,
who comfort the lonely –
who reach out to
all those who know no peace.

We live in a world that desperately needs peacemakers;
We cannot pick up a newspaper
without reading about war somewhere.
But even putting aside war,
we seem so intent on creating a more and
more hostile, angry society,
a world in which personal attacks are the norm,
nasty, stinging words,
a readinesses, even eagerness to lie
the currency of our conversation.
Our response to such clear and present problems
in our health care system is to strap on our guns,
load our AK-47s.

How can we speak of peacemaking
when we demand more and more violence
in our sports: harder hitting on the football field,
punishing checks that lead to gloves off in hockey,
even little league baseball games
that sink into shouting, pushing, brawls.
Ultimate fighting,
no sport, but only a savage brutal contest,
becoming more popular by the week;
children wanting to smash chairs over each other’s
heads just like wrestlers,
because they think that’s how to have fun.

Why are we so intent on plumbing the depths of the
the lowest common denominator,
when our Lord calls us to raise up,
build up;
Aim high;
Seek peace, make peace.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
those whose words are grounded in
kindness,
gentleness,
that reflect a generosity of spirit,
a willingness to give completely of themselves,
those who understand that as disciples of Christ
we are called to do whatever is needed,
whatever is needed,
to feed even one hungry person;
we are called to bear any cost
to heal one sick person.
Yes, this is what we are called to do,
this is what makes us children of God.

We can never hope to be at peace ourselves
if we are not actively engaged in peacemaking,
something we can do in a thousand different ways,
each of us as the Spirit calls us.

Set before us is a table
where all God’s children can come together,
where there is neither slave nor free,
Jew nor Greek, male nor female;
(Galatians 3:28)
where there is neither native-born nor foreigner,
neither liberal nor conservative,
neither VIP nor outcast.

This is the place where we can be fed,
and find that peace which surpasses all understanding
(Philippians 4:7)
A table where we can be nourished and refreshed,
so we can go out to work for peace
by helping others find their way
to wholeness, fullness, and completeness.

Come to this table;
come, for the Prince of Peace invites you,
invites us all.
Come and be fed,
come quench your thirst,
and then, as the Psalmist teaches us, go out to
“seek peace and pursue it”
Psalm 34:14

Come to this table,
for here you will find:
“peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Galatians 1:3
AMEN