November 27, 2011 Sermon by Peter Terpenning
Community United Church of Christ
Boulder, Colorado
“Peace in God’s Presence”
Isaiah 2:1-4, Isaiah 11:1-10, Luke 2:13
On this first Sunday of Advent we celebrate peace. I have often used this Sunday as a reason to give a sermon about being peacemakers. Scriptures such as the one we read from Isaiah about turning swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks call us to peace. Isaiah 11 offers a vision of the lion lying down with the lamb; Ephesians says that Christ is our peace, who breaks down the dividing wall of our hostility; Luke has the angelic host proclaiming “peace, goodwill to all people”. Looking over old sermons I see that I have exhorted people to seek meaningful peace, not just the absence of conflict, but “the harmonious, non-destructive, non-violent management or control of conflict and tension”, as peace is defined in the “Working Paper on Peace” of the United Church of Christ”. We are called to be peacemakers, seeing non-violent control of conflict, not peace as the world defines it, when one country wins a war and beats another into submission, or the peace after a fight in a school yard and one kid is beaten up and quits, but still holds his smoldering anger and waits for his chance of retribution.
I started trying to put such a call for peace together for today and found myself rebelling from my effort. It felt like I was just laying another burden on everyone. One more thing to feel guilty about: our world has not found a way to peace, despite all our efforts. We, ourselves, have not found a way to peace in our own lives, or in our nation, or between races and classes. Jesus condemned the Sadducees and Pharisees for laying heavy burdens of the law on the Jewish people – whereas Jesus’ burden was light. So I drew back from my usual call to non-violence and wondered what actually constitutes the peace of Christmas. What is the peace Christ offers?
I ran across an article in Desert Call, a publication of Nada Hermitage, the Carmelite Monastery I visit in Crestone, Co. Eric Haarer noted that main present we receive from God at Christmas is “presence”: God’s presence, every minute of every day, God’s presence within us, within others and within creation. Emmanuel, God with us, is the message of Jesus. It means that God is present, not just for 33 years during Jesus’ life in a backwater, Roman province, but every day, for all time.
This is one of main lessons I have learned in my practice of Centering Prayer. That as I sit in meditation, letting go of the countless thoughts and feelings that plague me, returning again and again to my sacred word, the symbol of God’s presence in my life, I am gradually learning that whatever is happening to me, wherever I go, whatever suffering or joy I am experiencing, what centers me is faith in the presence of God. I think perhaps this is a better way of thinking about Christmas peace. That in the midst of life, with it’s suffering and joy, tears and laughter, darkness and light, the constant source of peace is God. Whether we succeed in making peace, or bring change through non-violence, or not, we still have God’s presence, Emmanuel –God with us.
It is not a coincidence that we celebrate Christmas at the darkest time of year, the solstice. The early church didn’t sit down and figure out exactly what time of year Jesus was born: “Let’s see, Mary became pregnant in March, so 9 months makes it Dec. 25th, how convenient”. I have to think that the early Christians deliberately chose the solstice as the symbol of God’s presence at the darkest time. As Isaiah 9 says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness a light has shone”. Christmas, like the solstice, is a dawning of light in the darkness – a new beginning – a reminder that God is present when all else seems lost.
We all know this struggle to find peace very well. We all have faced difficult times. We all have lived in lands of deep darkness. The coming of Christ does not fix everything. After he was born, the stable was still filthy, Mary and Joseph were still poor, homeless and in trouble, the Roman rule of Palestine was still violent and oppressive. But his birth was the gift of hope, that despite all the problems, they did not need to be afraid, but could trust that God was still with them. Like Isaiah writing in the Babylonian Exile, though all seemed lost, Isaiah reminded the exiles that God was not defeated, but was still with them next to the rivers of Babylon. They had hope for a return home and deliverance from exile. Above all, they were not alone, but had peace in God’s presence. So it is for us as we face a world that is still at war. We have made some progress, a recent book we discussed at Men’s group notes that less of a percentage of the world is at war than at any time in previous human history. However, all war had not stopped, nor has disease been defeated, poverty and hunger stalk the land, children are born in poverty, millions starve to death each year…we all face death. But we have peace in God’s presence. Meister Eckhart, the Medieval mystic asked what difference it made if Christ was born if he is not born in each of us. The gift of Christmas peace is that no matter what is happening to us we can live without fear. This is what the Angels tell Mary and Joseph, “Fear Not”. It’s what the heavenly hosts sang to the shepherds, it’s what Jesus says to the disciples in the their storm tossed boat, “Be not afraid”.
A practice I have recently added to my spiritual practice is Welcoming Prayer.
This is a practice of Centering prayer developed by Thomas Keating. It was particularly developed by a woman named Mary Mrozowski. One uses the welcoming prayer in any situation in which a painful or difficult emotion or situation is dealt with. The person focuses on the suffering or afflictive emotion, such as fear or anger or physical pain, close. One brings one’s attention fully to the suffering, and then welcomes it: welcome fear, or welcome pain, welcome anger, welcome suffering. It is a way of embracing everything that arises, everything that happens to us, and acknowledging that whatever comes, God is still with us. Then, after we have welcomed it, we let it go. We say something like: “I let go of my anger”, or if you prefer, “I give my anger to God”. Mary Mrozowski perfected this technique of letting go as she faced extreme pain after a traffic accident. She developed a litany of letting go that I have found very helpful. After I have focused on the afflictive emotion, let’s say it fear of traveling to an unknown place, or with public speaking event, I welcome the fear and then I say Mary’s litany:
I let go of desire for security and survival
I let go of my desire for esteem and affection
I let go of my desire for power and control
I let go of my desire to change the situation.
This last is particularly powerful for me – to let go of the desire to change the current situation. It means welcoming what is, knowing that God is with me just as things are, and accepting reality. I think the basis of welcoming prayer is the faith that whatever happens, or whatever I am facing, God is present. This is finally our main source of peace in life, the presence of God in our suffering and our joy.