The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min,
Pastoral Minister

Vigil for Peace - May 3, 1999

Peace Be with You!

Ten years ago a former student of mine was kidnapped, assaulted several times and drowned on Christmas Eve. The news hit the faculty of the school with terrible force. Some cried, others expressed rage, I was numb and in shock. People fomented on how they would seek justice for the perpetrator by employing various painful and ghastly punishments. I admit at the time that they had appeal. But soon we realized that this was not the answer. But we felt it was important to express to each other our pain and anger at all of this.

Feeling pain and anger over such things is natural. What makes our reaction Christian is what we do with those feelings. We held a memorial service for this young lady and at the end I went over to her sister and parents. I had taught her sister only two years previous. She hugged me and sobbed so bad she shook. She had no words, neither did I, we just held each other. Her parents joined us. I learned much from this. For her parents never uttered a word of revenge, they prayed for understanding and courage--they rejected the death penalty. They placed their hearts in the hands of the Lord.

"Peace be with you." These words of Jesus to the frightened, confused and despairing disciples are the words that Jesus our Lord offers to us in our time. They are words of the Crucified and Risen Lord that remind us that life and love are stronger than death and hate. They are words that assure us in the midst of our troubled and troubling times.

This peace that Jesus offers is better understood as Shalom. Shalom, the peace that is the full harmony of the self with creation, others and God. Shalom, if one looks around for just a bit is not yet here in its fullness. That is why we are here tonight. The recent events in Littleton, Colorado and the war raging in Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia, remind us of that fact all too clearly.

The quest for peace is perhaps the most elusive and yet the most important human mission, especially for Christians. But what is it ? So often we speak of peace as the absence of something, that is, some form of violence. But the biblical vision of peace is the presence and fullness of justice in God's unconditional and forgiving love. And being a peacemaker is not being piously passive, it is a dynamic participation with others in the Spirit of Christ to remove all those things in the world that inflict violence and insult the image of God in each person. Peace is not a flowery sentiment, it is a way of life. Perhaps the famous peace activist A.J. Muste said it best: The way is not peace; peace is the way ! That is the way of Jesus is the way of peace. It is the way that leads us to the Lord's mountain where we will study war no more. But we are not there yet.

In October of 1962 I was a child of six years old. I was told by the teachers of my school that we could have a war. I had heard of war the previous year when my father expressed concern that he might be called up in the Air Force reserves during the Berlin Crisis. I asked him about this place called Cuba and why were my teachers so worried. Why did we have to quietly walk to the basement of the school and pray ? He described to me the world we live in. For the first time I heard of the hydrogen bomb and what it could do. I thought to myself, how can we do this if we are all God's children ? A question that still begs and answer. I was a child that was told that everything I knew could be gone. Where does one find the language to express the hurt and grief and fear of a small child?

In 1987, I signed covenant whereby I pledged to work for the elimination of all nuclear weapons and war from the earth. I signed that covenant and I believe I have tried to do what I could to move along this road. I have spent 25 of my personal and professional adult life praying, studying, teaching and acting in accord with that covenant I made with others in the presence of God. I did it because I am a Christian, or at least I'm trying to be, and because I have three children who deserve a better world than the one that exists. At first some will accuse us of being utopian dreamers, deluded. But the times they are a changin. In 1995 the Canberra Commission composed of former heads of state and military officers called for the elimination of nuclear weapons. In 1997, 60 top international generals and admirals signed a paper calling for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons !

Deep down we know that we cannot exist in a world that threatens global annihilation without its corrosive effects moving to the center of our culture and ourselves. The work of Robert Lifton and others strongly suggests that such a situation has led to a person's being disconnected to each other and the world around them. It is too painful to think all of this could be gone, so we run away and try not to deal with it. And that is the problem. This sense of being disconnected is happening to our children and the results are all too clear. Littleton was not a fluke. This problem with school shootings is becoming a American ritual. Guns and violence are everywhere , how can we expect it not to find their way into the hearts and hands of children.

One may say that only "people kill people" don't blame guns ! Guns are neutral. Not so fast ! There is a psychology that comes with the guns. Guns distance us from the other, what we take into our hands we take into our hearts says the grandfather in the movie, Witness.

Peace be with you. Can we honestly say this when there are almost 1 billion people permanently hungry in the world ? Can we say this when there are now 25 wars going on and some warming up in the bull pen ? Can we say this when our commercial marketing commodities people making them things and when our music tears down our humanity rather than lifting it up? Can we say this when some Christians believe in execution as a way to aver our eyes from our own potentialities ? It is always easy to tear down, it is harder to build. And we will learn to build when we realize that we too are and can be violent. We too need to surrender to the Lord of peace if we are to be agents of peace.

One day we will all stream toward the Lord's mountain in peace. Nations shall beat their swords into plowshares--yes, but when. Ten years ago I was at the United Nations, where outside the words of Isaiah are inscribed on a monument donated by Russia, participating in a forum are nuclear arms reductions. Among one of the panelists was a Soviet General Yuri Lebedev. We spoke for a bit and he said to me something that has stayed with me since;

"Comrade, we must do all we can for peace. I have seen war, I don't want my grandchildren to see, or anyone's child. they deserve better."

Yes they deserve better. I ask you, I beg you to consider joining me and others in a formal commitment to peace this evening. This peace we will work together to build. We will be passionate about peace, but passion will not rule our commitment, rather, it will be our commitment as the Lord's disciples. There will be failure, it will require time and effort, we will need to use our hearts and heads and very bodies to accomplish our commitment to the Lord's peace. It will require that we talk to each other and learn to do so in a way that says "peace be with you."

The time has come to act. And we know that in order for nations and peoples to advance to the mountain we will have to study peace together. It will be a demanding and arduous climb, but we are assured that God's Spirit is with us. We will have to endure the ridicule of others and the cynical remarks and attitudes of those who reject the power of resurrection in the world and believe only in death. We may have to just hold each other and cry at times and place ourselves in the hands of the Lord. the Lord summon us to reject violence and join hands to be instructed by the Lord---the Lord whose peace is our future. In that way children will be able to sleep more soundly at night in Kosovo, N. Ireland, Sudan, Russia, the United States. After all, they deserve it

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Uploaded May 1999