Nurturing Elders and Others
By the Rev. Paul Graves
They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace.
– Jeremiah 6:14
What if ‘peace’ is more than you what you usually settle for?
When I decided to focus this reflection on peace, I was thinking of December as the time when we focus on the birth of the Prince of Peace. Then almost immediately, a phrase from the gloomy prophet Jeremiah snuck out of my mouth: “Peace, peace, when there is no peace.”
It comes from Jeremiah 6:14, where he continues his tirade against the false prophets of his day. Here, he accuses them of binding the wounds of the people with superficial salve, false hopes of peace; but not the deeper things that make for a lasting peace.
Jump some centuries ahead with me as we remember how Jesus embodied the things that make for a lasting peace – unconditional love even for enemies, and willingness to challenge those who lived on the surface of life to look beneath that surface to the depth of God’s hope for them.
Now gallop ahead in time to today, right now! We hear Jesus’ call to enter the Kingdom of God. For us — as for those who actually heard his words — the phrase nurtured not so much a time but a relationship. I remember how Bishop Cal McConnell introduced the term “kindom of God” in our Conference.
I know this statement will rankle some folks who like traditional religious imagery, but here it is: Peace comes far more through “kinship” than through “kingship”. “Jesus as King” is a biggie for many church folks, but I suspect it was a title Jesus would run from or discount if followers suggested it.
The Prince of Peace looked for ways to embody God’s Peace. He didn’t settle for superficial slogans or puny efforts to “keep peace at any price”. To Jesus, peace was filled with the healing of relationships, with love that sought the well-being and wholeness of all persons.
I invite you to consider Christmas as a time to reflect on this basic but profound question: What if ‘peace’ is more than you what you usually settle for?
If you would like some reading material to help guide your reflections, let me suggest you read Richard Rohr’s “A Lever and a Place to Stand”.
One of Rohr’s contributions to my own journey comes in his “Lever…” book as he uses the three parts of Hebrew Scripture – Law, Prophets, and Wisdom – to represent three primary stages of developing spiritual consciousness.
I enjoy how, in a single chapter, he capsulizes how each collection of Old Testament books help me realize one way to imagine how we grow in our own spiritual development. Our own journeys need to begin where the Bible begins its journey: with structure, boundaries, order and authority. In short, law.
The second section of Hebrew Scriptures contains the books from the Prophets. These books remind us how important it is to provide alternative thinking about “conventional wisdom”. Critical thinking about traditions offers corrective balance to the inner truths we embrace and the ways we express them.
The third section of Hebrew Scripture, the Wisdom literature, moves us to consider the mysteries and paradoxes of living, and how God blesses those experiences. Each of these developments, if we take them seriously, can move us deeper and deeper into the very Mystery we call God.
How can we seek “peace” and wholeness if that search doesn’t move us beyond the superficial descriptions of those words we too quickly settle for? Yes, peace is an elusive destination. But the working journey toward peace is really what we called to begin and stick to.
The end result is not ours to achieve. Rather, it is a gift offered us by God in both unexpected ways and at unexpected times.
The Rev. Paul Graves serves as the chair for the Council on Older Adult Ministries.
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