"Peace be With You" (Reflections on Epiphany Six, Year A)

“The peace of the Lord be with you,” we say. “And also with you,” comes the reply. These are the words we speak to one another each Sunday before we lay our gifts at the altar. At Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia, it takes us a freakin’ long time to do this. You see, we’re kind of loose in our liturgical piety in this little church. Casualness runs pretty deep here, and the Lord’s peace might also be accompanied by a hug, a laugh, a word of gossip, or a prognostication about the Eagles or the Phillies. One of my wittier parishioners (now, alas, at home with the Lord) once remarked, “It’s beginning to look like recess.”

Some visitors get freaked out by the raucous display of fraternity we exhibit in our congregation. Everybody gets out of their pew and greets everybody else. This isn’t too hard to do since we only seat around 100 in our worship space and we generally have only half that number of adults in church on any given Sunday. Personally, I always wish we could rein it in a little—liturgical purist that I am. When we created our Praise Mass, we put the sharing of the peace right after the opening prayers and just before the readings. It got so the lector practically had to thump the pulpit and bellow over the cacophonous din of “peace-wishers” in order to get everyone settled back in their seats to hear the First Lesson. We recently got smart and put the sharing of the peace where it should go according to Jesus in the gospel lesson we’ll read on Epiphany 6 (Matthew 5:21-37).

Here’s a shout-out to one of my favorite liturgical innovators, Pope (and Saint) John XXIII. He’s the guy who suggest including this ritual in the order of the mass. I guess after finally catching up with us Lutherans by declaring a vernacular mass as one of the reforms of Vatican II, ol’ John jumped out in front and suggested that we Christians literally make peace with our brothers and sisters before we lay our gifts before the altar. Hence the sharing of the peace comes right before we take the offering. It should remind us that Jesus, in keeping with his declaration that he has come to fulfil the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 5:17), tells us that any sacrifice we might make to God is an empty one if we aren’t at peace with the rest of humanity. The best offering we can give to God is love, compassion, forgiveness, and reconciliation with others. Jesus taught that all of God’s Law is about loving God and loving everybody else (Matt. 22:34-37).

But fulfilling God’s Law isn’t as easy as we’d like it to be, is it? Not by a long shot if you buy Jesus’ interpretation in this pericope. I have to confess that, even though I haven’t gunned anyone down in cold blood, I’ve said some pretty uncharitable things about people lately (particularly about the current US Administration and the greedy, unqualified, sycophantic myrmidons who have been proposed by a certain incompetent narcissist for cabinet positions!), so, according to Jesus (v.22) I’m in real danger of going to Hell for murder.

And—if I’m to be really honest—I’m probably guilty of adultery, too (v.27-28).

Of course, it’s pretty easy to start equivocating about all of this. I mean, how many of us really believe that Jesus wants us to poke our eyes out for looking with lust? Or cut our hands off if we grab that extra doughnut or take that one-beer-too-many? We look at this strict interpretation of God’s Law and say, “He’s kidding, right? He doesn’t literally mean we should blind or maim ourselves, does he?” Nevertheless, for centuries we Christian have taken that stuff about divorce (v.28) pretty literally. Why do we assume Jesus meant that seriously but was just speaking with hyperbole about the other stuff?

I guess we like to be able to pick and choose our sins—making some greater and some lesser so we can squirm out of any sense of shame or guilt we might feel. But what I’ve always taken away from this discourse is the fact that we all sin, and we do it constantly—by thought word, and deed.

No, I don’t think Jesus really wants us to blind and main ourselves any more than I think he wants us to be shut off from community if our interpersonal relationships don’t work out. But I do think he wants us to be humbled by our chronic disconnect from God. If we’re willing to parse the commandments the way Jesus does here, we’re going to realize what screw-ups we truly are. Then, we’re going to fall on our knees and come back to God for forgiveness and renewal. And maybe then we’ll start to recognize that we’re no better than anyone else, and we’ll be able to love one another with a compassion that comes from our own humility.

And then the peace of the Lord will really be with us.

Peace be with you, my friends.