Can you recall a meal with other people that you recently enjoyed? I imagine the food was good and the conversation was interesting, flowing freely. I imagine you left feeling warm and full inside. There is nothing better than warm conviviality around a table. Some of us go to great lengths to keep the peace at a table. However, real tables get messy sometimes, particularly when people feel passionately and disagree.

It’s easy to mistake the comforting absence of conflict or the avoidance of conflict for peace, just as it’s easy to mistake macaroni and cheese for a nutritious meal. We like that comfortable full feeling, so we ignore the discomfort going on in us or around us to preserve it.

In last Sunday’s passage, Luke 12:49-56, Jesus speaks in stark, startling language, challenging the people around him to reconsider what ‘peace’ looks like. Jesus states that he is not here to bring peace, At least, not the kind of peace that whitewashes over suffering.

This is an uncomfortable passage. Jesus’ words are loaded and provocative. He talks about fire, division between families, clouds rising, storms brewing, and calls his listeners hypocrites. It’s a far cry from, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you peace.”

This passage doesn’t often make it onto a throw pillow. It’s an uncomfortable reminder Jesus wasn’t a peace-keeper who whitewashed over conflict. Jesus was a peace-maker who actively exposed and challenged what needed to change so that true peace could be restored.

Shalom, the Hebrew word for peace, is not the absence of conflict. It is full-bodied wholeness that sustains the flourishing of all life. When Jesus angrily turned over tables in the temple, it was an act of exposing what was bent. It was an act of peace-making. Shalom wasn’t found at those tables, no matter how friendly the bartering banter was. Shalom is found at tables built around justice, righteousness, and reconciliation. Will welcome Shalom to our table, even if it makes our table talk tense?

The language of fire in this passage is also uncomfortable, particularly in this age of global warming, forest fires, and wars. Fire can be dangerous and disruptive. Fire, however, also ignites and transforms. Shalom’s coming at times will feel like fire: dangerous, disruptive, and uncomfortable. Will we welcome the fire of shalom in us and around us, disrupting our peace and quiet?

In Mary Oliver’s poem, “What I Have Learned So Far”, she writes:

“Can one be passionate about the just, the ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit to no labour in its cause? I don’t think so…

Later, she writes,

“The gospel of light is the crossroads of — indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.”

Are we willing to ‘be ignited’ by shalom? What do you care enough about to say “yes” to the discomfort, disruption and fire of shalom?

Stuart Gerber was our story teller on Sunday, and in his compelling and vulnerable sharing, Stuart described growing up comfortably and named some of the privileges of his background and identity. What privileges have lent your life stability, ease and comfort?

Stuart told of being uncomfortable and conflicted, yet quiet, over how his church treated people who are LGBTQ+. Yet, over time, this discomfort grew into a fire that ignited his heart, forcing him to leave his church. Now he carries this fire inside and asks how he can leverage his privilege as a straight, white man to be an ally.

What are the “just, ideal, sublime and holy things” that have ignited your heart? How have they drawn you into discomfort?

When have you felt the discomfort of peace-making? When have you known the fiery energy of peace-making?

Deep peace and blessing,
Anne

Rev. Anne Baxter Smith
Pastor, Southpoint Church

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Location & Zoom. We meet on Sundays at 10:00 am, at 15639 24 Avenue, Surrey. Zoom is offered if you cannot attend in person. Zoom link. Meeting ID: 831 1690 9977 password: 753319

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