A 20th century follower of Jesus…is famous for saying ‘there is no way to peace…peace… is the way.’ [A.J. Muste, said this, not Gandhi as many have romantically assumed]
On the road to serenity and wholeness in life with God
Jesus gives his followers in every age…
a strong directive on the kind of behaviour
that makes for peace…listen to Jesus words again…
they’re meant for us to think about
before we walk in here…on Sunday morning
Jesus says…when you’re offering your gift at the altar…
and suddenly remember your brother or sister
has something against you…
leave your gift in front of the altar. And first
Slide words
go and be reconciled to them; [pause]
then come and offer your gift
First…. go and be reconciled…
there can be no peace with God…while we refuse to make peace with those we’ve harmed.
Make it a priority in your lives…to restore justice in all your relationships…make restitution…
say sorry for your part in what’s happenened.
For God’s sake…Jesus is saying…make peace first…
do peace…as a priority…
Let the Shalom of God… take precedence over religious ritual…Let Shalom take precedence
Why is this important for us on the road to serenity and wholeness in life with God?
I think that great kiwi song writer, Shirley Murray captures it very well in her hymn O Christ Who by a Cross
O Christ who by a cross made peace your sign,
who gives your peace in water, bread and wine:
O Spirit Christ who is our spirit's home,
teach us the secret of the true shalom.
We speak of peace when in our hearts we war
and, unforgiving, keep our grudges sore,
we promise peace while yet we strive to win,
and in our enemy, see not our kin.
Two deaths now face the starving and the fed --
the blinding bomb, the simple lack of bread;
with riches of the earth at our command,
from weaponry to welcome, turn our hand.
The selfishness which is our human curse,
the arsenal of hatred which we nurse --
all are dispelled when in our hearts we say
"There is no way to peace: peace is the way."
Shirley Erena Murray Words © 1992 Hope Publishing Company
Slide words
Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God.
What matters most to God…what we do in church
or how we do our relationships?
Sunset slide 12 Steps
For the past six weeks, we’ve explored steps toward serenity and wholeness...in life with God. This far we’ve learned seven out of twelve…spiritual tools
which come from the life and teaching of Jesus…
slide words wisdom
In the first…we gain wisdom to discern…
what we can and can’t control.
slide words restoration
next we seek the restoration to wholeness …
only God can bring
slide words surrender
in step three we surrender our will and our lives to the care of God…
Slide words reflection
And in the fourth…we begin to reflect honestly… and fearlessly… on our own motives and actions…past and present…good and bad.
Slide words Confession
And then in Confession…we bring the whole unvarnished truth about ourselves… to God
Slide step six
And last week… taking steps six and seven…
becoming entirely ready and willing…
to submit to every change God wants to make in us.
Humbly asking God to do it. Giving our consent
for God to re-shape us in any way…so God’s will be done
Blank slide
Seven out of twelve so far…
every single step of faith… building on the spiritual foundation… of the one before…
Slide words resolve
Today we’re ready to face… steps 8 and 9.
And we resolve…to do whatever it takes to bring about God’s Shalom…whatever it takes for justice and peace to prevail…
Whatever it takes… we’re willing to leave the alter…
and get out that door to be reconciled
with our brothers and sisters in the world.
Ouch…sounds a little like taking up our cross to follow Jesus doesn’t it. There’s clearly more work to be done
on the road to serenity and wholeness in life with God.
To do step 8…it helps once again…to get out our old fourth step inventory and examine it closely.
Slide words Step 8
Because step eight is about making a list…
of all those people we’ve harmed…
and being willing to make amends to them all.
What! All of them…even people we swore
we’d never speak to again, even the ones cross the street to avoid, even the ones who live on the other side of the world or are already dead?
Now don’t put the cart before the horse here…
we’re just talking about writing down names and becoming willing. For now we’re only trying to take one step at a time. And in Step eight…all we have to do…
is make a list and become willing.
Those I know who’ve taken this step…
have found it helpful to list those they’ve harmed under four headings…
Slide words
Family Friends Community World
Oh dear Diane…um I’m not sure I’ve got any community and world harm…in my inventory.
Didn’t Jesus mention the least of these…
in one of his talks…the sick and the hungry and the imprisoned…well that’s ok if you forgot…you can always go back and add these in as you work through the steps…it’s never too late…
Ok family friends community and world…
Once you’ve made your list…you’re going to notice some people on it who are in the ‘over my dead body’ category… so to keep this step honest we need to create three rows down
Slide words reveal
People I will never ever make amends to…
People I might one day make amends to
People I’m ready to make amends to …now.
You got this tool for step 8 when you came in.
It going to take a while to be willing to make amends
to them all isn’t it…so we start with the easy ones…
Blank slide
and as we grow in wisdom and courage and serenity
we we find mysteriously…some people we swore we’d never say sorry to… just seem to slip down…into the category below…until there’s no one left at all…
in the ‘never ever’ list…
and gradually over time…in obedience to Christ’s call
to be reconciled with our brothers and sisters in the world…we find there are no names left…
in the ‘maybe one day’ list either. Maybe you’ll be a hundred and five when that happens…
but keep working on it.
It’s a process…a practise…of making ourselves ready and willing to allow God to shape us… into his children…into peacemakers. It’s the very foundation of restorative justice around the world…between communities and nations…between rich and poor…
It’s Jesus. process. It’s Jesus’ way. [pause]
As soon as there are any names on our…
‘could do it now’ list…we can begin to practise step nine … and start saying sorry and making amends
to those people at least.
Word slide
Where once there was no peace…we can begin to make peace. And taking step nine we make direct amends where ever possible, except when to do so would produce more harm. [pause]
When I was in hospital with cancer as an eighteen year old…there was a warm and very outgoing Hispanic porter on my ward… his name was Jose.
It was Jose’s job to move machinery, transport patients to and from the operating theatre… and generally ensure the nurses and doctors could do their work smoothly.
When Jose came into the room… the atmosphere brightened considerably. I liked him…everybody did.
Well, one day I left an unposted letter to my boyfriend lying around in which I referred to Jose using labels any Hispanic person would find racist.
Now I pride myself in not being racist…
but there you are…I used those words in a letter…
just to entertain my boyfriend.
Unfortunately Jose picked up the letter when I was down having my stitches out… and read it.
And maybe he shouldn’t have read it but he did.
When I got back to my room…Jose shook his head at me and said ‘Diane, I thought you were different.’
But I wasn’t different was I…I had used language that objectified and ridiculed this kind and generous human being. In spite of myself I had sinned against him. And that would have been true had he never seen the letter. Obviously God had something to teach me.
Twenty years later… when I was working on my 8th and 9th steps…I put Jose on my list. What I did had always bothered me…and while I was certainly willing to make amends to him… it wasn’t going to be easy…
because here I was in New Zealand and heaven only knew where he was. And all I knew was his first name.
The only thing I could do was write a letter to him care of the hospital I was in and ask the administrative staff for their help to find him.
I never heard anything back… but I feel comfortable
I what I could to say how truly sorry I was. There were many others on my list I spoke to face to face.
Now I grant you… had I stolen money from him,
or run over his wife under the influence …
then much greater amends would have been called for.
But this story makes an important point about step nine.
Making amends is part of your and my own spiritual growth…making amends may or may not be beneficial to the person we’ve harmed…they may or may not forgive us… for what we’ve done…that’s outside our control isn’t it…
but we do our best to make peace anyway because that’s what Jesus asked us to do.
And did you notice the bit about not making direct amends when it would produce even more harm?
Well that’s a safeguard…
against hurting people by making amends to them.
What if they don’t know what we did…or their current relationships disrupted if we reappear in their life…
In that case the best way we can make amends is just not to do whatever we did to hurt them… anymore.
When we take steps 8 and 9 we begin to play our part in healing a broken world…
starting with our family and working outward
to a world we’ve harmed through our indifference
and selfishness and greed. And the good news is steps 8 and 9 liberate us from the burden of perpetual self-justification…
And you may even find
some people need to come off your list…like the mother who’s unhappy with the husband you chose
or the father who’s disappointed at your choice of profession…choices that were right for you
…choices that did them no harm…
And one more thing…before we pray together…
when you make your list…
there’s one person you must remember to include…
Yourself.
It’s part of your healing…part of your growing in serenity and wholeness in life with God…
to recognised the harm you’ve done to yourself.
Let us pray the Serenity Prayer together.
