Peace is hard. Let me say that again. Peace is hard. Among those not engaging in peace work, it is easy to think that peace is just a way of marking time between wars, but peace and peace building are so much more. If you have ever trained for a march by having your friends yell insults at you then you know what I am talking about. 

Peace has many aspects but no single dimension is sufficient for true peace. The Romans spoke of pax, Latin for peace, as peace through victory of arms. This was far from the Jewish and early Christian definition of peace. During Roman times, the rebel general Calgacus critiqued Roman pax saying, “they make a desolation and they call it peace.”[i] The Jews use the word shalom for peace and early Christians called it eirene. You can still hear the use of the word eirene in the name Irene. Both eirene and shalom meant more than a cessation of violence, but a presence of justice, abundance, and wholeness.

There are many who work for peace today. Community organizers spend years helping people decide what they want as a group and work to make it happen. Diplomats from countries across the world maintain existing alliances, communicate around conflicts and misunderstandings, and create peace where there has been war and mistrust. Today I am going to talk about three aspects of peace: nonviolence, community, and justice. 

The first and most basic piece of what peace means is not hurting others. There are many names for this and each is a variation with a difference in meaning that is sometimes subtle. Ahimsa is a Sanskrit word meaning without violence. It’s used by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. In practice, it means respect towards all living beings and the effort to avoid harming them. Ahimsa goes beyond not killing people to include not harming people AND animals. I am not vegetarian, but I try hard to not harm humans and animals. I do not thoughtlessly kill insects or spiders, but rather try to move them to somewhere that we will not come into conflict. 

Nonresistance is a Christian concept derived from a translation of Matthew 5:39, “Do not resist an evil person.” It can mean anything from not violently resisting to not fighting back in any way. When anger rises in you choose peace. It is tempting to repay evil for evil and violence for violence.[ii] It is hard to endure without striking back. Peace is the righteous way, but not the easy way.

Nonviolence tends to be seen as more active than nonresistance. Nonviolent people actively work to make the world a better place. Choose nonviolent options. You can vote, lobby, petition, and protest to work for change. I have worked for peace through protests and marches (against unjust wars, unjust means, and training for cruelty). I have participated in letter writing campaigns. Learn how to be effective in nonviolent work then when a need arises you will find yourself reaching for nonviolence. 

Resilient community makes it harder for people to start violence and conflict. You are much less likely to be violent towards someone you know. Rumors and disinformation can turn people against one another, but if you know someone on the other side then you can check in with them and learn what’s true and what’s false. The more people overlap belonging to multiple groups, the harder it is for someone to split them apart.

Growing up I was part of exchange programs that knit together communities across the world. First I was a host brother to exchange sisters from Brazil, Mexico, France, and Brazil again. Then I went myself to Japan through Youth For Understanding (YFU).

You can make a difference by building community where you are. Follow Leigh’s good advice from last week. Make friends with your neighbors. Get to know people with different political beliefs. Join organizations where you volunteer, work, and play together. 

Being open can build community too. There’s a phenomenon known as the Aunt Susan effect. When no one knew if they had met a gay or lesbian then it was easy to vilify them as strange and unnatural. When more and more people came out, it became harder to make blanket statements and ostracize them because people could point to people that they knew who were gay or lesbian and completely typical in other ways. Everyone had an “Aunt Susan” they could point to and say she’s lesbian and I still love her. Find ways that you can be open about who you are without endangering yourself. Use your privilege.

In Europe after World War II, the countries decided that they didn’t want to go to war again like that and the solution was economic cooperation. The thought was that you would be far less likely to go to war with business partners. The European Union brings together countries across Europe in political and economic cooperation. Some countries took it even further with the creation of the Schengen Area. According to Consilium Europa, “The Schengen area is one of the main achievements of the European project. It started in 1985 as an intergovernmental project between five EU countries – France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg – and has gradually expanded to become the largest free travel area in the world.”[iii]

True peace goes beyond a suppression of violence. An unjust society is a place of fear and violence burbles beneath the surface waiting to erupt. The oppressed are afraid that the oppressors will show their hand when the oppressed step out of line and the violence of the oppressors comes into the open. The oppressors are afraid the oppressed will turn the tables and oppress them. According to John Dominic Crossan, the oppressed across cultures have twin dreams. Either they want to become the oppressors themselves or they dream of a society without oppression.[iv] 

After World War II, the state of Israel was founded. The Jews that had suffered so long under the rule of others took charge. Unfortunately, some in Israel took the wrong lesson from being oppressed and became oppressors themselves. Like the empires that had conquered them they scattered the locals sending them into exile. Like empires that had oppressed them, they enforced their laws and culture on the locals. While Israel has, at times, negotiated, it keeps attempting to achieve peace by attacking the Palestinians. Israel occupies their land. Israel kills their people. Israel destroys their crops. The Palestinian people fight back again and again and again. They strike back against military targets and civilians. The Palestinians do not give up just because they have been beaten. Their thirst for justice does not go away. Their thirst for vengeance doesn’t vanish. Your enemies will be gone when they become friends. If they are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them a drink.[v] If they are in despair then give them hope.

The year after I graduated high school, people in the United States decided that because other countries had been torturing our soldiers so they decided that we should torture theirs. Long after we had forgotten how much we disliked being colonies, we had colonies of our own and those colonies had the same sorts of gripes with us. The United States must remember its lessons.

Charities are named for caritas, the Latin translation of the Greek agape which means a sort of selfless, Godly love. Charities work to supply people who are poor or in places of crisis with necessities. They lessen the inequality in society and provide a stopgap measure when the regular systems in society break down. 

Across time and around the world poor people have yearned for the same things as each other. Anthropologist James C. Scott described the universal dream of the peasants of equality this way:

“a society of brotherhood in which there will be no rich and poor, in which no distinctions of rank and status (save those between believers and non-believers) will exist…the elimination of religious hierarchy in favor of communities of equal believers…a self-yielding and abundant nature as well as a radically transformed human nature in which greed, envy, and hatred will disappear. While the earthly utopia is thus an anticipation of the future, it often harks back to a mythic Eden from which mankind has fallen away.*” [vi]

You may remember, “Blessed are the poor” from Luke[vii] or, even less obviously, from Matthew “Blessed are the poor in spirit”[viii] from the Beatitudes. The Greek word ptochos, commonly translated as poor, according to John Dominic Crossan, means destitute or less literally homeless. Jesus was saying Blessed are the destitute. And why are they blessed? because they are the only ones innocent of participating in systemic injustice.[ix] All of us who are privileged bear responsibility for the way things are and we are, therefore, responsible for making things better. The more you have the heavier the responsibility. While charities offer a stopgap, they fail the test of radical equality to which Christ calls us. This is why Christ told us it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.  Sharing is hard. We can begin with the common table Christ demonstrated by example.

Let us build peace together. Start by not harming others and respecting all. Build community both with those who are like you and reach out farther to those with whom you share little common ground. Avoid the violence that comes in response to injustice by working for justice in the system and trying to reform the system so the system itself is more just. Seek a world where all have peace, safety, and abundance. Ask yourself

What would it mean for me to follow the way of nonviolence?

How can I build community around me?

What can I do to work for justice?

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[i] Crossan, John Dominic, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography

[ii] Romans 12:17

[iii] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/schengen-area/

[iv] Ibid

[v] Romans 12:20

[vi] Revolutionary

[vii] Luke 6:20

[viii] Matthew 5:3

[ix] pg 68, Revolutionary