The Dialogue is the newsletter of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in St. Joseph, MO. Oftentimes, I'll post here on the blog my columns for the weekly newsletter. I mention it just so that folks who read the snail-mail version can skip this post if they've already read it.I'm behind on posting in general and posting Dialogue columns in particular because of the ice storm. Here's last week's column:
This Sunday, we light the second advent candle, the candle of peace. My sermon is entitled “The Courage to Believe in Peace,” and I will be speaking about Jesus’ instructions to be peacemakers in the world, in our community and in our relationships. Although all people give lip service to the idea of peace in the abstract, far fewer are willing to do the hard work of making the kind of peace that values the God-given worth of all involved. It is much easier to attack than it is to talk to someone else as an equal, both at the interpersonal and national level. Whether we invade another country as a nation or assassinate the character of another person as an individual, pain and violence are the broad and easy path to take. The narrow and difficult path offered by Jesus takes much more effort, and it takes courage to believe such a path is possible at all.
Now that my eyesight has improved to the point that I can read again without too much effort, I’m catching up on books I set aside last January. One of them is Anne Lamott’s latest book, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith. It provides an example of peacemaking that was meaningful to me. In one essay, she uses the metaphor of a garden to describe her heart. In this garden would be beautiful wildflowers, a compost pile, scattered headstones covered in ivy and moss, and some piles of trash she’s been meaning to clean up. In her emotional trash heap are several friendships that ended badly. As she has matured, gotten therapy and come to know Jesus, she has learned that “a willingness to help clean up the mess we’ve made is a crucial part of adult living.”
So, when she felt the “nudges” of the Holy Spirit to make amends with a couple she had fallen out with years earlier, she resisted. She confesses how she had acted badly towards her friends, because she was jealous of their wealth and success. “Jealousy always has been my cross, the weakness and woundedness in me that has most often caused me to feel ugly and unlovable…I know that when someone gets a big slice of pie, it doesn’t mean there’s less for me. In fact, I know that there isn’t even a pie, that there’s plenty to go around, enough food and love and air. But I don’t believe it for a second. I secretly believe there’s a pie. I will go to my grave brandishing a fork.”
Fork brandishing or not, Lamott eventually did go on to write a letter to her friends apologizing for her part in their breakup, a letter without judgment, recrimination or criticism—only apology. At the time of the book’s printing, she had not received a response. She writes, “Maybe they forgive me, maybe they don’t. But I finally, finally forgive me, sort of-ish…forgiving myself makes it possible to forgive them too. Maybe this is grace, or simply the passage of time. Whatever you want to call this, I’ll take it.”
I believe that this is one of the ways God calls us to make peace. As we light the peace candle on Sunday, I hope you will join me in thinking about the ways each of us can help the miracle of grace to occur.
Grace and Peace,
Chase
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