The Gift of Peace

           I don’t believe in coincidences. The other night, after a day of hospital visits, chasing down doctors and busily getting ready to go out of town to pack up her mother’s house, my wife Jessica received a very special gift. As she described it, “I had the sweetest little dove visit last night at dusk. It was exhausted and possibly overheated. I brought it inside, gave it some water and let it cool off.” Jessica surely gave that dove a much-needed break, but that dove also brought Jessica a very special gift when she needed it the most – the gift of peace.

          Those who know Jessica know all too well that she loves animals. To call her an animal nut wouldn’t do her justice. Jessica’s a dyed-in-the-wool, Doctor Doolittle, Horse Whisperer, stop-the-car-in-the-middle-of-a-highway-to-save-a-turtle kind of animal nut. She loves pretty much every animal (except the chickens who dig up her bulbs). On the animal front, our house puts the Twelve Days of Christmas to shame. Jessica has an unmistakable spiritual connection with animals: she thrives when they thrive, and she suffers when they suffer. Most of all, Jessica finds God’s peace in animals.

          The Jews have a wonderful word for God’s peace – shalom. While often translated simply as “peace,” shalom has a much deeper meaning. It connotes wholeness, well-being and safety. Shalom is a transcendent, eternal peace that can only be found in God. That’s why rabbinic teachings say that “the name of God is Shalom.” To live in shalom is to live united with God: happy, complete, at peace. When we live in shalom, God’s peace flows through us, and we bring peace to all around us.

          How do we live in God’s peace when the world is anything but peaceful? The short answer is, “we choose to.” God is everywhere, and so is his peace. God never stops sharing his peace with us. God’s peace is in a dew-kissed morning. God’s peace is in a baby’s smile. God’s peace is in the consolation of a loved one. God’s peace is in a job well-done. God’s peace is in lofty mountain majesties. God’s peace is in the sweetest little dove. No matter how chaotic or even violent life can be, God’s peace is there for the taking. It’s up to us to seek it, find it, enjoy it and share it.

          Over the past few months, Jessica’s world has been a roller coaster ride for reasons known all too well by the “Sandwich Generation.” At the height of her lows, Jessica found that little dove, a seemingly helpless animal in distress that took her mind off of her woes, if just for a moment. Jessica described it as a gift that helped her sad heart. When she needed it the most, that little dove brought Jessica a gift from God – the gift of peace. When she returned it outside, she held it in her open hand for about a minute before it flew away, no doubt to bring God’s gift of peace to someone else who needed it. I don’t believe in coincidences.

It’s Time to Be Neighbors

The Good Samaritan, by Eugène Delacroix, 1849

On Friday morning, I decided to scrap the homily I’d been preparing for you today.  I felt like I had to address this past week’s seemingly endless news of violence upon violence.  Homilies are supposed to help make Scripture relevant to us today, so if I were to avoid what’s going on in the real world for a feel good homily, I wouldn’t be doing my job.  Fortunately for me, the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit nudged our Church Fathers some 45 years ago to select a Gospel for today that’s perfect for times like these.  In times like these, it’s time to be neighbors.

In our Gospel passage, Jesus is talking with a lawyer who wants precise answers.  So when Jesus confirms that the key to eternal life is loving God and loving neighbor, the lawyer wants Jesus to be more specific; he wants Jesus to tell him exactly which neighbors he has to love.  You see, “the general meaning of ‘neighbor’ at least for Hebrew speakers, is a person in intimate or legal relationship.”[1]  Not everyone falls into that category, so Jews of Jesus’ time generally understood “neighbor” to mean those within the Jewish community.  And therein lies the rub of the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Samaritans and Jews hated each other.  They were mortal enemies.  By having a Samaritan come to the aid of a Jew, Jesus is telling us that the command to love our neighbor extends to all.  Everyone deserves our love:  Jew or Samaritan; Catholic or Muslim; gay or straight; saint or sinner; Trump supporter or Clinton supporter; every race, creed or color.  The simple message of the parable of the Good Samaritan is that everyone deserves our love!

Unfortunately, I think we’ve forgotten that simple message.  We have way too many enemies, and not enough neighbors.  “The Gospel would totally denounce the modern world as a world without the neighbor, the dehumanized world of abstract, anonymous and distant relationships.”[2]  We spend our time staring into hand-held devices and computer screens to avoid looking each other in the eye.  We categorize people by what they are to avoid having to learn who they are.  We judge people by their differences to avoid the uncanny notion that we are, in fact, created equal.  And every time we do these things, we grow further and further apart from our neighbors; we begin to demonize those who disagree with us; we disregard more and more the God-given dignity of every human being and the sanctity of human life; and we slowly, but surely, lose touch with God. 

It’s time for us to be neighbors again.  It’s time for us to remember that our neighbor isn’t just the person next door who’s comfortably separated from us by a neatly trimmed privet hedge or white picket fence.  Neighbors cross lines and boundaries: 

-         Neighbors bring each other casseroles; 

-         Neighbors help old ladies cross the street; 

-         Neighbors open doors for each other; 

-         Neighbors ask each other how they’re doing and listen to the answer;

-         Neighbors honor their commonalities and respect their differences; 

-         Neighbors pray for each other; and

-         Neighbors do all of these things for each other no matter what or who the other may be. 

If we want to be a neighbor, we have to “go beyond friend and family and extend welcome and mercy to the outcast and even to one’s enemies.”[3] 

We’re created to be neighbors.  As our reading from Deuteronomy tells us, God’s commandment to love God and neighbor is written in our hearts; we just have to carry it out.  (Deuteronomy 30: 14)  It’s in carrying out God’s love for every person that we prove that we love and serve the one who made peace for us through the blood of his cross.  (Colossians 1: 20)  Now I’m no dreamy-eyed idealist.  I know that there’s no quick-fix to the problems we face today.  But I am confident that if we just start acting the way we were made to act, if we just start being neighbors, things will be a whole lot better.  

As I scrambled to put together my new homily for today, I stumbled across a Facebook post by an African American woman named Natasha that she labeled, “Feeling Hopeful.”  Natasha’s post reads as follows:

So this morning I went into a convenience store to get a protein bar.  As I walked through the door, I noticed that there were two white police officers . . . talking to the clerk . . . behind the counter about the shootings that have gone on in the past few days.  They all looked at me and fell silent.  I went about my business to get what I was looking for.  As I turned back up the aisle to go pay, the oldest officer was standing at the top of the aisle watching me.  As I got closer, he asked me how I was doing.  I replied, “Okay, and you?”  He looked at me with a strange look and asked me, “How are you really doing?”  I looked at him and said, “I’m tired!”  His reply was, “Me too.”  Then he said, “I guess it’s not easy being either of us right now, is it?”  I said, “No, it’s not.”  Then he hugged me, and I cried.  I had never seen that man before in my life.  I have no idea why he was moved to talk to me.  What I do know is that he and I shared a moment this morning that was absolutely beautiful.  No judgments, no justifications, just two people sharing a moment.[4]

I’m feeling hopeful, too, because among all of the violence out there, there are still people like Natasha and that police officer who know that in times like these, it’s time to be neighbors. 

Readings:  Deuteronomy 30: 10-14; Psalm 69; Colossians 1: 15-20; Luke 10: 25-37

---

[1] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus:  The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York, Harper Collins, 2014) at 85.

[2] David Lyle Jeffrey, Luke, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, Brazos Press, 2012) at 150.

[3] Michael F. Patella. “The Gospel According to Luke,” New Collegeville Bible Commentary, Daniel Durken, ed. (Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 2009) at 258.

[4] Natasha Howell, Facebook, July 9, 2016.

True Freedom

          The other night, the Meyers gathered in the family room to watch The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, the 2008 film that looks at the horrors of the Holocaust through the eyes of two 8-year old boys: Bruno, the son of a Nazi concentration camp commander; and Shmuel, a Jewish prisoner. The movie, poignant and disturbing in all of the right ways, prompted a family discussion about the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis during World War II, and how they could do such horrible things to their fellow man. Though historians, psychologists and others can do greater justice to the subject than I could ever hope to, I tried to explain that the Nazis were themselves prisoners – prisoners of their own lies, fears, willful ignorance and sin. Trapped in these disorders, they denied the self-evident truths “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”[1] Because they denied the Truth, the Nazis defied true freedom.

          Freedom is, of course, an act of reason and will to act on one’s own accord. But, true freedom isn’t what we often think or hope it might be: true freedom isn’t the right to do whatever we want. If it were, there’d be no such thing as right and wrong; there’d be no such thing as truth. If each person were free to do whatever he or she wanted to do, truth would be subjected to individual will. What you want to do is right for you, and what I want to do is right for me. While that may sound delightfully libertarian, it’s really a recipe for unhappiness and utter chaos.

          Just think about it, if we were each free to do whatever we wanted, we’d have no right to establish community standards, create laws or judge the acts of another, even when they infringe upon our own rights or the rights of others. To use a simple example, imagine that you decided that green meant go and red meant stop, but I decided that green meant stop and red meant go. In a free-for-all world, neither of us would be right or wrong, and neither would responsible for any harm that might arise from the inevitable accident that awaits us. Now let’s get more serious: if we were each free to do whatever we wanted, we’d have no right to denounce, stop or punish theft, rape, child abuse, murder or even genocide. How free would we be in a world that permitted such atrocities in the name of freedom? How free would we be if the value of human life is determined by individual will? How free would we be in a world where lies, fear, ignorance and sin reign? Just ask the Holocaust victims.

          That brings us to true freedom. True freedom “is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness.”[2] As the words suggest, true freedom is always decisively bound to objective Truth, that is, to God. God has written his law in our hearts and minds; he has spoken to us through the prophets; he abides in our consciences; and he has most intimately revealed his Truth to us in Jesus Christ. When we live as God teaches us, we live in true freedom, a freedom that respects the God-given dignity of all people, honors individual rights and promotes the common good. When we live as God teaches us, we grow to understand that we’re truly free whenever we set aside our personal desires for the benefit of others; we’re truly free when we work for justice and peace in our world; and we’re truly free whenever we lay down our lives for a friend. As Jesus said, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8: 31-32)

          Elie Wiesel – may his memory always be a blessing – understood true freedom. In his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, the Holocaust survivor turned author and political activist said:

As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.[3]

We’re truly free when we understand that our freedom rests not in self-interest, but in self-sacrifice. That’s the freedom that our soldiers fight to protect and defend. That’s the freedom we celebrate on Independence Day. That’s true freedom.

__________________________________________
[1] United States Declaration of Independence.
[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church 1731.
[3] Elie Wiesel, Noble Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, Oslo, Norway, December 10, 1986.