A sermon preached by the Reverend Scott D. Nowack
 on July 23, 2006
at Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, PA.

One Love, One Life, One Christ!

Ephesians 2:11-22

When I was a teenager, our family took car trips every summer. To keep the peace, we each took a turn choosing a cassette tape to play in the car tape deck. No one was allowed to complain or comment about another’s choice.

My mom liked to listen to hymns. I chose one of my many Bruce Springsteen tapes. My brother preferred the musical stylings of the rock group The Who.  And Dad? He always thought the best thing was a 90-minute tape that was still blank!

“Ah, peace and quiet.”

You and I know there is more to having peace in our lives than listening to a blank cassette tape or a CD filled with silence. We long for peace in our lives. We live in a world filled with hostility, discord, and division; a world divided by religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preferences, generations, economic class and more. There’s war in the Middle East between Israel and Hezbollah, genocide in the Sudan, and contention between North Korea and the world. On a smaller scale, hostility, discord, and division take hold in our individual lives and it plays out in our relationships, such as parents and children, teachers and students, friend and friend, neighbor and neighbor, Christian believers in the same congregation and much more. Peace is a rare commodity in our world.

The Apostle Paul addresses a widespread, well understood, hostile relationship in his writing to the church in Ephesus. The hostile relationship is between Gentiles and Jews in the time of Paul’s missionary journeys. Paul brought the Gospel to Jew and Gentile alike with many Gentiles accepting Christ into their life. They are experiencing a radical transformation from a life without Christ to a life with Christ. By accepting Christ, the Gentiles are “no longer far off, strangers to the covenants of promise found in God” according to the passage. Christ came to bring true peace for all who believe in Him. The walls and the hostility that once existed between Jew and Gentile are broken down by the life, death and resurrected Christ.

This is the purpose of Christ coming to earth, dying and rising from the dead. Paul states it in verse 14, “for he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” The purpose of Christ on earth is to be a peacemaker, a peace-creator.

What does the peace of Christ look like and how can you and I get it? We often think of peace as a quiet, calm moment in time with a gentle breeze ruffling the leaves of a tree, the water of a brook gently flowing down a hillside or watching a baby sleep. We often think of it as the absence of difficulty and discord.

My friends, peace is not the absence of trouble or discord or differences. Peace is the presence of God in our lives. To have a true, lasting peace, each of us must submit ourselves completely to the will of God, that is, the governing authority of Christ.

Under the authority of Christ, Christ grants us true peace, and this peace rules over our hearts. And for this peace to increase and grow in hearts and minds, the authority of Christ in our lives must increase also. The more we seek God and live in God’s will, the more peace we will find.

This is not easy. It’s difficult to have the peace of Christ in your heart while there is chaos and discord all around you because our sinful nature wants nothing to do with peace. Our sinful nature resists peace at all costs bringing discord to our lives, jealousy and envy to our intimate relationships, factions and fighting to our families and our church. Anger, quarrels and strife push and shove peace to the back of our minds, and the chaos to the media headlines and the front page news.

It’s not only in our culture and the media. It’s not a problem out there (pointing to outside the sanctuary). It’s right here in our churches, too.

One Sunday morning nine-year-old Joshua decided to skip church and go for a long walk. His mother frequently told him that if he skipped church, he would miss a chance to see Jesus. But Joshua had been going to church his whole life and had never seen Jesus there before, so he didn’t think he’d be missing much. Besides, his church was an old, small, run-down building—just a little too confining for his desire to run and play.

Joshua’s walk took him across the railroad tracks in town for the first time in his life. He noticed that the houses on the other side of the tracks were much bigger and much nicer than any in the poor neighborhood where he lived.

A few blocks later Joshua found himself in front of the biggest, most beautiful church he had ever seen. The steeple alone seemed as tall as a mountain. As he got closer, the big church bells stopped ringing and the last people filed in from the parking lot. They all had nice cars and wore nice clothes. He didn’t see any people from his side of the tracks going to this church.

“This must be the church where Jesus goes,” Joshua told himself. “It’s so big and nice.” As he walked closer, he could hear the music coming from inside. He remembered hearing his mother talk about how angels sing to Jesus in heaven. “Wow!” said Joshua as he listened to the choir. “I’ll bet those are angels singing to Jesus!”

He walked up the steps, through the big front doors, and into the spacious lobby. He continued through another set of doors and entered the sanctuary. It was the biggest room he had ever seen. “This must be where Jesus is!” Joshua whispered to himself.

He noticed an empty seat a few rows from the back, so he sat down to scan the crowd, so he could find Jesus. The choir stopped singing and a large man in a black suit tapped Joshua on the shoulder. The man leaned down and asked Joshua if he could speak with him outside.

In the narthex, the man asked, “Son, where do you live?”

Joshua answered, “Well, if you go down the hill, take a left at the corner, cross the railroad tracks, and head down that street a few more blocks, that’s where I live.”

“And where are your parents?” the man asked.

“They’re probably at church right now,” Joshua replied.

“Well, son, don’t you think it would be better for you to go to your parents’ church today?”

“But I saw this church, and I knew Jesus was here,” Joshua said. “So I came to see him!”

“Well, son, I think it would be best if you were to run along home and go see Jesus in your own church in your own neighborhood,” the man said. “You really can’t stay here.”

Realizing what the man was trying to do, Joshua got upset. “You just don’t want me to see Jesus!” he yelled as he turned and ran out the big doors leading to the street.

Sobbing as he returned home, Joshua shouted, “God, it isn’t fair! All I wanted to do was see Jesus, and they wouldn’t let me in!”

Joshua shuffled along, staring at the sidewalk through his tears. Suddenly he heard footsteps behind him and felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around, wiped his eyes, and stared in amazement.

It was Jesus!

The Lord smiled at Joshua, gave him a big hug, and said, “Don’t be too upset, my son. They wouldn’t let me in there either.”

We, the church, who proclaim ourselves to be the body of Christ, are really good at talking about peace, passing resolutions in protest of specific actions and events, but we have a difficult time living out true peace. We can talk the talk, but we more often than not don’t walk the walk. We must do both.

If we want true peace, we need to submit ourselves to the authority of Christ, mind, body and spirit, and be in tune to God’s will for our lives and the world. If we want to have a peace that surpasses all understanding, the peace that comes only from Christ, we need to allow the true peace of Christ to rule in our hearts.

What’s the difference between a peace-maker and peace keeper? Peace keepers want to maintain the status quo. They try to maintain what they perceive as peace. A good example of this is when you and I put up a false front like a happy face, when inside we are filled with turmoil and discord. We go through our day telling ourselves not to rock the boat, don’t make waves, and pretend everything is alright when a relationship with a friend or loved one is churning up your insides. In most cases, peace keepers are trying to maintain a peace that doesn’t exist; it’s a false peace that doesn’t take the conflict, the discord, the turmoil seriously. Peace keepers avoid confronting conflicts at all costs.

Are you a peace keeper? How many times in our lives have each of us sidestepped dealing with a hot issue, failed to confront a friend or colleague about their inappropriate behavior, or avoided telling someone how much you’ve been hurt by their words and actions? When a conflict first appears, the easiest solution appears to push it under the rug and forget it ever happened. But we all know from experience that the discord doesn’t go away automatically by simply avoiding it. A peace keeper avoids dealing with conflict at all costs in order to keep a peace that doesn’t exist.

On the other hand, a peace maker is a different breed. Peace makers are action-oriented, they are willing to do the necessary work to bring true peace to the chaos. Peace makers, when they see discord and conflict, bring discipline and focus to the chaos. They are able to move beyond the current chaotic situation and see it for what it really is. A peacemaker does not try to fix someone or something nor do they attempt to control others and their environment with confusion, disorder and mayhem. There’s no hiding, no denial, no burying the strife in the backyard or in a swamp in Jersey. Peace makers bring peace and discipline to conflict through a strong yet loving confrontation. A peace maker is able to debate on a hot-button issue, is willing to confront a friend or colleague about some inappropriate behavior and is able to speak strongly and directly with love to the individual who hurt them with their words and actions. Most importantly, the peace maker submits their life to the will of God and the authority of Christ, for they are at peace with themselves, living disciplined lives, knowing well who God has created them to be. The peacemaker sees the world and humanity through the eyes of God.

What would you rather be: a peace keeper or a peace maker? I admit I find myself living more like a peace keeper than a peace maker. I dislike conflict. I’m not very good at coping with it, so I avoid it when I can. Why? There are lots of reasons: fear of rejection, fear of upsetting someone, fear of getting fired. This is not a healthy state of mind. The irony I find in this is that if I want to get better at handling conflict, discord and turmoil in a healthy way, I need to practice confronting them. I need to practice being more of a peace maker and less of a peace keeper. Practice makes perfect, right? Short term pain for long term gain.

If Jesus Christ is the ultimate peace maker and you and I profess ourselves to be his disciples, are we to be peace keepers or peace makers? What is God calling us to do as Christians today?

We are called to be peace makers in a hostile world. We are called to live our lives in the will of God, governed by the authority of Christ, to establish justice in the face of injustice, unity in the face of division, love in the face of hate, hope in the face of despair.

Jesus says, “Blessed are the peace makers, for they will be called children of God.” With the peace of Christ alive in us, we are no longer strangers or aliens, but citizens and members of the household of God. We are no longer seen as those who were once far off. The cornerstone has been laid, Jesus Christ, making a solid foundation for us to stand and be peacemakers in a hostile world. Amen.

Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania,  www.apcusa.org