Called to Peacemaking

Psalm 1; James 3:13-4:8; Mark 9:30-37 Season of Creation  — Sunday, September 19, 2021

Pastor Ritva H Williams

Trees have a very special place in the Bible from Genesis right through to Revelation. They serve as signposts and gathering places, and symbols of blessing and judgment. In Psalm 1, trees function as a metaphor for the righteous person, happy in their study of God’s word.

Here’s what Yolanda Norton, professor of Hebrew Bible and the H. Eugene Farlough Chair of Black Church Studies at San Francisco Theological Seminary, says about the biblical idea of happiness:

Psalm 1 begins with happiness. But, this concept of happiness is commonly misunderstood … Our understandings of happiness are often warm, fuzzy, and without complication. In contrast in Hebrew, happy is ‘ashre, which derives from the verb, ‘shr, meaning … to move forward, to develop, to grow in life … to evolve as human beings. (workingpreacher.org, 2019)

The righteous person, therefore, find happiness in growing, developing, maturing through their . their relationship with God. They delight in meditating on God’s law — God’s torah, God’s teaching and instruction. Through life changing sacred and spiritual practices the righteous person listens, reads, questions, discusses, reflects on, meditates on, and applies God’s teaching in daily life. The end goal is shalom — peace — the biblical notion of the good life in which all broken relationships are healed and restored to their life-giving purpose. One is at peace within oneself, with God, with neighbors near and far, with the earth and its creatures. The good life of the righteous is like trees planted by streams of water, yielding fruit in due season, always blooming and growing not only through seasons of difficulty, but growing even better because of seasonal challenges.

Psalm 1 invites us to grow by meditating on God’s teaching, and so we turn again to the wisdom of James, the brother of our Lord. He has previously warned us that the shalom of life-giving relationships is threatened by our distorted judgements about each other, and our tendency to put our mouths in motion before our brains are in gear. Today James asks us to consider what drives the choices we make in our daily lives — earthly wisdom or God’s wisdom? 

James sees earthly wisdom embodied in the values of envy and self ambition. According to the Handbook of Biblical Social Values, “Envy is a value which directs one to begrudge another the possession of some singular quality, object, or relationship.” To envy another person is to be negatively disposed towards them, to be seized by a desire to deprive them of their singular possession (p. 51). As James says, “You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts” (4:2). Envy is all about wanting, desiring, coveting what someone else has, causing disputes, conflicts and even murder.

Envy it not the same thing as jealousy. James tells us that God yearns “jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us.” The Handbook of Biblical Social Values explains that jealousy is attachment to and concern for what is exclusively one’s own (p. 52). We should not be surprised that God is attached to, concerned about and protective of the spirit that dwells within us, like a parent wanting to keep their children safe. The Spirit within each of us, after all, is God’s very own spirit breathed into us to give us life. 

In human beings jealousy often gets tangled up with envy to produce over-protectiveness and possessiveness. Add in fear of losing our loved ones to rivals, or suspicions that they are unfaithful, together with our distorted judgments about each other, and you have a recipe for abuse and trauma. By way of contrast God’s jealousy for each of us is always governed by God’s love, grace, and mercy.

James identifies envy and selfish ambition as forms of earthly, unspiritual and devilish wisdom that get in the way of our relationship with God and one another. Selfish ambition is illustrated for us this morning by Jesus’ very own disciples. Once again he tries to prepare them for his death and resurrection, but they don’t understand and are too afraid to ask questions. Instead they turn to arguing about what really matters to them — who is the greatest. 

Jesus’ disciples, both ancient and modern, are born into and absorb the values of human societies that are organized like ladders. When the goal is to reach the top of the ladder, selfish ambition rules. Those at the top of the ladder associate only with others at the top, and help their closest friends get to the top. If they don’t like others at the top they do their best to knock them down. People move up the ladder by licking the boots of those above them, while intentionally insulting, demeaning and kicking at those below them. At the bottom of the ladder are humans who are repeatedly knocked down and/or simply do not have the ability and resources to climb. 

Jesus completely rejects this vision of life, telling his disciples, “Whoever wants to be first must be last and servant of all” (9:35). To demonstrate what this looks like in real life, Jesus takes a little child in his arms and says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” (9:36-37). Now the Greek word for little child — paidion — was also used to label slaves. In the world of Jesus, children and slaves were at the very bottom of the ladder. They were totally dependent on their fathers and their masters. They had no rights or legal protection beyond what their fathers and masters were willing to provide. They were the most vulnerable and defenseless members of society. To welcome and embrace these people is to welcome and embrace Christ. To reject them is to reject Christ.

To take Jesus’ teaching seriously and focus our attention, time, energy and gifts on the humans at the bottom of the ladder is really hard in a world that tells us to ignore, climb over and even kick down these little ones in order to make it to the top of the ladder. So how do we do it?

Jesus’ brother invites us to submit to God who will give us the power to resist the devil and his values of envy and selfish ambition. When we turn back to God, God responds by drawing near to us, offering us wisdom from above. God’s wisdom is pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy (3:17). God’s wisdom is peaceable, prompting us to become peacemakers. James insists that peacemaking yields a harvest of righteousness — a harvest of justice, equity, fairness and life-giving relationships. 

In response to the psalmist’s invitation to engage with God’s teaching in daily life, this week I encourage all of us to commit ourselves to small random acts of peacemaking as described by Pastor John van de Laar in his poem of the same name (sacredise.com).

When someone is being put down because they look, act, speak, think or love differently affirm their freedom. Where someone is being taken advantage of because they lack the strength or resources to say no, help them find an alternative. Where someone is being controlled by threats and fear, offer safety and hope. Where someone believes their violence and power give them the right to act as they please call them to account. Wherever violence is done to another through physical force, lies or the logic of the ladder, opt out, speak out, and stand out through small, random acts of peacemaking. 

Rise by lifting up others!

May the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer (Psalm 19:14).