Peace I leave with you – 3 May 2013

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.  [John 14: 27]

Last week we touched on how, in Jesus’s teachings, the opposite of love seems to be not hate, but fear.  Why are you afraid, Jesus frequently asked people.  Last week the gospel lesson included Jesus’s new commandment, that you love one another – and we could see that a major barrier to love is fear of all sorts of things.  In the gospel this week Jesus says he leaves them peace, and he adds, Do not let your hearts be troubled... do not let them be afraid.  In the First Letter of John we learn, There is no fear in love, perfect love casts out fear [I John 4: 18].

Peace, in the language Jesus knew, is the Hebrew shalom.  There is no one English  word for this.  Health, wellness, justice, inner joy, absence of hostilities, belonging within one’s community – all these come into it.  But perhaps the thing to note in this statement from Jesus is that peace is a gift.  We receive it, rather than generate it around a conference table.  Peace is what God gives and we receive.  And then peace may start to happen around men and women of peace.

Christian Meditation is very much a matter of confronting our fears.  The invitation to love often seems impossible, or far too remote for us, because we know our fears.  Much of the time we are preceded in life by our defences, in case we get hurt.  With some it is defence against difference – people feel safe with familiarity... “the tried, trusted and true”, my Scottish grandmother would say.   Racism is a direct product of fear, for many.  Fear of change is manifestly a problem for many.  And these days, the fear of ageing, the loss of youth and strength, the onset of wrinkles, the loss of control, fear of becoming dependent, fear of dementia – and fear of death.   

The silence and stillness of our prayer is the context in which love can overcome, steadily, as time goes by, our deepest fears.  A work goes on which we would be powerless to do ourselves.  Our stillness is our consent to God doing this work in us, enabling us to let go of even the fear of mortality. 

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.  

This is how Lady Julian of Norwich was able to say that all would be well.  It was never, as it is often quoted today, some pious defiance hurled against reality.  It is simply that Lady Julian is at peace within herself.  She is not afraid, and she has become a teacher of peace.