Transcript
Should you not have mercy on your fellow slave as I had mercy on you? Please be seated.
There are a lot of different parts of the liturgy that I like. And honestly, I think depending on the Sunday or the liturgy, I probably have a bunch of different favorite parts. But one of my absolute most favorite parts is the Peace. Not because it’s a chance to stretch our legs and see our friends and catch up with our fellow church members, although that’s always nice, but because of the theology behind the Peace. You see, the Peace isn’t supposed to be an intermission or like a seventh-inning stretch. Instead, the Peace is supposed to be a time of reconciliation.
As mentioned during the instructed Eucharist a couple of weeks ago, if confession is admitting to God how we have not lived up to our Christian duty, and absolution is God’s forgiveness, then the Peace is our reconciliation, one another. The Peace is when we lay aside our own burdens to reconcile with those around us. In early Christianity, this part of what became, what will become our liturgy would have actually involved conflict resolution. It would have been mediation, when conflict was named and worked through in order to maintain a peaceful community, a healthy and well-working community.
And the theology of that is so amazing. I mean, think about it. The celebrant, that’s usually me, says, “The peace of the Lord be always with you.” As in, may God’s love and grace and hope and peace and all those other things that God offers to each of us, may it be with you, each and every single one of you, collectively and individually. May it be with you always, forever. And then you all say, “And also with you.” You all include the clergy too, for which I must say I am very grateful.
And then we wander. And yes, in today’s community we wander to our friends to see how they’re doing. We wander to someone whose birthday it is this week to wish them a happy birthday. Maybe we wander to the person who gave the flowers to compliment their beauty. And also we wander to those we don’t know and introduce ourselves. We wander to those who are going through something to see how they’re doing. We wander to those who maybe look like they need a friend, a companion, a champion, and we offer to pray with them or for them. And that is so beautiful, so grace-filled, so revealing of, so revealing of God’s presence among us here today in the pews where we worship together as St. John’s Church.
In other words, look at this beautiful thing happening around us every week. This beautiful thing, this experience, this moment in liturgy. This is community. This is what it means to live with one another, to support one another, to love one another, taking the time to put aside our own preoccupations and our own worries and our own “crosses,” so to speak, and consider the people around us.
It makes me think of Simon of Cyrene. Remember him? He’s the guy who ends up carrying Jesus’s cross. And I imagine during the Peace, when we ask how each other is doing and we reply, I like to think of us taking a little bit of the role of Simon of Cyrene. Taking on some of the heavy burden of those around us, helping one another, knowing that at some point we might need help too. We might need our own Simon of Cyrene to help us carry our own cross.
And that is community. It is being a bunch of Simon of Cyrene characters willing to carry one another’s cross. It is a bunch of the kings in today’s parable being willing to forgive even the most unforgivable indiscretions. It’s being the person who reaches a hand out to someone you don’t know to say, “Peace be with you,” or even to someone with whom you might have conflict. Because peace, forgiveness, love of one another, it isn’t just a concept or a tool to be used. It is a posture, a state of the heart. It takes over our very being and makes us not just willing, but wanting to extend grace, to extend even more forgiveness, to extend love even to those around us who maybe we don’t always agree with.
But I’m pretty sure that is the exact definition of community, of Christian community, of St. John’s Church. Because we may not always agree with one another, but we definitely love one another. We definitely show grace toward one another. We pick up each other’s crosses and help carry them. And we allow our own crosses to be carried by one another, because community requires that both ways: forgiveness and repentance, giving love and receiving love, showing grace and giving grace. It is the mutual back and forth of such relationships that allow community to thrive.
And if you want an example of how I know we have it here at St. John’s, just watch. When it’s time for the Peace, you’ll see what forgiveness and mercy and grace and love look like lived out in community. And as a result, you will see what community looks like. Real, true, authentic, intentional community.
And it is the intentional part that is key, because yes, community can look like the Rotary Club or the yacht club or a fraternity or even a golf team. But intentional community is choosing to stay together, to be together, even when together is challenging. Even when together means being vulnerable, even when together means conflict and sacrifice and grace and love and mercy and forgiveness.
You all do that. You all show one another grace and love and mercy and forgiveness. You do that in the Sunday school classroom when a child asks a hard question. You do it in the choir room when a musical bar needs more practice than expected. You do it in the sacristy when a linen is just a little too wrinkled. You do it in the office when the printer stops working. You do it at the pledge master’s desk when you can’t quite read the name on the check. You do it in the kitchen when someone forgot to clean up their mess. You do it in the Little Free Pantry when someone is too hungry to wait for it to be reloaded.
You do it when someone says, “I need this,” or “We need this,” or “Why don’t we do this?” And you step up and say yes. Even when there might be conflict or challenges or other barriers, other excuses for why you shouldn’t, or why you wouldn’t have a justifiable reason to say no. Instead, you say yes. You all say yes. And as a result, you all are intentional community, and that is definitely worth celebrating.
The fact that we all come from different backgrounds and live different lives. We are all part of different generations and have different gifts and priorities and expectations. We are all different from one another, not some homogeneous group of people who all look and think and say and do the same thing. Instead, we all choose to be here as part of this community, practicing the act of forgiveness, practicing the act of mercy, practicing the act of love, and practicing the act of grace.
St. John’s Church isn’t just an institution, although it certainly is rooted here very solidly as Elizabeth City Parish. St. John’s Church is also you, all of you who are the members of the community, this community, this intentional community, an intentional community that chooses to be together through forgiveness and mercy and grace and love.
So let us celebrate us as we begin another year of active ministry together. Happy Kickoff Sunday, you all. It’s a great time to be a member of St. John’s community, a community that exists because you all, and because of your forgiveness and your grace and your mercy and your love. Happy Kickoff Sunday, y’all.
Amen.