Finding Peace in a World of Conflict

      The English church has rejected the idea of consecrating women to be bishops.  This was because the vote was a few shy in the lay order after the bishops and the priests had voted for it.  They say that there will be a delay in this, but the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury says that he will consecrate a woman to be bishop during his tenure.  In the meantime, Presbyterians in Pittsburgh are splitting over doctrinal matters in the same way that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh did a few years ago.  It is really becoming more and more difficult for all of us to live with the contradictions of opinion that we all have.

I am also a bit surprised at how stunned the Republican party was after their defeat by President Obama in the presidential election.  They believed the polls and Fox news and got most of it wrong.

We live in a time when differences of opinion become fiscal cliffs or reasons for war, not peace.  We have a hard time finding compromise and accepting the profound differences that we all have with each other.  I suspect that it has always been like this, although it seems to me that we have in the past been better able to resolve our differences and to get along better with each other.

The problem is our common sin.  The idea that we get in our heads that we are the center of the universe and that only our opinions matter.  That has been going on throughout all of the human experience.  Over the ages, we have looked to God to solve this terrible problem, to somehow bring peace to a world where we are constantly the reason that there is no peace.

God has tried a number of times to get our attention, to help us to find ways to agree with each other and to stop our constant arguments.  God sent the Law to Moses, then the prophets to speak to us, and finally God came to us himself in the person of Jesus of Nazareth to show us in his humanity the way that God would have us to live.  Jesus healed, took care of the poor, lived with those who were called sinners and chastised the rich.  And for his efforts, he was crucified by all of us because we have the same trouble with God that we have with each other.  We love ourselves more than we love each other.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.  God brought Jesus from the grave in the miracle of the Resurrection. The followers of Jesus gathered together after this powerful event and became the church.  They worshipped God and continued the work that Jesus had begun.  The interesting thing is that the church over the centuries continued to argue and bicker just as they had before the church existed, even though the work of love continued.  During the season of Advent, our yearning is once again for the coming of the Lord to free us from ourselves and to make the world whole and peaceful.  That is certainly the Spirit of Christmas.  Somehow deep inside, we know that without the help of God we will always be unable to live the lives that God intended for us.

The way of peace, however is not for us to wait expectantly for God to come and fix us.  That has been tried.  The way of peace is for us, the Church, to live in the love that God provided for us in the teaching of Jesus.  To love God and to love each other above all things.  That is the only way that God’s will can be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.  It is up to us to make this world better.  And it is within our power.  Thank God for all of the love that has been lavished on humanity.  May we show our thanks by the way that we respond with our love for each other.