Year B / Ordinary Time / Sixteenth Sunday
Readings: Jeremiah 23.1-6 / Psalm 23.1-3,3-4,5,6 (R/v 1) / Ephesians 2.13-18 / Mark 6.30-34
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
beside restful waters he leads me;
he refreshes my soul.
We are all very familiar with these lines from Psalm 23. We proclaim them at Eucharist, sing them at funerals and pray them at retreats. No matter how often we encounter these lines, our familiarity with them goes much deeper: they echo our deepest longing for peace.
We spend much of our everyday time looking for peace. When school is done, the younger ones amongst us put away their studies for some quiet and peace. During lunch breaks, some of us log off the computer, mute the handphone and turn the chair around for some peace of mind. And when death comes, we believe that our eternal rest is God’s peace. Yes, we all want peace.
In today’s gospel story, Jesus’ disciples are in need of peace. They have returned from their first mission trip. They are exhilarated and eager to share stories of healings, exorcisms, and effective teaching, and may be, even some stories of failure, rejection, and hardship. But they are exhausted.
Sensing this, Jesus recognizes their need for solitude – some space for peace, some time of peace. Jesus attends to their needs as a good shepherd does. He calls them to “come away to a deserted place to rest.” There is an urgency; the crowds are gathering around them. Jesus’ invitation is tender and longing; all he wants is for them to rest, to recuperate, to be at peace.
Haven’t you and I also experienced Jesus leading us into the peace of God’s presence, as only the Good Shepherd can?
It could have been when we needed quiet to grieve a beloved’s death. Or, when we yearned to give thanks for a job well done. Or, when we longed for a retreat’s solitude. I believe we have all experienced God’s peace in such times. That elusive peace we sought, we needed, and we had to have to carry on our Christian pilgrimage.
But peace is not the same as tranquility.
Tranquility is lying on the ground, enchanted by the countless twinkling stars. Tranquility is standing at the lapping water’s edge and losing ourselves in the expansive horizon at sunset. Tranquility could even be the stillness we experience as we fall into the enveloping silence. In all these moments of tranquility, the stresses, insecurities, and anxieties of life fade away; we can let go and we know all will be fine.
In this respect, tranquility isn’t bad. We need it. In fact, our busy, anxious life will be calmer, healthier and happier from disciplined tranquility and stillness, which we experience in prayer and in retreat.
If tranquility isn’t the same thing as peace, what kind of peace is Jesus calling his disciples to? I would like to suggest that we can glimpse an answer by reflecting on our exchange of peace each Sunday at Eucharist.
Like you, I’ve long associated the “Peace be with you” I say as a wish for tranquility, a prayer for calm upon each other, a hope that your stresses would slow down.
In liturgy, however “Peace be with you” symbolizes the restoration of ourselves to right relationship with God and with one another. We anoint each other in this exchange for the community we will become in communion, which we behold in the Eucharist: the body of Christ.
And isn’t this the peace Jesus’ message proclaims: that we are the one body, the one community of God on earth as it is in heaven through salvation? Jesus’ peace is therefore a peace that restores. It is not a retreat into tranquility and quiet stillness.
In our gospel story, Jesus leads his disciples away to be by themselves and to rest. They didn’t go away seeking peace, as we understand it. They just went seeking quiet. And in the quiet, Jesus gave them peace that refreshes, reenergizes and repairs individual and community. This peace restores.
Jesus himself received this same peace from God. Whenever Jesus went away to be alone, to pray, or to rest in the gospels, God gave him peace that restored him for the mission. Christian peace is not just about being quiet before God; it is also about being commissioned to bring about God’s kingdom.
We know this is the work of peace from how the gospel story ends: Jesus called the disciples away to peace, but the demands of other people for peace interrupted them. Jesus was with them in the quiet. But when he disembarked and he saw the crowds, he cared for them with compassion. The disciples learnt from Jesus how God’s peace that restores is indeed the same peace that must be bestowed on all who seek peace.
Like the disciples, we would be wise to learn from Jesus’ example. Then, we will know that God’s peace will truly give us fullness of life only when we do as Jesus does. Today Jesus calls us again to go and do what he does as the good shepherd: to restore all in God’s ways and into God’s embrace.
When we dare to share God’s peace with others, we become more like Jesus the good shepherd to one another, but, most of all, to the last, the lost and the least.
We would be most Christian then when we listen and attend to our family and friends who seek our understanding, to the increasing have-nots in our midst who cry out for our assistance, and to those whom we have discriminated against and who demand we stop as they plead “no more.”
Jesus’ peace is therefore not the sound of tranquility, or respite from pain, or even the absence of suffering. It is peace for justice.
Such peace must be disturbing: it is like a sword cutting through the petty, oppressive and hurtful ways we sometimes practice towards one another at home, in school and at work. Jesus’ peace is indeed holy disturbance. And Jesus commands that we share this peace. Why? Because we can then better restore the souls of others and the wellbeing of our world in God’s love and into God’s life.
Very soon, we will exchange the sign of peace. Today, we learn that it cannot be about words we say or handshakes, nods and hugs we make. No, the exchange of peace we will share must be our concrete commitment to shepherd one another into God’s peace that restores us all.
Will you and I accept this commitment? Will we then express it by saying “Peace be with you” wholeheartedly and mean it?
I believe we can. We can because
the Lord is our shepherd; we shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives us repose;
beside restful waters he leads us; he refreshes our souls.
Give us this peace, Lord Jesus,
so that we can say to each other and to all,
“Yes, peace be with you and with your spirit,”
for God’s love always refreshes, and eternally restores.
(inspired in part by David Henson, "Peace is Not Tranquility")
Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
photo: www.catholicworldreport.com
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