Jesus: "...my peace I give to you!"

In John’s Gospel account Jesus leaves his disciples with the gift of Peace. He says: “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.”

Because Jesus says: “I do not give (peace) to you as the world gives”, there is implied a difference between his peace and that promised by the world’s leaders. Therefore, I wondered just how the world gives peace. I was helped in finding a working definition of “peace”, in the eyes of the world today, by a paper prepared by Colonel James H. Herrera USMC, and his paper titled: “On Peace: Peace as a means of Statecraft” (2009).

In an attempt to define Peace, the author starts by saying that: “war, non-war, and peace are conditions that exist in world politics, according to the Dictionary of International Relations. The first indicates a condition of hostilities, the second condition of competition without actual belligerency, and the third either a cessation or an absence of hostilities” The author is aware that the most popular definition of world peace is a world without war, in his words “regulates peace to a subordinate position.”

Colonel Herrera quotes out of many great thinkers, from Immanuel Kant, to Hegel, to Nathan Funk, and more to show how peace can often be seen as a negative thing. Hegel is quoted as writing: “just as the movement of the oceans prevents the corruption which would be the result of perpetual calm, so by war people escape the corruption which would be occasioned by continuous or eternal peace.” By many great minds of this world, “peace is viewed as a static condition that interferes with a process of improving states internal efficiency.”

There is nothing wrong with times that trouble hearts or move them to fear; because during these times there are scientific and industrial advancements made. But—Jesus says: “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

The peace that Jesus gives is not simply a “breathing time” as expressed by the Philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who “believes that the natural condition of man is one of continuous competition and potential for violence, where peace is a temporary respite from hostility.”

Jesus calls the natural condition what it actually is; sin! And Jesus labels continuous competition and the potential for violence what they are; evil! This season

During the celebration of the resurrection we celebrate the victory over sin and death. For anyone following the way of Jesus, there is no need to worry about getting beat in competition over the resources of creation, or the Father’s love. There is no need to be afraid of being erased from history. When Jesus said: “Peace I leave you” -and then added- “my peace I give to you”, he wanted to make a distinction from a mere absence of hostilities. In the ministry of reconciliation we are given the spirit of unity to establish a bond of peace. As God was (in Jesus)

“Reconciling the world to himself” —so Jesus’ disciples are sent out with the mission of making friends from enemies.

God’s spirit is a different spirit than that naturally found in the ways of the world. It is that divine spirit which is breathed into each disciple at his or her baptism. The same spirit that leads us to trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus leads us out into the world with the mission of being peacemakers. In order to establish a peace, where enemies are not “simply existing” in contempt and hate; but, where reconciliation is real, and where enemies become friends.

Why Wall Street Soars as Main Street Suffers By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog 06 March 13 oday the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose above 14,270 - completely erasing its 54 percent loss between 2007 and 2009. The stock market is basically back to where it was in 2000, while corporate earnings have doubled since then. Yet the real median wage is now 8 percent below what it was in 2000, and unemployment remains sky-high. Why is the stock market doing so well, while most Americans are doing so poorly? Four reasons: First, productivity gains. Corporations have been investing in technology rather than their workers. They get tax credits and deductions for such investments; they get no such tax benefits for improving the skills of their employees. As a result, corporations can now do more with fewer people on their payrolls. That means higher profits. Second, high unemployment itself. Joblessness all but eliminates the bargaining power of most workers - allowing corporations to keep wages low. Public policies that might otherwise reduce unemployment - a new WPA or CCC to hire the long-term unemployed, major investments in the nation's crumbling infrastructure - have been rejected in favor of austerity economics. This also means higher profits, at least in the short run. Third, globalization. Big American-based corporations have been expanding and hiring around the globe where markets are growing fastest - even while the U.S. market is lackluster. Tax policies and trade policies have encouraged them. Finally, the Fed's easy-money policies. They've pushed investors into the stock market because bond yields are so low. On Tuesday, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note was just 1.9%. All of this spells widening inequality in America, because the people who invest the most in the stock market have high incomes. Those who rely most on wages have lower incomes. Corporate profits are claiming a larger share of national income than at any time in 60 years, while the portion of total income going to employees is near its lowest since 1966. As my colleague Immanuel Saez recently found, all the economic gains between 2009 and 2011 (the last year for which data were available) went to the richest 1 percent of Americans. The bottom 99 percent has continued to lose ground. And yet the tax code continues to give preference to capital gains over ordinary income - a huge boon to investors. The sequestration is likely to make all this worse, since it will slow the U.S. economy and keep unemployment higher than otherwise. It will also hurt the most vulnerable. Some $1.9 billion in low-income rental subsidies are being eliminated, affecting 125,000 people. Cuts to the Department of Agriculture will eliminate rental assistance for another 10,000 low-income rural people. Meanwhile, 100,000 formerly homeless Americans are likely to be removed from their current emergency shelters. More than 3.8 million Americans receiving long-term unemployment benefits will have their monthly payments reduced by as much as 9.4 percent, and lose an average of $400 in benefits over their period of joblessness. The Department of Education's Title I program, which helps schools serving more than a million disadvantaged students, will be cut $715 million, and $400 million will be cut from Head Start, the preschool program for poor children. And major cuts will be made in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, which provides nutrition assistance and education. The health of an economy is not measured by the profits of corporations headquartered within it or the value of its stock market. It depends, rather, on how many of people have jobs and whether those jobs pay decent wages. By this measure, we are a long way from economic health. Rarely before in American history have public policies so blatantly helped the most fortunate among us, so cruelly harmed the least fortunate, and exposed so many average working Americans to such widespread insecurity.

Ethic of Love--Ethic of Life

Due to the tragic shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut, there is a renewed call for a ban on assault weapons. Since this is certainly a life issue, it provides Christians with the opportunity to proclaim the sacredness of life. The phrase “Pro-Life” has for too long been limited to only the issue of abortion. As disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, Christians are called to proclaim the sacredness of life against any way it is threatened or oppressed. Our public policy on the availability of guns, the proliferation of war, the continued use of capital punishment, the unjust distribution of health care, and the ethical implications of end-of-life decisions are all “life issues”. Each of these has a direct impact on life. Too many Christian disciples have become fixated on one of these issues to the exclusion of the others. Jesus proclaimed a consistent ethic of life which links all these issues together. On many occasions he displayed his loving approach to life issues. He once stopped the stoning of a woman who was assumed to have committed adultery. Another time he demanded that his followers put their swords away saying: “whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword”. He proclaimed in words and in deeds his vision of a kingdom where all people live an abundant life. As we live in a society with religious freedom, we have the privilege to support whatever policies fulfill the ethic of Jesus. In attempting to ask “What would Jesus do?” it will soon become evident that his ways are not the ways of our world; and, in no time at all, we will become aware of what “being in the world but not being of the world” is all about.

SINGLE PAYER SOLUTION

Since there was first word of a change in the Affordable Care Act, mandating the inclusions of contraceptives for all (except qualified religious institutions), there has been a cry from the Roman Catholic Church in America. They have been joined by others who have found that their avenues of social ministry (such as hospitals, universities etc.) do not fit the exceptions to the law. These organizations often employ people who do not belong to the faith of the denomination in charge. Not all doctors, nurses, or aids in a Catholic hospital are Catholics. Lutheran World Relief does not only employ Lutherans in caring out it's ministry to those in need. Leaders of the Catholic Church in America, along with some conservative Protestant and Jewish leaders, have spoken up against the Affordable Care Act as against their religious freedom. They have called for their congregation's members to speak up against infringement upon their First Amendment Rights. Taking a wider view of the situation, it seems to me that the problem is found in our EMPLOYER BASED system for health insurance. The religious institutions are feeling the pressure only because they are providing health care insurance to their workers. If health care was provided in a different way the religious community could be taken out of the equation. It would be well for those now decrying that their religious freedoms are under attack to support a single payer approach to health care. If all Americans were covered by one program,(as seniors are under Medicare )the religious community would be off the hook. Each American, religious or not, would be able to take advantage of the health care that their beliefs allow.

Gambling With Other People's Money

Some of the strongest opposition to the Affordable Care Act is coming form those who will pay a penalty for not having health insurance. These are not our poorest citizens who have no ability to purchase coverage. Instead, those who may be accessed a penalty are individuals and families who could, but choose not to, purchase health care coverage. Many of this vocal group are relatively young ( in their late twenties through their thirties ). Their choice to not be insurance is a gamble. The odds are that younger citizens have fewer causes to need insurance. So even through the birth of children, some are gambling with the odds. However, they are gambling with other people's money. On a personal note, my wife, Linda , and I have recently become grandparents to triplet grandsons. With the multiple pregnancy over a 30 week period there were extra doctor visits, extra tests, and extra monitoring. The last three weeks before their birth our daughter-in-law was hospitalized. When the boys were born nine weeks early they were put into the natal intensive care unit. It has now been five weeks and they remain in the hospital. All is going well, but I am extremely thankful that this family did not gamble on the odds that their health was good and any pregnancy would be uneventful. I can not even guess at what the ultimate hospital cost will be for mother and babies. But, I do know that if they were not insured, and were forced to declare bankruptcy, we would all be paying. Their gamble would have been with other people's money.

I would add "Lord and Savior" to the following...

Jesus, the Radical Economist By Rev. Howard Bess, Consortium News 13 June 12 Jesus made his reputation as a Jewish economist, one with very strong opinions about wealth and property, about the relationship between the rich and the poor. He also was intensely religious and loved nothing more than debating the meaning of the law of God or Torah. For instance, he is presented in the Gospel of Luke as being a precocious 12-year-old boy absorbed in debating religious leaders about the meaning of Torah. From early childhood he must have understood that he was seen as a brash, pushy kid from a small town in Northern Palestine, an area without religious leadership and an unemployment rate well over 50 percent. Whether by divine wisdom or genius insight, Jesus figured out what wealthy and powerful people were doing to the poor, illiterate people with whom he lived. Primarily through his teaching and storytelling, he became identified as a populist teacher with a good deal of influence. He was good news to the poor and bad news for those who clung to their riches. Clearly Jesus was fascinated by Torah and its application to everyday life. Luke’s gospel reports that a lettered leader of the religious community approached Jesus and asked how to attain eternal life. Jesus responded with two questions of his own: What does Torah say? How do you read it? The first question is easy to answer. The second question is the real test. Jesus knew what Torah said, and he had strong opinions about how Torah should be read. Jesus had come to his own understanding of the property codes in the book of Leviticus. These codes are credited to Moses, but more probably come from the massive rewrite of Israelite traditions during the years of Babylonian exile in the sixth century BCE. Torah is very straightforward. Land and ultimately all wealth belong to God, who places property in the control of human beings, not as owners but as stewards who must share it and return it to God every 49 years for redistribution. For Israelites, time was divided into blocks of seven years. Land was not tilled in the seventh year. After a series of seven, seven-year blocks of time, a Year of Jubilee was declared. During the Year of Jubilee, all land was to be returned to the control of the priests, who, in the name of God, were to make a new and fresh distribution of all land. In other words, the wealthy were supposed to surrender their stewardship and the poorest of the poor were given land with the encouragement to be productive for God and their fellow Israelites. All slaves were set free and all debts were canceled. At the time when the Israelite system of Sabbaths and a Jubilee was codified, the economic and political structures may have accommodated such radical economic and social changes in a one-year observance of Jubilee. Hundreds of years later, however, when Jesus lived and taught, the combination of Roman rule, compliant fat-cats and religious elites made the observance of Jubilee impossible. So, almost every Israelite knew what Torah said, but the prescription had not been followed in anyone’s memory. The poor had given up on the idea of a Year of Jubilee, but apparently not Jesus. According to Luke’s gospel, early in the public ministry of Jesus, he went to a synagogue gathering and read a passage from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. God has sent me to bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release of captives and liberty to the oppressed. This is the acceptable year of the Lord.” Everyone in his hearing understood what he was saying. Israelites had gone too long without a Year of Jubilee. It was time for the wealthy to turn loose what they had accumulated. It was time for the poor to receive their full stewardship. But most poor people had taken on the understanding of life that their oppressors presented and taught. It was true then; it is still true today. So, the Year of Jubilee code was regarded as impractical. However, the principles of the ownership of God, the end of slavery, and economic justice still were possible. The Israelites who held wealth and power knew what was in Torah, but they were not interested in reading it with new eyes of compassion and justice. (When Jesus finally took his message to Jerusalem – riding in on a donkey to mock the rich who favored horses and turning over the money tables at the Temple to protest religious corruption – he was deemed an insurrectionist and was executed.) Jesus died almost 2,000 years ago, but the laws of Sabbaths and Jubilees are still on the books today. Torah still has a powerful message, especially since the evils of greed and mindless ownership are with us in ever growing magnitude. Resulting inequities and injustices surround us. We Americans live in a secular society, but Christians have a responsibility to influence and to train the conscience of our fellow citizens. Here in election season, Jesus appears on the scene and asks the same two questions: “What does Torah say? How do you read it?” The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

One Man One Woman

The President of the United States has regularly stated that his views on recognizing the publicly committed relationship of a same-sex couple as marriage was in a process of forming. He supported the extending of all civil rights to same-sex couples, but was not ready to align himself with the idea of calling theirs a marriage. Well, this week he crossed that line and did extend his support. Of course it has always been the religious community that rallied in defense of marriage. They held the signs and shouted the slogan “one man and one woman”. And they did so with a straight face for years. But, now the hypocrisy of the church has come back to bite it! It is certainly true that Jesus taught about marriage. And it is true that Jesus taught: “one man and one woman”. In fact he said: “whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery”. However, it has been quite some time since most of the Christian community has refused to allow remarriage; except upon the death of one’s spouse. Back then,any other second marriage would have then been labeled “living in a sinful relationship”. Today we have self-righteous people, (on their second and even third marriage), demanding that marriage be restricted to one man and one woman. How are we to be taken seriously? We turn our heads from what Jesus plainly calls adultery, to condemn the same-sex union as sinful. God deserves better than us hypocrites. And so does our society.