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.