By Rev. Paul Graves
Only three chaotic and fearful days after Renee Good was killed by an ICE agent in a Minneapolis residential neighborhood, we sat with about 150 other folks in a local church sanctuary for a hastily organized peace vigil. Area clergy invited us to speak of our fears (there were many), our sadness (again, many) and our hopes (not as many). We agreed: ICE OUT NOW!
Most expressed hopes for peace focused on “the absence of conflict.” A few people mentioned a desire for the “presence of justice.” The spectrum between those two hopes is wide and filled with torturous paths. Thousands of protest events across the country keep multiplying. The countless people who continue to participate now walk those torturous paths on the frustrating peace spectrum.
I began writing this reflection on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. King continues to inspire me/us for so many reasons. Not the least of which was his long view of when Peace can happen.
In a 1956 sermon, King affirmed: “Peace is not merely the absence of some negative force – war, tensions, confusion – but it is the presence of some positive force – justice, goodwill, the power of the kingdom of God.” He echoed Jesus, who embraced and embodied shalom/peace – the coming presence of wholeness, justice, love in their diverse forms.
Anyone (including Jesus) who seriously talks of the kingdom (kin-dom) of God takes a long view of peace.
King spoke powerful, graphically prophetic words in a 1968 lecture, “Conscience and the Vietnam War.” His words are clear warnings today in our national crisis:
“If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.”
A faux peace—a short-term peace at best—depends only on no conflict. It can easily become what King called an “obnoxious peace, the type of peace that stinks in the nostrils of the almighty God.” Get the idea?
I must agree with King’s assessment. It’s too easy to project that obnoxiousness onto the distorted ways that Donald Trump reduces “peace” to his own self-absorbed, dangerous fears and demands. And how his conflict-averse, cultlike followers have bought into his delusions.
Trump has no clue what peace might look like. I sense that begins deep within his own tortured soul. His temper tantrum over his Nobel Peace Prize “snub,” he wants Greenland as a consolation prize, he no longer feels obligated to “think purely of Peace,” he’s trying to establish a “Board of Peace.” All signs (to me) of an unstable man in a desperate search for his own peace.
Do you seek a peace beyond the absence of conflict? Sharpen and raise your vision! We must look for, and work for, a greater peace vision.
Jesus looked over Jerusalem in Luke 19:42. He longed for “the things that make for peace,” and grieved over Jerusalem’s failure to recognize them. So must we.
Like Jesus and MLK, we are called to take a long view of peace-making. But like Jesus and MLK, we are also called to take a shorter view of peace.
Let’s look for ways to identify the things that make for peace. Let’s work to make those things happen, even in small ways—like prayer, protest, presence with those who are fearful, comfort with the sad, encourage those with little hope, faith traditions pushing against ICE thuggery.
For years, I’ve adapted a description of Hope from Bishop Desmond Tutu. Insert “peace” there also: “Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, and then working to make that evidence change.”
Let’s do it!
The Rev. Paul Graves is a retired elder member of the Pacific Northwest Conference of The United Methodist Church.
