Passing the peace

DAILY BYTE

We learned yesterday that “Jerusalem” is connected with the idea of founding ourselves in and possessing peace. So let’s let Psalm 122 guide us, as we think about ways of connecting with God’s foundation of peace and ushering that peace in to our own city and lives.

We hear in the first line of the psalm, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!” And then it says, “our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.” So, this is a psalm of ascent or pilgrimage up to the city on the hill.

And these are not words spoken by a weary traveller but one excited to go on a trip!

Perhaps we can think of these words, as we drive or walk up the streets our own cities and towns. I work on the hill of Moore Road in Durban, so as you climb the hill from the city below, you walk through a street that looks a bit like an inner city itself, but a city that holds not just houses of David, cement blocks built with human hands, but a street that holds the house of the Lord.

God dwells here.

So do you think we could be glad – or rejoicing - to climb this hill – to make this pilgrimage every day?!

Perhaps…and when we are pilgrimaging to and in our cities, we hear the words, “Jerusalem – built as a city that is bound firmly together.” Foundation of peace – built as a city that is bound firmly together.

This phrase is not talking only about the architecture or city planning – the fact that cities are literally squished together. The foundation of peace is the unity of a community – being bound firmly together.

We cannot have individual peace, church peace, community peace, national peace, or world peace, unless we are seeking to be “bound firmly together.”

That binding is actually something many churches work on each week in worship – when we “pass the peace.” After the prayer of confession I usually say, “Now as people reconciled to God and to one another, would you please stand and share with people the peace of Christ?” When I do this, I’m asking people to do more than greet their neighbour and find out the latest gossip. It’s a time to practice reaching out to someone you may not normally touch, take their hand, and with hearts, mouths, and hands extend to them a sign that they are not alone – that they are part of a community – and because of the protection, the love, the affirmation of God through that community, they can receive and keep a deep inner peace.

Did you know it was possible to do all of that in one handshake? What are other ways you might be able to practice sharing God’s peace in and through your own community of faith?

GUIDING SCRIPTURE

Psalm 122:1-3 (NRSV)

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem – built as a city that is bound firmly together.