John 14:27

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.

God is the peace-giver. This week I have been startled by this truth.

We have usually called it peacemaking, but truth be told, peace is a given thing. We do not know how to make it. It is given. Because of the gift of peace we have been given, we can learn to live it, which may be the most profound thing we can ever do for our world. Just imagine – relationships with others not dominated by fear. Friends and strangers alike always given the benefit of the doubt. Creative spirits lending their influence to imagine a solution, to speak it and to live it.

Peace-making is a good thing. It is something we

do
study
work at
feel inept at
hope for
despair of ever seeing
feel guilty about

But in the end, it is not our doing. Peace is a gift. Peace-making is what we do because we have been given the gift of peace. Jesus left his disciples with the gift of the Holy Spirit. We know that part. But just after saying that he would send his own Spirit to live in the disciples after he leaves, he promises another gift: Peace.

“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.”

Peace is a gift. So often we have tried to MAKE peace, and failed.

• Abraham tried to make peace with God by sacrificing his son Isaac, but God stepped in and made peace without that violence
• Torah was given as a gift to guide the people to live in peace with all creation, but we turned it into a rule book, enforced by fear and punishment
• The land was a gift to be lived in with abundance, but we turned it into a thing to be possessed rather than tended and nourished
• In the beginning, creation itself was a gift to be tended and nourished

We keep trying to earn it, win it, fight for it. When instead, we just need to let it come to us. Peace. It comes first to our own souls. The first thing, always the first thing in peacemaking is Peace-Receiving. This is what changes us from the inside out.

“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.”

The Jesus story is so familiar to us that we become dull-eared to its message. Jesus came and brought the gift of God’s peace. We didn’t do anything to earn, deserve or make the peace Jesus brought. In other words, we didn’t get peace as the world gets it – through fear and power and laws – a fragile peace. But we get as a free gift, which is strong and no one can take away.

Today is a day for a story. After the Fundraising Gala, our bodies are tired, and anxieties linger, clean-up is still to be completed. So quiet yourself as best you can, open your ears and heart. Let the story renew, refresh and inspire your spirit. An Ojibwe elder once counseled to “always teach by stories, because stories lodge deep in the heart.”

Hiawatha learned to receive the gift of peace. Listen to how the hero of this ancient story received peace, and in receiving, made peace. This is a true story about something that happened in America, before the coming of Europeans to this land, sometime in the 1400’s. These peace-receivers created the first known democracy in the world and handed their wisdom on to their friends like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. The story has been told so many times that it has taken on the status of legend. (And, to be clear, this is not the same person about whom Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his Hiawatha poem.)

Listen to the story as told by Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass:

Stories are told of long-ago times when the Haudenosaunee people did forget to live in gratitude. They became greedy and jealous and began fighting among themselves. Conflict brought only more conflict, until war between the nations became continuous. Soon grief was known in every longhouse and yet the violence went on. All were suffering.

During that sorry time a son was born to a Huron woman far to the west. This handsome youth grew to manhood knowing that he had a special purpose. One day he explained to his family that he must leave home to carry a message to people in the east, a message from the Creator. He built a great canoe carved of white stone and journeyed far until at last he pulled his boat ashore in the midst of the warring Haudenosaunee. Here he spoke his message of peace and became known as the Peacemaker. Few heeded him at first, but those who listened were transformed.

His life in danger, weighed down with sorrow, the Peacemaker and his allies, among them the real Hiawatha, spoke peace in times of terrible trouble. For years they traveled between villages and one by one the chiefs of the warring nations came to accept the message of peace, all but one. Tadodaho, an Onondaga leader, refused the way of peace for his people. He was so filled with hate that his hair writhed with snakes and his body was crippled by vitriol. Tadodaho sent death and sorrow to the carriers of the message, but the peace was more powerful than he, and eventually the Onondaga too accepted the message of peace. Tadodaho’s twisted body was restored to health and together the messengers of peace combed the snakes from his hair. He too was transformed.

The Peacemaker gathered together the leaders of all five Haudenosaunee nations and joined them with one mind. The Great Tree of Peace, an enormous white pine, has five long green needles joined in one bundle, representing the unity of the Five Nations. With one hand the Peacemaker lifted the great tree from the soil and the assembled chiefs stepped forward to cast their weapons of war into the hole. On this very shore, the nations agreed to “bury the hatchet” and live by the Great Law of Peace, which sets out right relations among peoples and with the natural world. Four white roots spread out to the four directions, inviting all peace-loving nations to shelter under the tree’s branches.

So was born the great Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the oldest living democracy on the planet. It was here, at Onondaga Lake, where this Great Law was born. For its pivotal role, the Onondaga Nation became the central fire of the Confederacy and from that time forward, the name Tadodaho has been carried by the spiritual leader of the Confederacy. As a final measure, the Peacemaker placed the far-seeing eagle atop the Great Tree to warn the people of approaching danger. For the many centuries that followed, the eagle did its work and the Haudenosaunee people lived in peace and prosperity.

[Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (p. 311-312). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.]

Forgiveness is a gift given by God. We cannot do it alone. We can, however, share our stories of peacemaking/forgiveness. And in the stories is hope.

Grace & Peace,

Pastor Carley