Peace Is Not Always Perfect

Scripture: Psalm 122:8-9 – “For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.” (NRSV)

We all want peace. We want physical peace that allows for our safety and the safety of others. We want emotional peace so that we are not overwhelmed by the chaos of the world. We want spiritual peace to soothe our souls in the face of suffering and questions we cannot understand.

But where does peace come from? As people of faith, we believe that it comes from God, but as earthly beings, we know that peace often depends on social structures which guarantee it in the light of human greed and envy. This sometimes means we need to put our hopes in something imperfect for a greater good to be achieved.

Psalm 22 talks about a pilgrim heading into the Temple in Jerusalem. He says, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’” But for all its majesty, the Temple and the city which housed it were not simply ideal places. Jerusalem has always been a place of strife. It was where David and Solomon consolidated political and religious authority, a fact which caused tribes outside of Jerusalem to form their own nation. The two countries were often at odds over claims of divine favor until both were conquered. This was the reality that the psalmist faces. A place built for prayer and peace was a beacon for intrigue and strife.

As we know, Jerusalem is still a source of violence and tension today because of its connection to the temple. When Israel was finally independent many centuries later, brother killed brother to become the High Priest. After the Second Temple was destroyed, crusades were fought over control of its ruins and tensions still flair over whether Jerusalem belongs to one religion or to all.

Yet the Temple, for all its imperfections and all the blood spilled on its behalf over the centuries, it still a beacon of hope, not just to the psalmist but to all of us. The Temple is a symbol of the presence of God, and what is possible when a society truly loves God more than its own petty interests.

We find ourselves in a time of strife and division. Increasingly, the greatest threat is not “some transatlantic military giant”, as Abraham Lincoln once put it, but our neighbors, whom we are told we must defeat by any means necessary. And yet despite our deep passions, we need to recognize that peace should be a greater good than being right or “canceling” or “owning” our ideological rivals. The psalmist said that for all the passion and strife, “For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, ‘Peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.” Putting our hope in the institutions that can unite us can lower the heat on our passions and remind us that we all benefit when we can live together justly. More importantly, God is at the heart of that peace, for when we see others as children of God rather than obstacles to our satisfaction, we are more likely to listen to them and not dismiss them as radicals. Let us put faith in God so we can ultimately put faith in each other, for that is a path to the true and multifaceted peace that we all desire.

Prayer: God, help me pray for the good of my enemies for the good of my friends and help me work for peace and justice every day. Amen.