Sunday, September 22nd, 2024: "Original Words: Shalom"
First United Presbyterian Church
“Original Words: Shalom”
Rev. Amy Morgan
September 22, 2024
Numbers 6:22-27
22 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 23 “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them:
24 The Lord bless you and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
27 “So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”
Isaiah 57:14-21
It shall be said,
“Build up, build up, prepare the way;
remove every obstruction from my people’s way.”
15 For thus says the high and lofty one
who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
I dwell in the high and holy place
and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble
and to revive the heart of the contrite.
16 For I will not continually accuse,
nor will I always be angry,
for then the spirits would grow faint before me,
even the souls that I have made.
17 Because of their wicked covetousness I was angry;
I struck them; I hid and was angry,
but they kept turning back to their own ways.
18 I have seen their ways, but I will heal them;
I will lead them and repay them with comfort,
19 creating for their mourners the fruit of the lips.
Peace, peace, to the far and the near, says the Lord,
and I will heal them.
20 But the wicked are like the tossing sea
that cannot keep still;
its waters toss up mire and mud.
21 There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.
It was a peaceful nation. In 1948, the National Party of Afrikaners, the descendants of white, Dutch settlers in South Africa, overcame British domination to win a peaceful transfer of power to a group representing just 12% of the South African population. Soon after the Afrikaners rise to power, they enacted and enforced strict laws segregating the county along racial lines. These laws became known as “Apartheid,” meaning “separateness” in Afrikaans. No interracial marriage was allowed. All public facilities such as buses, schools, hospitals, and beaches were segregated. People of color had to carry passbooks containing information on the holder, and they were not allowed to live, work, or travel without that passbook. This gave police an excuse to detain any person of color at any time. Rigid police enforcement of these new laws kept the peace in South Africa for more than a decade.
But in 1960, it became clear that, in fact, there was no peace. A protest against Apartheid on March 21 of that year resulted in the massacre of 67 black South Africans and the wounding of 186 more. Most of those killed were shot in the back as they fled from the police who had opened fire on the crowd of unarmed men, women, and children.
Over the next thirty years, the South African government doubled down on its enforcement of Apartheid, resulting in arrests and protests and more death, international condemnation of the South African government and sanctions, boycotts, and divestment by other nations. The wickedness of the apartheid system and those who supported and enforced it made South Africa like “the tossing sea” Isaiah described, tossing up the “mire and mud” of racism, death, and despair.
South Africa was not a peaceful nation. It may have looked peaceful for years as a minority controlled the lives of the majority, monitoring their every move and dictating their place in society. For white Afrikaners, there was no conflict. Their lives were peaceful.
But peace is not merely the absence of conflict. The Hebrew word shalom, often translated as “peace,” encompasses much more than a lack of violence and warfare. It is a term that expresses the reality that true peace requires unity, reconciliation, and justice.
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Hebrew words are often related to one another when they share the same root of three letters. Shalom shares a root with the word shalam, which is a verb meaning “to make amends” or “repay.” There is no peace, no shalom, until relationships have been mended, wrongs have been righted, and unity restored. The peace represented by the word shalom involves wholeness, completeness. There is no individual shalom. It is a communal peace brought about by the well-being of the whole.
And that is why there was no peace in South Africa, even when there was an absence of visible violent conflict. A group of theologians from a seminary for one of the black African denominations of the Dutch Reformed Church denounced this illusion of peace within the church. They composed what became known as the Belhar Confession, which is centered around three central points: Unity, Reconciliation, and Justice – those tenants of shalom. The confession rejects any doctrine “which professes that…spiritual unity is truly being maintained in the bond of peace while believers of the same confession are in effect alienated from one another for the sake of diversity and in despair of reconciliation.” It affirms the belief that “God has revealed himself as the one who wishes to bring about justice and true peace among people.”
The Belhar Confession was written in the context of apartheid, but it drawn from scripture. It expresses a belief in the peace, the shalom, offered in the Aaronic blessing we heard this morning.
When God instructs Moses to have Aaron bless the people of Israel, it is an efficacious act. Aaron is not just wishing the people well. He is pronouncing what God will do, is doing, for Israel. As they prepare to enter the Promised Land, God will prosper and protect them, God will watch over them and have mercy on them, God will give them shalom. With this blessing, Aaron puts God’s name on the Israelites.
In the book of Judges, when Gideon is called to lead God’s people into battle against the oppressive Midianites, he encounters a messenger of God. Gideon is terrified he will die because he has seen this divine messenger face to face. God says to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear.” Gideon builds an altar that declared “God is peace.” This is the name of God that Gideon discerned as he was being called into violent conflict. The shalom God offers Gideon, the shalom that becomes the name of Gideon’s God, is not a military peace. Instead, it is an end to oppression and return to wholeness for God’s people. Shalom is not the absence of conflict. It is wholeness, well-being, courage, in the midst of conflict.
This is the name Aaron puts on God’s people before they enter the Promised Land. And this is the peace Isaiah declares to God’s people when they are later exiled from that land.
Isaiah is writing to the Israelites as they try to make sense of this unimaginable tragedy. God’s word to Israel through Isaiah is that the exile is punishment for their wickedness, but, in this section of Isaiah’s prophesy, God promises them healing, wholeness, shalom. God declares there is no peace for the wicked, because that is a reality. We cannot have shalom, we cannot be whole, if we are acting in ways that damage our relationships with God, creation, and humanity.
True peace did not come to South Africa until apartheid had been eliminated, unity restored, relationships mended, and justice rendered. This process is not complete, and perhaps never will be. But a community striving for unity, reconciliation, and justice is a community committed to shalom.
We can all easily think of plenty of places today where there is no peace, where war and violence cause destruction and suffering. Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine. Schoolchildren in America practice for active shooter drills, disturbing the peace of their education, and domestic abuse destroys the peace of households and families.
We may feel like we are at peace because our nation has not declared war on any other nation, or because we feel safe in our homes, or because we aren’t affected by violence on a daily basis. We have all kinds of products and people clamoring to help us experience individual peace. We just need to take the right pills, exercise, meditate, spend time in nature, breathe. We have every reason, every tool, to feel peaceful.
But shalom cannot be found through seeking our personal peace and tranquility, even if the candle on my desk promises otherwise. We do not have shalom because we do not have unity, reconciliation, and justice as a society. We are not whole because not everyone is whole and well. We have not made amends and sought the well-being of our whole society, the whole creation.
We have divided ourselves along ideological lines, racial lines, economic lines, identity lines. Our justice system disproportionately incarcerates men of color. Our housing infrastructure leaves hundreds of thousands of people homeless. Our immigration system creates chaos and uncertainty that breeds fear and anger. We are a society bereft of unity, reconciliation, and justice. We are a society tossed by the sea, covered in mire and muck. We are a society in need of shalom.
The Israelites in exile did not come together, work through their disagreements, and live as a just and righteous society. They continued to be humans. They continued to try, and often fail, they continued to have faith and to doubt, to show kindness and cruelty.
But the God who is shalom, the God whose name they bore, declared:
I have seen their ways, but I will heal them;
I will lead them and repay them with comfort,
creating for their mourners the fruit of the lips.
Peace, peace, to the far and the near, says the Lord,
and I will heal them.
This is the God we trust and believe in. The God who is peace, the God who offers shalom, healing, wholeness, despite our best efforts to reject it.
In Jesus Christ, God’s shalom lived among us. In the Holy Spirit, God’s shalom continues to flow all around us. In the new creation that is here but not yet complete, God’s shalom is accomplished.
God has seen our ways: the ways we care for each other and are cruel to each other; the ways we lift each other up and put each other down; the ways we institutionalize injustice and the ways we dismantle those institutions. God has seen all our ways. God knows that our wickedness will keep us from experiencing shalom. And the God who is shalom offers us healing and comfort, wholeness and peace.
We are invited to be a community that experiences and embodies that shalom, a community that strives for unity, reconciliation, and justice. However imperfectly we may do that work, it is the work of shalom. It is the path to wholeness and well-being for all.
The Belhar Confession states that we believe “that God has entrusted the church with the message of reconciliation in and through Jesus Christ; that the church is called to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, that the church is called blessed because it is a peacemaker, that the church is witness both by word and by deed to the new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwells.”
Church, we have been entrusted with something precious. We have been blessed with God’s shalom, and we know it is not for our own personal benefit. We are blessed when we are peacemakers, shalom-bringers, healers, creators of wholeness. When we speak up for unity, reconciliation, and justice, and when we act in ways that promote well-being for all, we are showing the world that God’s shalom dwells with us, it is available to us now. And we are testifying to our hope that someday, that shalom will be complete.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
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