Shalom!

As I explained in my introduction, today is Peaver, if you have a copy of the Plan, you will have seen that this month is also designated the Season of Creation. The two are very far from mutually exclusive, of course. The word “Shalom” does mean peace, but it’s not just peace in the sense of the absence of war. The easiest way to describe it is to quote an American theologian called Cornelius Plantinga, who writes: “The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfilment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom. We call it peace but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight – a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Saviour opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.”

“Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.”

The way things ought to be. Wholeness. Reconciliation, not just within families, within the church, between denominations, between nations, but reconciliation between people, God and nature. Wholeness. And it’s the wholeness of creation, the wholeness of ourselves within it. You know what, when we wish each other God’s peace on Communion Sundays, that’s what we wish each other. We say, rather muttering it, “Peace be with you”, but we are really wishing each other all of God’s wholeness and reconciliation. Even though “Shalom” is a common greeting in Hebrew, it is still what people are, consciously or not, wishing one another.

But we know our world is not whole, however much we wish it were. There is always war somewhere; the whole situation in Afghanistan just now is very unclear, but will probably lead to yet more war there. The war in Syria has been going on for several years now, and hasn’t stopped just because the pandemic and Afghanistan have moved it off the front pages. You know what? I looked up a “list of ongoing conflicts” on Wikipedia when preparing for this sermon, and honestly, it’s frightening just how little peace there is in the world.

And of course, our planet is broken. We are in a period of rapid climate change, arguably exacerbated by human activity. We have seen all sorts of extreme weather conditions this summer, from monsoon rains to extreme heat waves. And very strong hurricanes causing damage that takes weeks, if not months, to repair.

The powers that be tell us that it is All Our Fault, although natural climate change is also a thing. Nevertheless, two hundred years of industry really haven’t helped!

You can’t watch a nature documentary these days without being told that it is All Your Fault that certain species are declining due to habitat loss, or a documentary about the planets without being told that climate change is All Your Fault. It gets old, very fast, I find.

Of course, we can all do our very small bit towards lowering our carbon footprint, and arguably we should – trying not to use single-use plastic bottles, for instance, reusing things like ice-cream boxes or take-away containers. Reusing shopping bags, rather than buying a new one every time you go to the supermarket, and using public transport where possible – and perhaps taking the train instead of flying when you are going somewhere, if that is at all feasible.

But really, it is the big corporations that will make the most difference to carbon dioxide emissions, and to be fair, some of them are already trying to. Not all, but some! If only because government legislation – often rather aspirational rather than practicable, I think – if they are going to be fined for not trying to lower their carbon emissions, then they will try harder!

In many ways, the idealised wife that we read about in Proverbs, summarises “Shalom”. She isn’t a real person, of course – if we had read the whole chapter, we would have seen that this is the mother of King Lemuel talking to her son. Lemuel may or may not be code for Solomon, but the point is, it is Mum giving good advice to one who is, or who will be, King. You don’t go spending good money on loose women, nor do you get drunk – you don’t need wines and spirits, so give them to the hospitals and hospices for those who do need them. And look for a wife like this…. And then the description of the ideal woman, who is more valuable than rubies. Not surprising – she is probably rarer than rubies, too!

So she is a model rather than a template. We don’t have to imitate her – we couldn’t, anyway – we who live in Lambeth don’t exactly have access to fields and vineyards to buy and rent out for profit, nor do we have access to flax for spinning, although you can buy unspun wool from some wool shops. But the thing about the idealised woman is that she is whole. All parts of her life are in balance. She isn’t trying to juggle work and childcare. She isn’t fretting because she has no paid work but must stay home with her children. She makes the best of what she has, and, I imagine, when she focuses on one thing, she isn’t constantly looking round to wonder what else she ought to be doing, but that child, or her husband, or the piece of work she is focussing on, take her full attention. Being mindful, I think is what they call it.

Mindfulness is no bad thing. It is the beginning of shalom. When we are fully in the moment, we can’t be worrying ourselves ragged about everything else. I used to ice skate, and I always found that skating was far and away the best thing to do when you were worrying about something, as you simply had to concentrate so much that you couldn’t fret.

Our New Testament reading takes up this theme. St James reminds us that “the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” That sounds like shalom to me, doesn’t it to you? Wisdom that comes from heaven, pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive and so on.

And do note that it comes from heaven! It is not something we can manufacture within ourselves, any more than we can manufacture any of the other fruits of the spirit that St Paul describes. Jesus reminded us that he is the vine, and we are the branches, and if we abide in him, we will bear much fruit. And definitely shalom will be one of those fruits.

St James goes on to point out that our fractiousness comes from not being whole, from wanting this and that and seeing no way to get it, so quarreling and being generally unpleasant. And, as he says, we need to ask God for what we want, but to be quite clear, God isn’t Santa Claus – we aren’t necessarily going to be given loads of toys to maintain an unsustainable lifestyle.

Having said that, of course, God is nothing if not generous. Do you remember how, when the prophet Nathan confronted David after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba, God said through him, more or less, “Look at all I have given you. And if you’d wanted more, I’d gladly have given you twice as much! But no, you had to have that which belonged to someone else!” The bit where he says “If you’d wanted more, I’d gladly have given you twice as much” always jumps out at me whenever I read this passage, as I am apt to forget just how loving and generous God is. All that wine at Cana? All those basketsful of leftovers after he’d fed the five thousand? Is God ever anything but generous?

But, of course, we want to be part of what God is doing, not outside it, so we don’t – or shouldn’t – ask for our own selfish ends. At least we do, and often God will give us some of what we ask for, if it will not harm us and our loved ones, because God is love. But in an ideal world, we will be so reconciled with God, attuned to God, aligned with God, that our prayers will reflect that.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus reminds us, again, that if you want to be great, you must first become the servant of all, and that when you welcome children, you are welcoming God. And think how many children are still anxious and miserable, having missed so much school these past two years, and worried about Covid-19 and people dying from it. And many have picked up a bit about climate change, and are worried. And the far too many children who are refugees, terrified and confused by a situation not of their making.

How can we welcome the Father by helping these children, by listening to their concerns, and maybe changing things? How can we be peacemakers in this noisy world?

As we allow God more and more into our lives, as we become more and more attuned to God, more and more aligned with God, more and more the person God designed us to be, so we will experience more and more shalom, peace, wholeness, in our lives, and be more and more able to spread it round our communities, and perhaps further. Shalom: the way things ought to be.

After all, you don’t have to be very big or very important to make a difference – think of Greta Thunberg or Malala Yousafzai, both of whom were only children when they started to remind us, respectively, of our need to live more sustainably and of women’s and girls’ right to an education. They had no idea, when they started, that what they said and did would make such a difference. But they followed the promptings of their consciences, and look what happened!

Now, that probably won’t happen if you or I start to follow the promptings of what we believe God may be asking us to say or do, whether that is to live a more sustainable lifestyle, or to be arbitrators for peace in our families, our churches, our circuits. We may only make a very minor difference – but sometimes, that, too, can set the world alight. For now, though, we need to seek God’s peace, God’s wholeness, God’s shalom. Remember that Jesus is our peace, and it’s not something we can manufacture for ourselves. Mindfulness helps, but it’s only part of it. For the rest, we need to receive God’s good gifts, and then maybe we will see things beginning to be the way they ought to be. Maybe we will experience the wonder and delight that is shalom. Amen.