Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Josep Martinez-Cubero
The Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 25, 2025
“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.” What exactly is this peace that Jesus gives? We get a clue in Saint Paul’s letter to the Philippians, where he describes the peace of God as the peace that surpasses all understanding.
For the last three weeks the lectionary has taken us back to some of Jesus’s teachings prior to his crucifixion and resurrection. The focus has been on how the disciples would live and witness to Jesus after Jesus was no longer with them in the flesh. The Lectionary is preparing us for the Feast of the Ascension, which is later this week, as well as the Day of Pentecost with the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Today’s Gospel passage comes from the Farewell Discourse of Jesus at the Last Supper, right before his betrayal, crucifixion and death.
The words of the discourse are intended as encouragement, concluding with a solemn farewell bestowing peace on Jesus’ disciples. The Greek word for peace translates the Hebrew “shalom”. “Shalom” is more than absence of conflict. It includes total well-being for people and for society. Shalom is characterized by wholeness, healing, abundance, concord, reconciliation, social harmony, and spiritual and physical health.
In popular first century understanding, the messiah was to be a more or less political figure with great military ability. The messiah would be like King David, who ousted Israel's enemies and ushered in a Golden Age. Author and Professor of Religious Studies Wes Howard-Brook wrote:
“If the messiah was supposed to be a military ‘peacemaker’ like David and Solomon, then Jesus certainly failed in the mission. But Jesus' peace does not end war directly; rather, it allows one to live through it without succumbing to the temptation to live according to its own logic and necessities.”
The peace of Jesus, peace without violence, is peace "not as the world gives." It is a state of the soul which cannot be compared with anything else and it is to be understood as something that goes beyond feeling. Jesus tells his disciples to not let their hearts be troubled. When we think of the heart, we tend to think of emotions and feelings. But the heart hasn’t always been thought of as the source of feelings and emotions.
In the 4th century BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle identified the heart as the seat of intelligence. He had observed that the heart is the first organ formed in the embryo of chicken eggs, so he concluded that the heart must be vital for life itself and our ability to think. All the other organs simply existed to serve the heart. In Jesus’ day, the brain was viewed as the location of the soul. The heart was where thinking happened. It wasn’t until late in the 17th century that the seat of intelligence moved to our brains. Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled; don’t be fearful.” In other words, “Don’t let your mind be troubled, there is nothing to fear.”
We are living in a time in history when humanity as a whole seems to be chronically anxious and reactive. It seems as if the whole world around us wants us to be afraid and to react with anxiety, and it often seems as if this logic of the world is winning. Fear makes us forget who we are and whose we are. When I am afraid, I tend to forget who I am. The person that I truly am, is not angry, or greedy, or violent. But given enough anxiety or fear, I will react angrily. If I am pushed beyond my comfort zone, I will become anxious. If I fear deprivation or destitution, I will become greedy. Threaten me or someone I love with violence, and I may become a monster. Fear makes us forget to think, and to breathe, and it reveals a weakened faith.
In his book, Mystical Christianity- A Psychological Commentary on the Gospel of John, the late Jungian analyst and Episcopal priest John Sanford wrote: “As long as our consciousness is limited to the information brought us by our physical senses and by our limited ego-consciousness, we tend to live in anxiety for we feel alone and unaided and therefore not able to cope with life’s threats and problems. Jesus’ prescription for this anxiety is faith in him, which also means faith in the reality of another world ordinarily unseen by us.”
Jesus taught a new way of being in the world. He understood himself to be intimately related to the very Source of his being, the one he called Abba, a Creator intimately connected with creation. “I and the Father are one”, he said. God dwells in our midst. If we breathe deeply and feel the rhythm of the One who breathes in us, we can begin to remember who we are. The peace we so long for in this world will only be realized when we find peace in ourselves. If our inner peace depends on what others are doing, or how safe we feel, or what’s happening in our country, or what’s happening in the world, we will never find peace. The reality is that this wonderful world has always been, throughout its history, crazy and violent.
Being truly grounded in who we are helps us overcome our fears, and it also helps us to better respond to the fears of others. Fear is the true enemy of peace. Jesus knew this and repeatedly told his followers to not be afraid. Fear separates us from ourselves, from one another and from God.
So, when anxiety and fear threaten to make you forget who you are, breathe because we live each day precisely to the extent that divine breath is in us (Genesis 6:3). Breathe in and feel the presence of the One “in whom we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Breathe in the peace that surpasses all understanding; the peace that keeps us calm and assertive so we can stand firm in the face of all the craziness we are seeing around us without being sucked into its trauma.
Breathe in the peace that moves us to be the people God made us to be- a people of love, even in the midst of evil, love: incarnate and tangible. Love is never the only answer, but it is always the best and the one most likely to withstand the test of time. It is the solution we remember when the question has been laid down and all quarrels have been put aside. Love is the beginning and should always be the final word. So breathe in the peace that Jesus gives, the shalom of God, alive with the Spirit, abundant, healthy and whole, and may we always strife to be who God made us to be, people of love. ¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+
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