Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit: Growing in Peace
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The fact that Saint Paul includes the gift of peace among the fruit of the Spirit is a clue that, left alone, we will not know the ongoing experience of peace in our lifetime. Our world, not unlike Jesus’ world, is very unpeaceful, so we need help. The gifts of the Spirit are gifts from the Spirit; we do not have them already, and cannot know them without the Spirit’s help.
In various seasons of our life, the compromise of our peace may be huge – as if our emotions were kidnapped by something or someone. At other times, the impediment to peace may actually be quite small, but nonetheless distracting or irritating, like a pebble in the shoe. Jesus asks, rhetorically, “Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?”[i]His point is about outcomes. Let’s say your end goal, your heart’s desire, is to experience the harvest of peace. How will this happen? By cultivating the gift of peace which Jesus promises and the Spirit delivers. That’s good news.
But there is bad news before there is good news. The bad news is the context in which Jesus promises us peace. In so many ways, the local, national, and international strife in Jesus’ day parallels our own. In Jesus’ lifetime, his homeland was in crisis and facing a series of catastrophes. The Roman empire was an occupying force. Herod the Great, then his three sons, were the appointed Jewish sovereigns and Roman puppets. They were pernicious. Within Judaism itself, there were factions which resisted and mistrusted each other, compromising any possible peace. And then, even amongst Jesus’ own disciples, there was rivalry and jealousy and unrest. At Jesus’ crucifixion, they splintered and deserted Jesus, which he had anticipated.
This is the backdrop for Jesus’ saying, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”[ii] The world looks for peace on external standards. When the political strife has been quelled, when the laws of the land protect all people, when the boycotts are resolved, when the combatants have laid down their arms, when God’s creation is carefully guarded by all, then we will know “peace, as the world gives.” Or we could say, more personally, when someone’s maligning mistreatment toward us has been confessed and rectified, or when someone’s addiction has been intervened upon and recovery begun, or when someone’s illness has been healed, then we can know peace.
These “external standards” of peace are not bad. Quite to the contrary, they teem with goodness and rightness. However Jesus is not speaking about these external standards of peace, but rather about the internal experience of peace, peace from the inside out. In very troubling, unpeaceful times, Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”[iii]
Jesus, the Prince of Peace, does not begin the conversation by calling us to make peace. No, Jesus begins with our need to receive peace. We must be peace-receivers before we can be peace-makers. Here’s a qualifier. I am not in any way implying that internal peace and external peace are unrelated. Martin Luther King, Jr., said that “true peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”[iv] We must be justice makers. In our baptismal promises, we pledge “to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”[v] External peace can only emanate from justice. But I am saying that without our internal peace, our labors to make for peace run the risk of becoming the very thing we resist or work to rectify. The cultivation of peace needs to begin within our own heart.
Where is the challenge or compromise to peace within your own soul? “I’ll name three ways that I have come to know – in myself and in others – by which we can unwittingly impede the peace Jesus wants us to receive.” What are your peace impediments?
- First, You may not be on good speaking terms with yourself. You may collude with criticism you experienced as a child or in later life, and you can never win. You may be caught in a cycle of comparison with others, and you always come up short. You may be trapped by regret, or guilt, or shame, or fear. You may be the enemy that Jesus calls you to love.
How to begin? You have been entrusted with a life, a life like none other, and God’s invitation to you is to say “yes” to your life – not the life you think you could have had or should have had, but the life you’ve been given. You need to be your own best friend, and that begins with recognizing the amazing person that you are. Though no one else can do this for you, you may need some help with this. Ask God for a revelation, and then look and listen. That might include your asking someone you trust to show you or tell you the truth of your own worth. You are an amazing person, a child of God whom God adores. You don’t have a lifetime to work on this. Life is short. Get on with this today. Say “yes” to your life.
- Second, you may be harboring pain which has come to you from the hands or heart of another person. You need to be extricated from this, and you may need help with this. Help is helpful. Forgiveness may be a key factor in your own peace and freedom: your forgiving this other person. I am not presuming that this person is asking for forgiveness, nor am I presuming that you even want to forgive this person, but it is in your own best interest to forgive them. Jesus uses a metaphor about unforgiveness: a prison. Someone whom we will not forgive we have locked into a prison, perhaps to punish them. The manifold tragedy is that this person is our prisoner, and we are the prison guard, which means that we are both in prison.
Unforgiveness metastasizes into resentment, which will poison the soul. Resentment literally means “feeling again,” or “feeling backward,” clinging to the painful past, which imprisons us from being fully and freely present to life in the here-and-now. Life is all about now. If you are living with a wound which is encased by unforgiveness, get on with it. Start moving in the direction of forgiveness. Get the help you need. You’re worth it.
As an aside, I want to add a word about reconciliation. I am talking about forgiveness; I am not talking about reconciliation. When a relationship has been strained or violated, reconciliation often presumes forgiveness; but forgiveness does not presume reconciliation. You can forgive someone without reconciling with them. Some reconciliations may not happen soon, or may not even happen in this lifetime, nor should they. It may be too unsafe for one or both parties. But this is where God has all the time in the world – this world and the next – when it is the right and safe time to come together and be reconciled. Forgive. It is in your best interest.
- A third compromise to peace is fear. Fear is very noisy, and exhumes a tremendous amount of our energy. Jesus spoke a great deal about our not being afraid, not being anxious, Jesus does not speak in a scolding way, but in a reassuring way. We’re not to be afraid because we don’t need to be afraid: God is with us. God is with you. You will have provision. Make that word, that truth, part of your soul’s vocabulary: provision. You will know provision. Not to worry. You have the promise of God’s presence and God’s provision, far beyond what you could ask or imagine, according to God’s work within you.[vi] Ask for it. Look for it. Jesus says, “Seek and you shall find.”[vii] Sometimes the simple act of seeking is enough for us to find what was there all along. Jesus says we do not need to be afraid.
The invitation for cultivating peace begins within us. Take Jesus at his word. Be a peace receiver, and you cannot but help to become a peace maker.
Here are some questions for your own pondering and prayer. You also may find this meaningful to share in conversation.
- What constricts or compromises your receiving and cultivating the gift of peace? What is God’s invitation to you on this?
- What would help you to receive and retain Christ’s gift of peace? For example:
- As you awaken to the dawn of a new day, a very simple prayer that invites Christ’s peace to inform you and infill you as you make your way through the day.
- Some movement of your body, some posture that you assume in your private prayer or that you incorporate as you walk and work. Something with your body – maybe a bowing, or gesturing, or signing with your hands.
- Some phrase from the scriptures or from poetry that becomes a breath prayer, a kind of mantra that helps keep you aware of your need for peace and Christ’s provision of peace.
- Something that draws on the gift of your senses: an icon or other image on which to gaze; something to hold or touch such as prayer beads, a hand cross; or the sight and fragrance of flowers, or the sound of music. What would help remind you of God’s provision of peace?
- What other help do you need to grow in peace? Perhaps the grace of the Sacrament of Reconciliation (which is about unbinding) or the Sacrament of Holy Unction (which is about binding up); a soulmate or therapist with whom you can speak with freedom and transparency; some kind of program of serenity that helps you stay aware and open to the reception of the ultimate power and provision of Christ’s peace. What help do you need? Ask for it. Receive it.
Nearly a century ago, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr prayed for God’s peace and provision in unpeaceful and troubling times, not unlike now:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time,
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that you will make all things right, if I surrender to your will;
so that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
and supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.[viii]
[i] Matthew 7:15-20.
[ii] John 14:27.
[iii] John 14:27.
[iv] Dr. King’s speech, “Stride Toward Freedom,” 1958.
[v] The Book of Common Prayer (1979) “Baptismal Covenant,” pp. 304-305.
[vi] Ephesians 3:20.
[vii] Matthew 7:7.
[viii] Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), a theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and long-time professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York.
I can identify with the first epidement I often talk negative toward myself and how worthless I feel. Confession helped to give me some relief but I still find myself when things go wrong using negative self talk. What helps me focus especially during prayer is my Anglican and catholic Rosary. The serenity prayer has always reminded of what is important.
Thanks for your honest words, Jaan. I am so glad to know you’ve found a window to your unique, incredible worth by way of those devotional aids (e.g., Rosary). Such things can really help bring attention back down to the blessing of here-and-now, rather than all the things we tell ourselves.
For my part, I recently started a new job that has been overwhelmingly stressful–even traumatizing–and I, too, have felt blessed by my prayer beads. Also, the simple act of signing myself with the cross at the start of the day (often after a sleepless night of panic attacks) has helped tremendously. And my app for the daily office/Psalms has been a wonderful reminder of acceptance and confidence in God’s provision. A sort of “mantra” that emerged out of those little prayers–to follow up on Br. Almquist’s reference–for me has been: justus ut palma florebit (‘the just will flourish like a palm’). The Spirit gives special peace to consider that Christ is indeed the “just one who will flourish” and that I share in (or, participate) in Him.