The Illusion of Peace

"Can we all just get along?" Rodney King asked us the question as a nation after being beaten in 1991. The answer to the question, of course, is no. We can't.

I'm always a little amused when I hear people clamor for the Church to be more like the New Testament church. It's a little like hearkening back to "the good old days." As Billy Joel reminds us, "the good old days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems." I long for the early church of Acts 2 when "The y broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts." But that is the same church that only four chapters later had a major fight between those that spoke Greek and those that spoke Hebrew or Aramaic.

Christianity is meant to be a movement, and movements are messy. 

We should not expect the Church to be entirely at peace. We should expect the Church to grow, and as the Church grows we should expect to have moments of conflict. That's just how movements, and how people in general, work.

Within my denomination, The United Methodist Church, we're in the midst of a good old-fashioned church fight. We have at least two factions that are fighting and, much like Greek speakers and Hebrew speakers, it is often as if we are speaking different languages. We hope that the fight can end so that we can get back to the mission of the Church, making disciples of Jesus Christ. I certainly hope we can come to some kind of resolution. But if and when that time comes, we would be foolish to believe that a United Methodist Church or two Divided Methodist Churches created from a split will be conflict-free. We'll be free from conflict for maybe a day or two and then we will find something else to argue about. That's what the Church has always done. But I'd like to remind you about the prelude and postlude to that first church fight in Acts 6. Acts 6:1 starts "In those days when the number of disciples was increasing..." and 6:7 finishes with "...The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly..." Growth happened before and after. Conflict happened either despite or because of the growth and the conflict that happened didn't stop the growth.

If we define peace as the absence of conflict, we will never truly have a long-standing peace. If, instead, we define peace as an inner quality, an attitude with which we personally approach God and one another (Colossians 3:12-15) then even when we have conflict our hearts and souls will still be at peace. If we maintain a heart of peace, then even our arguments will happen with a different kind of heart.

World peace? It's an illusion until Christ returns. Personal peace? It's a reality for those who live in the Kingdom.