Sermon: I've Got Peace Like a Hail Storm
Ezekiel 13:8-13, 15-16*
Therefore, thus says God, the Holy One: Because all of you have spoken empty words and envisioned lies, therefore- listen!- I am against you. This is a statement from God, the Holy One: Therefore, my hand will be against the prophets who envision emptiness and who divine lies in the assembly of my people. They will not be recorded in the history of the house of Israel. No, they will not be written about, nor will they enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am God, the Holy One. Because they, yes, because they caused my people to go astray, saying: “Peace!” When there is no peace. And they build a wall. And- look!- they cover it with foolishness. Say to those who cover it with foolishness that it will fall.
There will be rain.
There will be flooding.
And you--
Great hailstones will fall and a stormy wind will tear it down.
Look! The wall has fallen. Will it not be said to you all again and again, “Where is the foolishness with which you plastered it?”
Therefore, thus says God, the Holy One:
I will say to you there is no more wall and there are no more of those plastering 16 prophets of Israel, who prophesy about Jerusalem and who see for her visions of peace when there is no peace.
A few weeks ago, I traveled to Baltimore as a part of the PC(USA)’s Big Tent. As my plane landed and I made my way into the city center I found myself excited about one thing in particular: my hotel room would have cable. This is a big deal for people who have opted to “cut the cord” and use streaming services for entertainment. While nine times out of ten I am happy about this decision, I was excited about the idea of putting on the news while I got ready in the morning. My first morning in the hotel I woke up, leisurely made some coffee, and flipped through the channels to find a station offering news updates. In the roughly 30 minutes I had the news on the hotel TV, I found myself saddened by that day’s painful stories and dizzied by the voices barking back and forth in disagreement about how to respond. I found myself thinking that I needed a little “peace and quiet.”
For most of us, peace is an aspirational goal. Peace is what we will have when we finish this project or get around to unpacking the basement or leave for vacation or when the baby finally sleeps through the night. This “peace,” the “peace and quiet” peace, is really about a sense of calm. A lack of rush. A chance to simply be. In the context of the Hebrew Bible it’s probably more accurate for us to describe this feeling as “shabbat,” or Sabbath. But in our texts for today, both Jesus and the prophet Ezekiel aren’t speaking about sabbath. They are speaking about shalom.
Though we translate “shalom” as peace, the idea of what that looked like for the Jewish communities of Ezekiel and Jesus is vastly different than our idea of peace. The personal peace of serenity, or even the larger concept of peace as a time without war, rests on a foundation of absence. We subtract pressure, busy-ness, violence and then we achieve this thing we call “peace.” Shalom, however, means something more akin to “wholeness.” Shalom is not when we take away something else, but rather it is when all things are added together. It is a peace that rests in the complete wellness of the community. Shalom is something closer to a commune, a utopia, to the words we pray in the Lord’s prayer: “on earth as it is in heaven.” Shalom, the peace of the world being made whole, is at the very root of how God wishes the world to be.
In Ezekiel’s speech on behalf of God, we see just how crucial this shalom-peace is. Ezekiel’s setting could not be less peaceful. The people of Israel had been exiled by Babylon. Their communities had been strategically torn apart and separated into distant lands in the hope that their identity would be lost in the process. It was an attempt at genocide. It was traumatic. They were forced to leave homes they had grown up in. To leave the farms that provided them sustenance. To leave a temple in which they had seen God at work. To go into places where they were not welcome and were unlikely to survive. There was no personal peace, no peace from war, and there was certainly no hope for the wholeness of a shalom-peace. Throughout Ezekiel we see God’s sadness and anger at the lack of peace for God’s people, but in our passage for today we see another side of God. God rises in opposition to those who seek only the passive peace of serenity. God shouts at the people of Israel who refuse to see the lack of peace in their midst, those who stood up in front of the community and said, “everything’s fine.” Those who said, “why are you making such a ruckus? Calm down.” Those who didn’t want to deal with anything else. Who foolishly built walls to protect themselves, who looked around at a world in ruin and put on blinders so that they could claim a personal peace for themselves. This self-beneficial, exclusionary peace is no peace at all to God.
When we hear this passage, we think: Okay, there’s no peace. People are pretending there is. God’s upset. I get that. So surely God will come in and show them what peace looks like so that everyone can get back on track. But if we come to the text with our assumptions that peace is placid, calm, and free from disruption we will be disappointed. God does not saunter in and give everyone in Israel a calm heart. God instead shows up in rain and floods and hailstorms that bring down the foolishness, lies, and walls that the people had erected. God does not gently sweep in with a beach umbrella and lapping waves, but rather a typhoon. The example of peace that God shows us is one that is active, confrontational, and even destructive. But God is not carelessly destructive. It is not the beauty of God’s creation that is torn apart in this hailstorm. God’s peace is focused on breaking down the ideas and structures that we have created in order to maintain our own peace of mind. Ezekiel shows us God dismantling these structures from top to bottom. God tears down the walls that blocked the people of Israel from seeing the lack of peace around them. God erases the false claims of peace from their histories. God makes sure that anyone who clings to this false self-security will not re-enter Israel. God completely washes clean the foolishness that had led the people to believe peace was a lack of upheaval. Peace was about their own sense of calm. God steals away their ease and subverts their entire world because God knows that only in rejecting the false peace we claim for ourselves can the real work of God’s shalom-peace for all begin.
You see, God knows that if given the choice people will err on the side of complacency and the familiar. We love any chance to excuse ourselves from working harder or breaking out of our comfort zones. We say, “It’s not my problem,” when confronted with the struggles of another. We delude ourselves into thinking we are making progress by demanding facts and figures from the comforts of our couch while people in the midst of crisis lose their lives. We allow ourselves to benefit from centuries of laws, traditions, and practices that give us more privilege than others because we’re used to it and, frankly, it gives us peace. So, the only way to usher in a whole and complete shalom is to begin with a new vision of how things ought to be. A new definition of what peace is.
This week begins the Season of Peace in the PC(USA). Over the next five weeks, we will explore what this new definition of peace looks like and engage in deepening our call as peacemakers. In this first week, here at the start, we ask ourselves how we begin. How do we take the risk of living outside of what society tells us is peace and embrace God’s peace?
We begin with active, challenging, inspirational, and hard work.
This isn’t a backyard stream God calls in, but a hailstorm. We have to widen our eyes and be open to seeing the lack of peace around us, even if it means letting go of some of the truths that we have held dear. We must be vulnerable enough to see the ways in which we are holding up walls that prevent God’s peace. Not so that we can feel guilty or tear ourselves down. Remember, God doesn’t disrupt creation- God disrupts the walls and stories that claim false peace. We must look at ourselves so that we can be emboldened to claim a new identity as peacemakers for God’s peace. To be the hailstorm that God calls upon to tear down barriers.
I cannot stand here and claim to have this all perfectly integrated into my own life. In fact, it’s a constant struggle for even the most dedicated of peacemakers I know. It is so easy and way less scary to run back into the safety of the walls of our peace when we see the lack of God’s peace in the world. But if we are to truly embrace God’s call in our lives, we must find the courage to break down the walls so that there is no retreating behind them. As we join in the Season of Peace with Presbyterians across the denomination, we must heed Christ’s words when he looked upon Jerusalem and said, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” Let us open our eyes. Let us replace our old glasses with lenses that show us God’s peace. Let us be a hailstorm in the world, dismantling any walls that stop God’s peace of wholeness and community from washing over us all. And let us find the courage to do this despite how uncomfortable we may be. For it is only in clearing away our peace that God’s peace can find us all. And we could all use a little shalom.
Amen.
*The English text is an original translation.