Sunday, July 06, 2025

Being Peace, Giving Peace



St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
July 6, 2025

Year C. Proper 9: The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
2 Kings 5:1-14
Psalm 30
Galatians 6:1-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Being Peace, Giving Peace

I’ve mentioned to you before that one of the highlights of my week is our service on Wednesdays at noon.
Each week, our faithful group gathers for Communion and Anointing, and then some of us stick around to read and discuss the gospel lesson that’s coming up on Sunday.
Very often we celebrate what are called the “lesser feasts,” the days throughout the year when the Church remembers different saints, the holy women and men who have modeled for us what it looks like to be a Christian.
Sometimes these saints are well-known and familiar.
And other times, they are pretty obscure, people that I need to do some research on before I give my homily.
That’s something I love doing.
I think of it as part of my continuing education.
Anyway, this past Wednesday we honored someone who was new to me: Moses the Black., also known as Moses the Strong, Moses the Robber, Moses the Egyptian.
Now, we’re not talking about the famous Moses of the Old Testament who led the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.
No, on Wednesday we honored Moses the Black who lived in Egypt in the 300’s, many centuries after the famous Moses.
And in his early years, Moses was a criminal – a robber and perhaps even a murderer.
He and his gang terrorized many communities in Egypt.
The story goes that, after one of his numerous crimes, Moses was on the run from the authorities, and he found himself a pretty good hideout: a monastery.
And it was there in the monastery, among the monks, that Moses experienced a peace like none he had ever known before – and this peace transformed his life.
Moses gave up crime and became a monk himself, devoting the rest of his days to prayer and sacrifice, eventually becoming better known for his holiness than for his past misdeeds.
It’s a great conversion story, isn’t it?
A reminder that, with God’s help, people can and do change.
And, just like many people who have experienced God’s mercy and grace, Moses was reluctant to judge other people.
There’s a story that one of his fellow monks was caught in a misdeed, and all the other monks were gathering to pass judgment on him.
At first, Moses refused to attend this meeting.
But when he finally does show up, he comes carrying a sack of sand on his shoulder.
He had cut a hole in the sack, so the sand was trickling out behind him.
When the monks asked him what was up with the leaking sack of sand, Moses said:  
“My sins run out behind me and I do not see them, but today I am coming to judge the errors of another.”
After Moses said this, the other monks forgave the monk who had done wrong.
Reflecting on Moses the Black’s remarkable story of conversion and faith and sacrifice, I keep thinking about the peace that he experienced when he was hiding out in the monastery.
That peace was much deeper than just the absence of conflict.
That peace was much more profound than just a cease-fire.
That peace was what our Jewish friends call shalom: wholeness and well-being – God’s gift for all of us, if only we would accept it, if only we would nurture it.
And, for the monks, that peace – that shalom – must have taken a lot of effort.
With God’s help, that peace required dealing with differences and disagreements in the community, acknowledging failure and bad behavior – and, most of all, that peace required prayer, lots of prayer.

In today’s gospel lesson we heard the story of Jesus sending out the seventy disciples, two by two, out into the world to continue and extend his work.
Jesus gives them some instructions: travel light and don’t get distracted, stay focused on the mission. 
Jesus says, “Whatever house you enter, first say ‘Peace to this house! And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person, if not it will return to you.”

And now today Jesus gives us the same mission: to offer God’s peace to our broken, grief-stricken, frightened, and not very peaceful world.
And, like those long-ago monks, there’s no way to fulfill our mission without having peace ourselves – without being peace ourselves.
Etty Hillesum was a Dutch Jewish mystic who was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz. Living during a terrible and frightening time, here’s what she wrote about peace:  
“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.”
And for the long-ago Egyptian monks and for us today, reclaiming peace requires prayer.
Then as now, monks pray every day.
And, while we’re not monks, we’re called to pray every day, too.
Since prayer is really having a relationship with God who is the Source of Peace, this is how we reclaim peace and share peace.
Prayer can be just taking a quiet moment or two during the day, to remember God, to remember the miracle that we are all here.
Prayer can be just offering a word of thanks when we wake up each morning or when we get ready to close our eyes at the end of the day.
Prayer can be lamenting the tragedies of our world – grieving the people – all the children - washed away by the horrific floods in Texas.
Prayer can be complaining – God, where are you, why do you allow so many terrible things to happen? Why do you allow so many awful people get away with bad things?
Prayer can be asking forgiveness for our own sins, letting them trickle away like the sand from Moses’ sack.
Prayer can be holding onto the Sunday bulletins during the week and praying for all the people on our prayer lists, just read their names, or just run your finger down the list.
        Pray for our ministry of the week – this week it’s the Cemetery Committee - and they always need our prayers to do their holy work.
        Pray for our church, that, in a time of turmoil and division,  we will stay united, that we will continue to welcome everybody who walks through our doors, that we will continue to be a servant church, giving of ourselves to our Afghan friends, the kids at Owings Mills Elementary School, the kids who will be here this week for Paul’s Place Camp, and the counselors and adult leaders who will be giving them wonderful days they will probably never forget.
        Pray for our country, that our divisions may be healed. Pray that our leaders and our people, all of us, will have a conversion of heart and be true to our highest ideals of liberty and justice, for all. 
        Pray for our world that we will at last lay down our weapons and work together to solve the huge problems of this planet.

    Moses the Black once said, “If a man’s deeds are not in harmony with his prayer, he labors in vain.”
    If our deeds are not in harmony with our prayer, we labor in vain.

    You know, the seventy disciples prayed with Jesus all the time and so did those Egyptian monks.
    And God used their prayers to give them the gift of true peace, a gift they were able to share with others.
    You and I can pray with Jesus, too.
    And when we pray, God will give us the gift of shalom – the gift of peace that we can share with anyone who comes through our doors, the gift that we can share everywhere we go.
    May we pray.
    May we be peace.
    May we give peace. 
    Amen.