Dear Friends in Christ,
I had thought about using my April newsletter article to lift up Earth Day and care of creation from a Lutheran perspective, but our synod’s Eco-faith Action Network already took care of that (see further down in this newsletter). Instead, I want to point to the Revised Common Lectionary passage from John’s gospel that many of you will hear (or preach on) the Second Sunday of Easter, April 12. Our Synod Assembly theme verse comes from John 14, naming the same peace. In the John 20 resurrection scene, Jesus says twice to his disciples, “Peace be with you.” Hearing these words from scripture might resonate deeply with you because this is how the presider begins what we often call the sharing or passing of the peace in the middle of Sunday worship.
I love what the old Manual on the Liturgy (manual for the the green Lutheran Book of Worship but still a great guide today!) says about the sharing of the peace, “The peace which enables people to live in unity and in the spirit of mutual forgiveness comes only from Christ whose word has been proclaimed. Without the intention to live in such unity, participation in the sacramental celebration is a mockery and, as St. Paul warns, dangerous. The peace is a sign that those who participate in it open themselves to the healing and reconciling power of God’s love and offer themselves to be agents of that love in the world” (227).
I have served or been part of congregations where real community tensions exist. A local school district dissolving greatly impacted the first congregation I served in rural Iowa. The Red River flood of 1997 brought anxiety to my college worshiping community and to the local congregation where I worshiped on Sundays. I know that how congregations journeyed through the pandemic came with internal disagreements. I have also experienced the sharing of the peace to be disingenuous; a motion we go through that we do not always mean. Still, when taken seriously, as the Manual encourages, the word of God proclaimed, the peace shared, and Holy Communion celebrated, can be transformative for individuals and communities. Worship, including the sharing of the peace, gives us a glimpse of God’s reign that we can take into the world, and what a gift that is. Jesus gives us a peace, as he says earlier in John’s gospel, that the world does not know, a peace that exists through Jesus Christ even when the world feels like it’s shaking and absent of all peace. That peace is for you, people of the NWIM Synod.
Go in that same peace to serve the Lord,
Bishop Meggan