what makes for peace

Today, Jesus tells us (as he weeps over the City of Jerusalem and our own troubled world) ...

“If this day you only knew what makes for peace– but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19)

If this day you only knew what makes for peace. What makes for peace? I think we know some of what does not make for peace - abuse of power, jealousy, greed, domination, selfishness, hate, fear, etc.... But what does make for peace? I think the opening prayer from today's liturgy gives some clues:

All powerful and ever-living God,
direct your love
that is within us,
that our efforts in the name
of your Son
may bring humankind
to unity and peace.
We ask this through our Lord
Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

There's that four letter word again .... love. It is out of love that Jesus looks upon the City of Jerusalem ... and the City of Baghdad, and the tent cities of refugee camps across the globe, the Cities of our own country where there is the violence of poverty hidden from our eyes. Not only does he look with love, he laments our failure to live out of his love, and pour more love on us in response.

I find it so interesting that Jesus weeps in this passage. For anyone who has weeped, not merely cried, it is a deeply powerful experience. Weeping comes from your inner depths. All that you are is poured out to cleanse you and prepare you for what is to come.

It may seem simplistic, but more and more I am coming to realize that, in the words of those young men from Liverpool, "All you need is love."

May we grow together, in love, towards the vision of unity and peace that Christ pours out upon us with his tears this day, and very day. Amen.