PEACE AND GOOD WILL

We're entering the Christmas season, the time when we'll be hearing and offering wishes for "Peace on earth" and good will toward all people -- Christians, Jews, Muslims, and many others. The cards we send one another will convey those messages, and the hymns we sing will also include those words. Even the gift tags on those packages under the tree will often repeat them.

I send you wishes of peace and good will. To them, I add this advice from Mahatma Ghandi: "You must be the change you want to see in the world."

I think Ghandi meant that we must "walk the talk." Once we put the two ideas together, we find we've made a formidable challenge for ourselves: If I wish for peace on earth, how must I "be" to advance that cause? If I wish you good will, how must I act that toward you and all people? How would you do it? Isn't this what Jesus did?

And this is not just about peace with our nearest friends. It's about all the people in the world. If we want to see "peace on earth," peace in the whole world, how must we behave? What must we do? For some of us (like me, I confess), the question is also, "What must we not do?"

Much of what we do in our day-to-day lives we do competitively. We try for the best parking place, the best office location, the best seats in the sanctuary... The rub comes when we lose these little competitions -- how do we treat the winners? Do we respond peacefully, with good will, and showing respect? Or do we respond angrily, or aggressively?

Scale it up. We lose the "perfect" job to another candidate, or worse, we lose the job we've had for a while. Or, we lose a spouse or significant other to another person. Or, we lose our home to the bad economy.... Do we react to the loss peacefully? Do we react with good will toward those whom we blame for the loss?

Bigger still. We lose a child, or a friend, or a fellow citizen, or many fellow citizens in a war or a far-away attack. Do we/Can we react peacefully, with good will? Or do we make war instead?

Jesus taught about this dilemma in Matthew 5 (and 6 and 7): "Blessed are the peacemakers...Blessed are the merciful...Everyone who is angry with [someone] shall be liable to judgment..." Clearly, it is desired that we be makers of peace, purveyors of mercy, free of anger.

But if we look at some of our (my) usual behaviors, we find that we're not really making peace but confrontation, and unhappiness. We're not showing mercy but perhaps contempt. And we might often be angry. In other words, we're not being "blessed."

And I'm including here our behaviors as we support or oppose public policies by our involvement in the public discourse; and as we support or avoid certain companies and industries by our investments in them and purchases from them. Are these behaviors of ours also bringing peace and good will to the world, or are they bringing something else?

So if we really mean what we say in those wishes for peace and good will, let's each try to change our individual and societal behaviors to be that way -- peaceful, and merciful, and of good will toward all people. Merry Christmas now and all year long!