I can’t help thinking about the last time this passage* came up in the lectionary: April 2020. Five weeks into the pandemic shutdown, our world had been turned upside down. With every passing week, reality seemed to become less and less tethered to… well, reality. Things that had been inconceivable before the pandemic were happening at breakneck speed. Schools shuttered and borders closed. Instead of gathering with our loved ones we could only wave from the sidewalk.
Now, three years later, when the phrase “social distancing” seems to be slowly fading from our common lexicon, when I hug my parents and friends without worrying that I might accidentally endanger them, I think back to those days, sitting alone in my apartment, clinging to the words Jesus repeats three times in twelve verses: Peace be with you.
Thoughts, from the sermon I preached over Zoom that Sunday in 2020, came back to me last night when I was feeling anxious:
“I’ve found it helpful to think of peace as a kind of presence that Jesus has sent to be with me: to watch over me, to keep me company, to sit beside me and occasionally reach out to pat my hand in a reassuring, grandmotherly kind of way. I may not be feeling peace within me at a given moment, but I found imagining peace with me was a profound comfort in its own way.”
Today I am stressed about ordinary life stuff, the kind of blessedly mundane things that bothered us before we ever heard of COVID-19. The fact that only a year or two ago I would have been so glad to have such worries did not, unfortunately, make them go away. Nor did the calm, rational explanations and encouragements I tried to tell myself. I pray that God’s peace will find me this time.
- Can I sit still for a moment, and imagine Peace with me?
- Can I feel the breath of the spirit and, like the disciples, get the courage to carry on the work of love?
- Can I remember how to breathe deep, and remember I was in good hands?
–Erica Lloyd, Seekers Church
