Washing dishes.
A favorite plate, a wedding present, a slip and it falls, in slow motion.
When it hits the floor it shatters, one instant it was whole, the next the shards scatter in every direction.
Things fall apart.
We fall apart.
We break.
The most precious things go to pieces.
Lives. Relationships. Families. Our minds. Our bodies. Our hearts.
Countries, communities, ecosystems, businesses, economies.
We drop things, we throw things.
One moment they are whole, and the next the shards scatter, sometimes so quickly, sometimes so painfully slow.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”
Shalom. The Peace of God.
The peace that sets all things at one, that brings together all the shards, all the pieces, all the scattered parts.
The presence of God is that peace that holds all things together, the created proper ordering and relating of all that is.
God is peace itself.
God gathers the dust and breathes in life and humanity is created.
In John’s Gospel the gift of the Holy Spirit is not at Pentecost, not fifty days after Easter.
In John the gift of the Holy Spirit is the gift of Easter day, when Jesus breathes on the disciples.
The breath that recreates our shattered humanity, gathering the shards and pieces like the dust of the earth into whole lives once more.
Jesus speaks of the gift of the Spirit, the gift of peace, not as the world gives which drops and shatters everything that is precious and good, but as God gives which sets all things at one.
Where have all the pieces scattered?
Where do we see the shards being regathered, healed, made whole?
Where do we find the peace of God being announced? Shared? Recreating?
That is where we find Jesus, whose breath is life.
The gift of peace, the passing of the peace, the Lord’s peace, the peace of Jesus, the breath of new life.
We share that here every week. We celebrate it. We reenact, we carry it forth.
Be that breath of fresh air, bring the Lord’s peace.
Lord knows the world needs it!
Memorial Day is tomorrow. It is the civic equivalent to All Saints Day. We honor those who died for their country, whether for the right or the wrong reason their lives ended so that a better ordering of things could hopefully be created or restored, to protect what was precious and good in their lives.
We honor those whose lives were shattered by a world that has lost the Peace, by a world that is breathless, who died on the edge of where things are falling apart, that it would go no further, that it would not spread, that things can start over.
One instant the shards scatter in every direction and the next they are coming back together.
Things come together.
We come to ourselves.
We heal.
We begin again.
The Peace of the Lord be always with you.