Bring a $1 US Dollar.
So it’s my tradition after the prayer of the day to bring a message to all of God’s children. And I want to talk a little bit about what we’re going to hear Jesus say. To do that, though, I brought with me a $1 bill. I’ll admit that I don’t use paper money very much anymore. I often use my credit card or electronic forms of money to take what’s in my bank account and exchange with others for goods or services. But every once in a while, paper money works for me and it’s kind of amazing how detailed our paper bills are. You’ll notice the front has a picture of George Washington and a lot of words. It includes which country this kind of money is from, what its called, what it can be used for, a serial number making it unique, and roughly when it was made. It also has a lot of designs and webbing on it. The front tells us what this piece of special paper is – it’s a dollar bill – that we give value too.
But on the back, we get a lot more images and pictures. And a lot of these images are various symbols and metaphors that people imagine for the Unite States. We have a pyramid with an eye, a lot of words in latin, and a bunch of the numbers “1” showing how much it’s worth. But over here, we have a picture of the American Eagle holding a shield – with a bunch of arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other. I wonder – what do you think those might represent? Arrows – war. Olive branch – peace. The arrows represent war and what that takes. It involves armies and technology and soldiers and violence and bravery and all the things that happen during war. Wars can feel – and are – very big since they involve a lot of work, effort, resources, words, and power to move an entire nation to fight. Wars can be fought to make people safer and able to embrace the future God wants for us all. Or wars can be used to cause pain and suffering only for the sake of power and greed. It can be easy to glorify war – especially if the only experiences we have with it aren’t real – mostly just from books, movies, or whatever we see on our screen. Yet wars involve real people whose lives are abruptly changed. It’s why, I think, we as a nation will take a moment tomorrow – Memorial Day – to remember the real people who died while in service of the American Union. And as much as we hope the wars we fight will bring about peace so all can live, love, and grow in amazing ways – we also live in a world where wars continue to happen since we’re not always very good at living in the way God wants us to.
So in our words we’ll hear today from Jesus, he’ll talk about the kind of peace God wants in the world. But it’s not a peace that was practiced by the Roman Empire during his time – when they used violence to force others to do what they wanted. It’s a different kind of peace – a peace that God invites us into that is modeled in what Jesus does. It’s a peace of welcome, of support, of care, of making sacrifices so our neighbors can thrive. It’s a peace that Jesus invites us to live into even when it’s hard. And while that doesn’t mean wars will end since we are human, we can glorify peace rather than pretending that strength and might is manifested by who can inflict their wills on over. And one way we do that is by remembering which way the eagle on the $1 is facing. It’s not looking towards the arrows but to the olive branch which symbolizes peace.