In this September worship theme, are asking ourselves, “What Matters Most?” And thus far, we have named that humility of heart matters and that humility leads to deep listening, and deep listening matters, and deep listening can lead to connections that matter. And tomorrow is the International Day of Peace observance, and goodness knows, Peace matters. I don’t know where you are on this, but I’m thinking that I have a fair amount of personal and spiritual peace work left to do, so International Peace may be a tad beyond my scope, so let’s dive in and ask ourselves: what does it mean to sing and to meditate it and to pray: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me?” And if it does, if peace does begin with me, with you, then may it be in our humble hearts and in our ears as we listen and in our hands as we reach to one another, and may it be in our speech, peace talks.

Most world religions have their seminal peaceful prayers: primary speech to or for the earth or the Deity or the prophets or the enlightened ones or the ancestors. For some Christians it is often the Baba Yetu, or The Lord’s Prayer. For the Jews there is the Shema, a prayer that begins with deep listening, “Hear, O Israel…” For the Muslims, the Fathia, begins with blessing Allah the Compassionate One, and the Buddhist Metta prayer that longs for the realities of connection for all: “May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings awaken to the light of their true nature. May all beings be free.” Peace Talk often finds its form in such prayers– expressions of ecstasy or gratitude, pleas for release or relief, the speech of longing for meaning in the face of life’s deepest mysteries.

And so, when speaking to God or to ourselves or to one another, what matters is what we say. And what we say matters. “Use your words,” we say to the children. For words have a source like the springs that feed the flowing rivers around here, and the words have a power that flows out beyond the words. We know it is true–the grounding of our speech, the push and the direction of the sounds, the intention that goes beyond the words themselves, beyond dictionary meanings create heart-to-heart communication. When you and I talk, it can be the stuff that makes for change–we may divide or unite, bring war or peace.

In thinking of where peace does or does not begin with me, or with you, I’ve been pondering these various levels of conversation. I invite you to ponder these communications and their impact upon your ability to be at peace. Think first about inner speak, what we say internally to ourselves. The measure of healthy inner speak is the degree to which we communicate to ourselves messages that encourage and integrate, affirm and motivate–and if we allow any inner silence to grow that can bring us to peace with Earth, with other humans, with animals, and with ourselves. In our fast-paced, over-stimulated, hyper-connected world, is there space and silence and time in which we may even recognize if our self-talk is healthy? For neuroscientists affirm that baby human beings need space, time, and quiet in order to develop and hone our sense of a holistic self. What do you tell yourself all day long? Self-talk that globally blames, judges, or holds me or someone else to an impossibly high standard of perfectionism is not a peaceful voice. Inner speak is the taproot that feeds our souls– are we listening to voices of realistic resilience, of humble awareness, and of appreciative inquiry? Is it peace talk going on inside my head or yours? What matters most? Remember to take care how you talk to yourself, because you are listening.)

We commune within ourselves AND we seek communication with others as well. And like its origin, self-talk, our INTER-personal communication can be full of peace or full of war. What do you and I say to others, about others? How and when do we say it? And with what assumptions do we begin? When Confucius was asked which of his teachings his disciples should practice most tenaciously, “all day and every day,” he pointed to the concept of shu, commonly translated as “consideration,” which he explained as striving “never to do to others what you would not like them to do to you.” Karen Armstrong describes “shu” in this way: “A better translation of shu is “likening to oneself”; people should not put themselves in a special, privileged category but relate their own experience to that of others “all day and every day.” Confucius called this ideal ren, a word that originally meant “noble” or “worthy” but that by his time simply was defined as “human.” Relating our experience mindfully and compassionately to that of others is what it meas to be human. I got a T-shirt some years back that says, “Human kind, be both.” And it’s a challenge. A person who speaks to others from a spirit of ren “all day and every day,” Confucius said, would become a junzi, a “mature human being.” And I would add, is a person of peace.

Peace begins with humility, listening, connections, and talk– But peace is not just talk–it leads us to action. It requires the hard decisions of us–our personal investment. If we say with our mouths: Let peace for Earth begin with me, then we must make space and give place to the reality that our attention must be drawn first to our Mother Planet. In peace, we must monitor our own use of resources and our daily treatment of others–non-human and human alike, aware of the ways we speak and act from the strength of true and insistent compassion, speaking and doing what is right. Peace means that in these hallowed walls of UCG, that with each other, we will dare to listen to hear and to learn, to speak and to act for racial justice, for food security, for equity in medical care and education, for nonviolent conflict resolution at church, in the workplace, and in the home, so that domestic violence no longer is any child’s daily bread. Peace talk matters, and let it begin with us–rooted and grounded in love and in a spaciousness of mind and heart and conviction.

All of this is big peace talk. Big responsibility. Still, I believe it is an opportunity to participate, speak out, act up, pay attention, and it circles back around, this peace–let it begin in me, in my home, with myself, with yourself, and inside our little stories.
Once during an International Day of Peace walk, a man behind me walking was with his son. They had been chanting a little peace mantra, but then on the edge of my hearing, I realized they’d stopped and now they were arguing. The father said kindly, but with that edge of tension to his voice that always sounds so snippy and bitter and old crone-like when I taste it in my mouth. He was edgy, but kind, though, when he said, “I won’t do this with you right now. I won’t. But later on, we can talk.” But the boy, about ten-years-old, pulled away from him roughly, and yellow hair glistening, ran away down the sunny street, running away from him, and ahead of us, outside and inside the peaceful parade. I thought how, when we disagree, we run from each others’ limits and hurt, sometimes. Then the ironical peace parade continued, and there was another boy directly in front of me, passing by the doors of shops all decorated with peaceful doves. Just as he reached the door of a happy candy shop, a man and a teenaged girl exited the store, directly into his path. Without hesitation, he shouted, “Peace, forever!” and with a dazzling smile, high-fived the man and the teenaged girl. Amazed, I said to him, “Wow! That was cool! You were so brave to high-five two strangers that way, for peace!” And he said, “Not that brave–that’s my dad and my sister!” The stream of peace, our best intentions, always are process…We speak, we hear, we try and we wait, we touch and we pull away and run, and we work to find one another again. Proverbs says, “the words of the wise bring healing,” and sometimes it takes more courage to high-five it or to forgive it or to communicate it, harder to give peace a chance when it’s your own family at war.

Swirling in all of it, are the questions and the possibilities. Give peace a chance. What would it take for you? For me? Here’s one thing it will take for me: to remember who I am, what is in my hand to control for good, and what it will take for me to breathe easy and to live in my own integrity. I suspect that that may possibly be true for you. What will it take for you to breathe easy and to live from your own integrity, in situations that are not peaceful for you? There exists deep fragmentation in our world. There are the real differences that challenge peace talk. And within those differences and the fear and pain that so often cloud our vision and erode our faith and compassion, the bemusing invitation comes to us again and again is, what is the peaceful path, what is the humankind thing to do? Peace talk is not just words. We are invited to embody peace, and one of the ways we will do that today is through communion. Everyone here is invited to communion, no matter what you do or do not believe about it. Though it has a tattered history, here is at least one thing about it, maybe the thing that matters most: the word “communion” literally means sharing, fellowship, community. And it is bread. Bread, my friends. Bread that we, in an intentional and loving way, have the privilege to share with each other in a world where bread is denied or on any grim and imprisoning day is hurled over a fence to thousands of people who have no place to live and no welcome. Bread. Once I saw a little boy who wore a shirt that read, “Without bread, all is misery.” Bread like peace only nourishes truly when it is shared. The real work of peace is always going to break you open a lot or a little, and like good bread, it will feed you. We begin there, but then we must move out from inner speak and from one-to-one, likeminded self-absorbed chatter to broadly participate in sacred shalom, holistic peace conversations. We must walk the talk. So, with bread, with justice, with feeding each other, there is conversation, there is food for though, there is communion, there is peace. So speak kindly to yourself, sit in silence and actively listen to another, and then break apart and share your words, your gifted self, your bread, for peace. Amen.