DAVID'S EMAIL BIBLE STUDY:
Mother Teresa's PEACE
 
A.  CONCLUSION ...Mother Teresa's A Simple Path has been our guide throughout LENT.  Her thesis is that we can experience a fuller Christian life if we will take six steps, each laying the foundation for the next: Silence, Prayer, Faith, Love, Service, and Peace.  Silence helps us to be better at Prayer.  Prayer strengthens our Faith.  Faith enables us to Love.  Love causes us to do Service for others.  All these things together will help us to be at Peace.  She is NOT promising that all by ourselves we can create peace in the world.  She IS promising the old song, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me" - we can be more peaceful, more at peace in our personal lives.  Only at that point can we offer to be peacemakers to the world beyond our front doors.
  
B.  TODAY,  "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9)... "Seek peace and pursue it" (Psalm 24:14)... "A heart of peace gives life to the body" (Proverbs 14:30)... "For Christ is our peace, who has made the two one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility." (Ephesians 2:14-18).

C. SUMMARY: The search for true peace consumes the Bible.  From the moment Adam and Eve "fall" and are expelled from The Garden of Eden the rest of the Bible plots a path to reconciliation.  God tries punishment, laws, and prophetic warnings.  Finally, in effect, God says "let me show you how" and gives us Jesus.  Jesus' life and example offer the path over or through the walls that divide us.  Our participation in the "peace process" will take work.  "SEEK Peace and PURSUE it" and "blessed are the peace MAKERS" show that effort and endurance and commitment to peace are required.

D.  KEY POINTS: 
1.     St. Paul's Point... I've given you an array of verses leading up to Paul's Ephesian letter.  The Bible makes it clear that peace is a priority, it takes work, it's not easy, but those who choose the path of peace are especially blessed.  After all, Jesus is given to us as "The Prince of Peace".  But as elusive as earthly, human, world peace is, it is still our goal.  Rudyard Kipling wrote, "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs... you'll be a Man, my son!" We might alter that: if you can keep your peace when all about you is non-peaceful, un-peaceful... then you're a Christian!  St. Paul's point is that the presence of Christ in us gives us that equilibrium.  His Ephesian verses admit that there is warfare between the two sides of the world, even the two sides of us individually.  Should we do the right thing, or not?  Say the right thing, or not?  Our every waking hour is filled with potential conflicts.  Paul's point is that Christ breaks down the wall between our 2 natures; we take on a new nature that doesn't have to be at conflict within ourselves.  In religious terms, we are "sanctified", "saved", we can be at peace within ourselves.  Then we really can get work peacemaking. 
 

2.    Mother Teresa's Point.  What's the opposite of personal peace?  Conflict.  Agitation. Anxiety.  Fear.  Hostility.  Anger.  And that's how many people live daily life.  Mad at somebody, mad at something.  To be blunt, her point is that if you fill your waking hours with loving actions that help others you won't have the time, energy or inclination to be at war with the world around you.  I'm sure there's room for righteous indignation if aimed constructively toward change.  But anger for anger's sake is a waster of energy, and she has better use for your energy.  The more time you make for being loving, doing love in action, the less time for negative emotions/actions PLUS, she promises, you will feel better yourself.  For Mother Teresa there is a whole love - peace - God continuum.  Indeed, her whole Simple Path is a feed on itself continuum:  Silence-Prayer-Faith-Love-Service-Peace.  Then repeat.


 

ANYWAY

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
LOVE THEM ANYWAY
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
SUCCEED ANYWAY
The good you will do will be forgotten tomorrow,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY
What you spent years building, may be destroyed overnight;
BUILD ANYWAY
People really need help but may attack you if you help them,
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU'VE GOT ANYWAY.
 

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