By Reverend Laurie DeMott

“May the peace of God be with you,” Paul writes to the Philippians. Paul is under arrest, perhaps confined to a military barracks while he awaits trial. As he sits on his cot, scribbling on the parchment that he will send to his friends far away in Philippi, he stops writing for a moment to gaze thoughtfully at the guard standing by his door, and when he puts his pen back to the letter, it is to write, “May the peace of God, which is beyond all of our understanding, stand sentry watch over your heart.”

I pointed out Paul’s interesting turn of phrase in this verse at a recent church meeting because Paul’s military image seems a little “oxymoronic”. Imagine for a second a class of first graders assigned by their teacher to paint a picture of peace. When they are finished, the teacher displays their paintings on the wall outside the classroom, and as you walk down the hall looking at their finished artwork, you see rows of blue skies and green fields sprinkled with daisies and buttercups. There will probably be a few rainbows scattered throughout, and inevitably a couple of bunnies scampering across the pages painted by little girls who can’t imagine a peaceful world without a cuddly bunny. And then, after strolling by dozens of serene paintings of paradise, you come upon one painting that is starkly different. Here in this painting there are no flowers or butterflies, no green pastures or still waters, but instead a brawny soldier stares out of the paper at you, guns locked and loaded. In this little boy’s mind (because honestly, it is always the little boys who fill their pictures with military hardware), peace is a heavily guarded secure area where any worry or anxiety or conflict that tries to break through the perimeter will simply be blown to smithereens.

“May the peace of God, which is beyond all of our understanding, stand sentry watch over your heart,” Paul declares.

“The peace of God be with you.” This is a familiar phrase in Christian worship shared for generations in the passing of the peace or used as an ending benediction to the service, but what exactly is it that we are wishing upon one another when we invoke those words? What does it mean to know God’s peace?

I suspect that if you asked most Americans to paint a picture of peace, they too would paint bunnies and rainbows. We think of peace as a sort of inner contentment and freedom from worry. In 1988, the singer Bobby McFerrin hit the number one spot at the top of the charts with a song that implored, “Ain't got no cash, ain't got no style; Ain't got no gal to make you smile; but don't worry, be happy. 'Cause when you're worried, your face will frown and that will bring everybody down, so don't worry, be happy.”

Bobby McFerrin’s song achieved amazing popularity and its philosophy emerged again in the song “Hacuna Matata” sung by a wart-hog and a meercat in Disney’s The Lion King. “Hacuna matata,” Timon and Pumbaa tell Simba, the young lion. “These two words will solve all your problems; you’ll have no responsibilities and no worries.”

“Don’t worry, be happy”: It is a doctrine that appeals to people because it suggests to a frazzled public that peace is an act of will, that peace available to all of us if we simply face life with the proper attitude. Refuse to dwell on the difficulties of life, the song implores us; place a smile on your face no matter what troubles you encounter, and you, too, can attain a worry-free existence and bring happiness to others by your cheerful presence.

Last week, I was driving my 13 year old niece Naomi up to Rochester to visit my other niece and as we talked about Naomi’s frustration over some issue in her life, she suddenly opened her mouth in a huge grimace. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m smiling,” she said.

“Oh, is that what that’s supposed to be?” I replied, “So why are you smiling?”

“I’m releasing my endorphins,” she explained. “If you smile, it’s supposed to release chemicals in your brain to make you instantly feel better.”

“Well,” I warned her, “If you go around with that kind of smile on your face, maybe you’ll feel better but you’ll creep everyone else out!”

There is a serious problem with our understanding peace as a worry-free existence and inner contentment and the problem is that, for the most part, we are miserable failures at achieving it. No matter how hard we try not to worry and just be happy, those anxieties creep up on us, tackle us, and wrestle our hearts to the mat. Our attempts to paste a smile on our face do little to help our moods and creep everyone else out. The reality is that most of us simply do not have enough will power to keep worry at bay and achieve our own peace.

The good news is that Bobby McFerrin is a jazz singer, not a Christian preacher and his lyrics, “Don’t worry; be happy” are not the approach to peace proclaimed by our gospel. If you are questioning your faith because you are unable to achieve serenity of mind, the good news is that nowhere does the bible proclaim that you as a Christian are expected to have a worry-free life. Yes, Jesus said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow,” but he did not say, “and don’t worry about today.” There are some anxieties, the gospel proclaims, that are right and appropriate if you are a Christian, while there are others that are unnecessary or even wrong, and praying for God’s help in achieving a sense of peace doesn’t mean that we expect God to give us an inner serenity of untroubled waters. To pray for God’s peace means to pray that God will help us to sort through which worries are worth our time and which are not.

Listen carefully to Paul’s words of benediction to the Philippians again. Paul does not say to the Philippians, “May God’s peace be a wall around your life.” He does not say, “May God’s peace be an impenetrable fortress behind which you can hide. What he says is, “May God’s peace be a guard standing sentry watch over your heart.” Sentries are guards whose duty it is to keep unauthorized personnel out, but it is also their duty to let authorized personnel in. Unlike a barricade that keeps everything out regardless of who or what it is, a sentry allows some things to pass. Paul imagined God’s peace as a sentry guard checking the IDs of the worries approaching your heart. “Do you have a right to be here?” the guard asks each anxiety as it approaches. If the worry is legitimate, appropriate, and right, God’s sentry lets it in. If it doesn’t have a place, God’s sentry sends it packing.

Even Simba, the young lion in “The Lion King” comes to realize that a worry-free life doesn’t always mean that you have achieved peace; it may just mean that you are shirking your responsibilities.

The fact is, that as compassionate Christians, we do have responsibilities and there are some things you are supposed to worry about.

You are supposed to worry if your eight year old son gets a conduct for hitting a kindergartner over the head with his backpack. You are responsible for your son’s moral conduct and worry over his actions will help lead you into serious consideration of how to shape his values and teach him appropriate behavior. If you said to the principle, “Oh, don’t worry; be happy,” the principle would have legitimate reason to wonder about the future of your son’s character.

On the other hand, you are not supposed to lie awake at night worrying that your eight-year old son may not get into college, will drift aimlessly through his young adulthood, and will end up at age 40 playing a dented saxophone for change on the street corner. This is called “borrowing pain from the future” and Jesus clearly forbids it. “Do not worry about tomorrow for today’s troubles are sufficient,” Jesus tells us. This is an anxiety that you can turn over to God in prayer, asking God’s sentry to kick that worry out on its keister every time it tries to sneak through the perimeter.

You are supposed to worry about the rising food prices and their effect on the people of Haiti who were already struggling to exist on their limited diet of corn mush and mangoes. No person of compassion would say to a Haitian mother, wondering how she will feed her starving children, “Hey, you ain’t got cash; you ain’t got style, but that frown is getting everyone down so don’t worry; be happy.” Worrying about the starving child and the unemployed man and the struggling mother will move you to get your wallet out of your pocket to practice generosity. It will move you to educate yourself about US food policies and global hunger. It will move you to speak out on behalf of those without a voice.

On the other hand, after you give to those in need, you are not supposed to lie awake worrying about whether you should have instead put that money into your retirement fund. Jesus said, “Pray give us our daily bread,” not “Give us a stockpile of security against tomorrow.” Retirement funds are good things but if we become obsessed with them, trying to control every contingency and protect against every possibility, we will never be able to act on the needs of today because we’ll always be living in fear of tomorrow. Allow God’s peace to stand sentry so that those anxieties about the future can’t make their way in.

You are supposed to worry about your neighbor’s sorrow, your friend’s depression, your sister’s grief, your colleague’s struggle. The God of peace will see these worries creeping up to the door of your heart, and will say to them, “You are cleared for entry.” The hardships of others that nag at your heart will move you so that you take up a pen and write a card, so that you call someone who is alone, so that you will figure out a way to finally reconcile with that disaffected family member. Those worries should nag at you to pester you into acting on them.

On the other hand, after you have prayed for those who are ill and suffering, God’s peace will gently turn away the thoughts of your own increasing age and the twinges that make you wonder if some dread disease will smite you one day. God has promised to be with us in the fire, in the flood, and in the wilderness, and God’s sentry of peace will say, “God will be there then just as God is here today,” and will not allow that worry about tomorrow to enter your heart.

God’s peace is not a barricade to all sorrow and worry. God’s peace is not the serenity of a walk in the park free from responsibility. Maybe your grandmother told you, “Give it to the Lord,” but there are some things that the Lord will give right back to you if you try to give them away. If you wonder why God’s peace feels elusive, why you lie awake at night worrying about the hurting hearts around, and why you can’t just give it to the Lord, maybe it’s because you are living the compassionate life that God has called you to live. God’s peace is with you, not as a barricade to all anxiety, but as a sentry, helping you to sort through which worries are worth your time and which are not.

May I suggest this practical suggestion. When you pray, try actually visualizing God’s peace as a sentry standing guard over your heart. Take each anxiety that obsesses you –even if you have to write it down – and imagine marching that worry right up to that sentry to let the sentry examine its right to be there. Visualize God’s sentry asking you, “Do you have permission from Jesus to be here?” Try to devote your energy that day to the worries that the sentry lets pass and let go of those worries that the sentry sends off. If it is a particularly persistent worry that you find yourself agonizing about even though the sentry told it not to enter, visualize dismissing it in your mind with the command, “You weren’t allowed entry today – check in with the sentry tomorrow if you must but for today, I’m not authorized to talk to you.” If you pray every day and if you practice imagining that sentry guard standing there telling certain anxieties that they don’t have clearance to enter, eventually those worries will get tired of being turned away and will stop showing up.

We live in peace not when we refuse to concern ourselves with others but when our relationships with others are right and good. We live in peace not when we shirk our responsibilities but when we know that what we are doing with our lives is valuable. We live in peace not when we pretend that tragedy will never befall us but when we have confidence that no matter what happens, we will never be alone because God will be with us in the sun and in the storm. We live in peace when even our worries are worries that move us to serve God and others better.

“May the peace of God stand sentry watch over your heart.”