“Where I am going, you can’t follow…” Tim quotes from John 13:36 and thanks the lectionary for an ideal passage for a final sermon. Unlike Jesus, Tim is able to invite us to visit his new home in Harrisonburg, VA, where he’ll be teaching. He goes on to talk about being from Buffalo, NY, which he still calls home.
Tim goes on to give lots of background on Buffalo — e.g. it’s called Nickel City — before lamenting that it’s now used as shorthand for horrific, racist white violence following the shooting on May 14 at a Tops Friendly Markets store. It hurts.

Violence is a force that is shaping people and the world — a force that distorts, dissolves and destroys God’s creation. It grows and reverberates through each of us as we carry that violence with us. But he also describes some of the ways that “the city of good neighbors” is showing up to help care for the community in pain. He mentions that youth in the neighborhood of that Tops market are currently afraid to go out — a reverberation of violence. Violence is not simply an act — it has a way of taking up residence in our souls: in fear, terror, anger, angst, and further violence.

In John 14: 27, Jesus says: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you.” This is no more simply an interior peace than those reverberations of violence. Peace instead is truth and liberation.

Buffalo poet laureate and community organizer Jillian Hanesworth wanted the hashtag #BuffaloHonest over the more common #BuffaloStrong that might generally follow disasters. Not only do people need to know it’s okay to grieve and fear, they also need to be able to speak the truth that it’s one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. This is not uncommon for old rust belt cities. There’s a highway through the middle of the city that ensures that it stays that way. Of the 51 census block groups that have limited access to supermarkets, all are in black neighborhoods east of Main Street. And these are communities that live with poverty. This is violence. This is “peace as the world gives…” (John 14:27)

What peace do we live into as people of God? Peace is not the absence of violence, but an active struggle for life.

Hear this and more in the video of this May 29th sermon, as Tim talks more about Jesus’ meaning of peace in this chapter of John.