Shalom

The great writing prophets of the Bible knew how many ways human life had gone wrong because they knew how many ways human life can go right. And they dreamed of a time when God would put things right again.

They dreamed of a new age in which crookedness would be straightened out, rough places made plain. The foolish would be made wise, and the wise, humble. They dreamed of a time when the deserts would flower, the mountains would stream with red wine, a time when weeping would be heard no more, and when people could sleep without weapons on their laps. People could work in peace, their work having meaning and point. A lion could lie down with a lamb, the lion cured of all carnivorous appetite. All nature would be fruitful, benign, and filled with wonder upon wonder; all humans would be knit together in brotherhood and sisterhood; and all nature and all humans would look to God, walk with God, lean toward God, and delight in God, their shouts of joy and recognition welling up from valleys and crags, from women in streets and from men on ships.

The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Old Testament prophets called shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or cease-fire among enemies. In the Bible shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight—a rich state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights.

We are now fallen creatures in a fallen world. The Christian gospel tells us that all hell has broken loose in this sorry world but also that, in Christ, all heaven has come to do battle. Christ the warrior has come to defeat worldly power, to move the world over onto a new foundation, and to equip a people—informed, devout, educated, pious, determined people—to follow him in righting what's wrong, in transforming what's corrupted, in doing the things that make for peace.

That's what the church is for. It's for shalom. It's for peace in the sense of wholeness and harmony in the world. It's for restoring proper relationships with nature and other humans and God, and for teaching us to delight in the wonders of creation that remain. The church equips us to be agents of shalom, models of shalom, witnesses to shalom.

As C.S. Lewis once said, we are trying to retake territory that has been captured by the enemy. We are trying to recapture society, culture, and all creation for Jesus Christ. We will need the right attitudes for this recapturing program, including the attitude of delight and of love.

In a world that is searching for purpose, we offer purpose wrapped up in peace, serenity formed out of shalom. A shalom that effects the everyday. How will the job I'm preparing for serve God by serving other people? How will it clean a lake instead of polluting one? How will it offer opportunity to marginalized people rather than crowd them still further out to the rim of things? How will it yield an honestly built product or genuinely useful service that will anticipate the new heaven and earth? In other words, how will the knowledge, skills, and values of the church translate into daily life? How will these things be used to clear some part of the human jungle, or restore some part of the lost loveliness of God's world, or introduce some novel beauty into it? That is, how does what I believe touch what I do? How does it make for shalom?