Peace Is the Way

Peace Is the Way

March 29, 2026

Minister: Rev. JT Smiedendorf

Readings: Matthew 5:1-9

Download a printable PDF of this sermon here.

CENTRAL FOCUS:
The means and ends of Divine peace need each other to be real.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.     

These are the words of our ancient tradition.
May the Living Word of God in Scripture be alive within us, among us, and beyond us.

We begin with former Miami Herald and syndicated columnist Dave Barry who said, “My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished two bags of M&M’s and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.”

As we enter Jerusalem with Jesus on this Palm Sunday, I invite us into reflection on peace, and a renewed commitment to the way of peace within us, among us, and beyond us. You have a part in delivering this morning’s message. When I say, “There is no way to peace,” you are invited to respond, “Peace is the way.”
Let’s try it:
“There is no way to peace.”
“Peace is the way.”

Twentieth century American clergyman, A.J. Muste, said something to this effect, trying to say that the means is the end—that the means of peace is the only way the goal of lasting peace is truly realized for a person and a community and a world. In some sense, he wanted to reorient people to know that there is a kind of being that is its own doing, that being peace is its own goal because…
“There is no way to peace.”
“Peace is the way.”

On this Palm Sunday, we have brought our palms to wave and to honor the coming of the one who rides on a donkey. Yet, it is important to remember that there was another parade entering Jerusalem from the west for it was the custom of Roman governors like Pontius Pilate to be in attendance for all major Jewish festivals like Passover. So, the Roman legion came, marching 60 miles from Pilate’s base at Caesarea on the Sea; grand horses, armored troops, colorful banners, swift chariots. Pilate came inland from his coastal home to watch over this gathering and to remind Jews that the so-called “Peace of Rome” was present in full military force so that even as Jews celebrated their ancient liberation from an empire, they would be reminded that there would be no such liberation from this empire.

According to Roman historian Tacitus, the Caledonian Chieftain Calgacus said of the peace that Rome brings, “They make a wasteland and call it peace.” This an attempt to force peace by nonpeaceful means. Yet, this morning, we say that…
“There is no way to peace.”
“Peace is the way.”

We say that peace is the way because in our readings this morning, we are called back again to the intention and practice of peace, where Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” This is the Palm Sunday parade of peacemaking that Jesus is leading, riding not on a war horse, but on a donkey. The Beatitudes are a part of the larger Sermon on the Mount where Matthew is evoking the image of Moses on Mount Sinai to bring attention to this Divine Wisdom that Jesus is sharing. As the plot of Matthew’s story tells of Jesus speaking to the disciples, Matthew is saying to the early church ‘this is what Jesus is speaking to us’. It can be said that the Beatitudes proclaim, in contrast to the way of Empire, the marks of the present and coming Realm of God and indicate what can and should be the marks of the church community: humility, grief at the present reality of empire, longing for justice and expression of mercy, heart-centered integrity, peacemaking. These marks describe the way of peace and affirm that…
“There is no way to peace.”
“Peace is the way.”

It was British author H.G. Wells who coined the phrase “the war to end war,” later commonly phrased as “the war to end all wars,” about World War I in 1914. Others joined in. More than one hundred years later, as we and many other nations are engaged in war, it would seem that so much of humanity is still convinced that one more war will bring peace—that marching into Jerusalem as Pilate did is the way to peace. And so many of us this afternoon will join with other Christians in a Palm Sunday procession to the state capitol where we will pray with our feet and our voices. We will again be joining the Jesus parade where we know that…
“There is no way to peace.”
“Peace is the way.”

In our multicultural and diverse religious world and nation, it may be helpful to know that there is a relevant Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture called the Holy Teaching of Vimalakīrti. In this text, Vimalakīrti is a layperson who offers teaching. In this short section, Vimalakīrti refers to bodhisattvas, those who have made a vow to serve the liberation of all beings. This text says,

During the short eons of swords,
They meditate on love,
Introducing to nonviolence
Hundreds of millions of living beings.

In the midst of great battles
They remain impartial to both sides;
For bodhisattvas of great strength
Delight in reconciliation of conflict. – (Holy Teaching of Vimalakīrti 8)

And the Buddhist text reminds us that Bodhisattvas, those who are truly living their Buddha nature for the benefit of all, delight in reconciliation of conflict. So, the sacred way is a way of peace that seeks reconciliation. Whether the Palm Sunday Way of Jesus or the Path of the Buddha…
“There is no way to peace.”
“Peace is the way.”

And though it sounds nice and peace-full, this way of peace is not often like eating chocolate cake or M&M’s. Jesus and Gandhi and A.J. Muste knew that. Mary Magdalene and Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King knew that. The path toward peace is not always strewn with peaceful palms because it calls us to face the forces of violence, the separating and dominating and fear-based forces that live out there and live in each one of us. The true jihad, as is spoken of in Islam, is the internal struggle to face and reconcile and heal these ‘dis-eased’ forces. There is bondage, fear, and alienation within us that leads to the troubles we see out in the world. Jesus went to the wilderness to face his demons and work out his inner peace. He kept going back to the mountains to pray to seek to be in that way of peace again and again. He did this so that in the midst of what was not peaceful, he could be peace, because he knew…
“There is no way to peace.”
“Peace is the way.”

The Way of Peace is not for the faint of heart. As we see in the stories of Jesus and hear in the Buddhist reading this morning, this way takes great strength. The way of peace takes great strength because it takes the strength to risk and to endure what is not peaceful around us, to encounter what is not peaceful within us. In her 1980s book A Feminist Ethic of Risk, former Harvard Divinity School professor Sharon Welch critiques the nuclear arms race as an excessive control project doomed to failure because in the interest of trying to control and eliminate all possibility of risk by building overwhelming numbers of nuclear weapons, we produce, ironically, the greatest risk of weapons damage that the world has ever known. The way of peace requires another kind of risk.

In his book on peacemaking and community, the late psychiatrist Scott Peck noted that the only way to get past the pseudo-community of just being nice, to get to true community, is by getting through a period of chaos and emptiness. We must risk facing what is not peaceful and reconciled within us to get to the reconciliation that leads to peace in us that allows us to walk in a peaceful way with others. It has to be this way because…
“There is no way to peace.”
“Peace is the way.”

And, to be clear, peace is more than just how we are feeling inside. The Hebrew word shalom, which we translate into English in Scripture as peace, is so much more than personal quiet. Shalom is a holistic and dynamic term referring to the life power of oneself and one’s community. It refers to the fertility of the land and animals, the life-producing force of place and people. Realizing shalom means that relationships are right with the land and the people. (The Lakota might call this wicosani.)

And to help this shalom, this state of peace, this Realm of God be fully realized, we are called to be peacemakers, to set our own intention and practice of peace, knowing that it takes great strength, requires us to risk, and invites us into a faithful daring dream—daring enough to walk into Jerusalem even as Pontius Pilate is marching in the other side of town.

As Holly Near sings in her song, “The Great Peace March”:

We will have peace, we will because we must
We must because we cherish life
And believe it or not, as daring as it may seem
It is not an empty dream

To walk in a powerful path
Neither the first nor the last great peace march
Life is a great and mighty march
Forever for love and for life on the great peace march

This great peace march is the Way of Jesus, the Christ Path by whatever name it appears. So, we are called now to stand for love and for life by recommitting to a path of peace from the inside out. I invite this because….
“There is no way to peace.”
“Peace is the way.”

AMEN