The Sixth Principle of Unitarian Universalism is the “goal of world community, with peace, liberty, and justice for all.” Many would say this is a preposterous idea with virtually no chance of happening.
But how could we ask for less? How do we rightfully say to ourselves that simply not being at war is the same thing as being at peace? It is not.
Being at peace is an action, not a state of neutrality. Peace is a platform for accomplishment. It does not simply put down its swords, it turns them into plowshares.
The medieval church is often vilified as backward and power-hungry, for it was. They appeared to be interested in nothing but selling the rights to heaven in order to pay for its own wealth and cathedrals large enough to contain it. Luther broke from the church exactly 500 years ago for that very reason.
But the medieval church was far more complex than just its failings. It also did some pretty groundbreaking peace work during a time when violence was the societal norm.
In the year 989, the church enacted a doctrine called Pax Dei, or, peace of God. Followed by the Truce of God 38 years later, these two doctrines sought to calm the violence of feuding which had become endemic throughout western Europe.
The Peace and Truce of God used the power of spiritual sanctions, in this instance not to squeeze money from the population, but to create pockets of peace and unity. Initially, it was enacted to protect church property, agriculture, and clergy, not surprisingly. But the result of it was the insertion of peace into otherwise war-torn lands.
By the 11th and 12th centuries, villages were growing up in the immediate vicinity of the churches in order to benefit from this compulsory peace.
This became a tradition that we now understand as Sanctuary. In the attempt to create pockets of peace in which the church could survive, it provided a safe haven for all those weary of violence.
The medieval church did not invent peace any more than it summarily eradicated war by its actions. Those continued to exist then as they do now.
But it was a grain of peaceful sand on an otherwise rocky shore. A light shining in the darkness. A light of community, safety, and sanctity that became embedded in the fabric of our culture.
The relative peace we enjoy today—and let’s be clear, the horrendous violence we see today has nothing on that of earlier times—is the legacy, in part, of those early actions by the ancient church to create small islands of relative security, community, and comfort upon which humanity is given the opportunity to thrive unhindered.
The Sixth Principle of a goal of world community seeks nothing less.
I do not believe that world peace is preposterous, even though I do not expect it in my lifetime. I recognize that our only goal should be to create an island in the midst of suffering. To welcome to its shores all those who are tired, poor, hungry, and lost. To reach out a hand into the sea and pull forth all who need safety and stability to thrive. To seek out those who need relationship in order to turn their trauma into healing, for not only themselves but all those who seek to build peaceful islands of their own.
A goal of world community is not a misplaced ideal, it is a path. A choice. To not only let there be peace on earth but to let it begin with me.
When we join together as a faith community, when we welcome into fellowship all those who seek comfort and belonging, we model the very nature of God. We model the very purpose of enlightened thinking. To know one another. To love one another. To serve. To teach. To empower. To heal. To illustrate that peace on earth is not a fantasy, it is an inevitability.
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