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Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
“I’m over feeling ‘less than,’”
Shalom. The Hebrew word often translated as “peace” in the Bible, shalom is God’s dream for the world as it should be: whole, vibrant, flourishing, unified, and yes, at peace. Shalom is God’s dream for his love to bring wholeness and goodness to the world and everything within it, including you and me.
Shalom is a “persistent vision of joy, well-being, harmony, and prosperity,” writes theologian Walter Brueggemann, a vision with “many dimensions and subtle nuances: love, loyalty, grace, salvation, justice, blessing, righteousness.” Shalom is “the freight of a dream of God that resists all our tendencies to division, hostility, fear, drivenness, and misery.”
Shalom is the presence of the goodness of God. It’s the presence of wholeness, completeness.”
But, you may ask, isn’t peacemaking about impressive, large-scale conflict resolution and fixing the world’s problems? Sure, I guess. But let me ask you this: If you are not at peace first—if your definition of peacemaking is dependent on others’ needs being met first—is it really peacemaking, or is it hustling for your worthiness? Let’s consider the dreams God dreams for us: that we be women who love wholeheartedly because we were first wholly loved by a good God.
My prayer for you as you read Shalom Sistas is that you’ll know that you are uniquely gifted to create wholeness and goodness right where you are. You don’t have to have the job or the disposition of a peacemaker. You just need to have the desire to see God’s radical peace invade every ordinary corner of your life. Let us be women who seek peace because it’s part of our spiritual inheritance as daughters of God, not because it may give us the thrill of self-righteousness. Let us be ambassadors of the kingdom, anthropologists of its transformative ways. Let us be champions for justice, wise
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Jesus was not only on a mission to bring comfort to a suffering world; Jesus was revealing that the culture of his kingdom stood in a stark contrast to the kingdom of the world, which often facilitates that very suffering.
That first Palm Sunday, Jesus wasn’t the only person leading a procession into Jerusalem. There was another one coming from the opposite side of the city. Pontius Pilate entered Jerusalem from his home in Caesarea. His procession was in the Roman style—complete with a terrifying display of Rome’s military might. Pilate was perched atop a majestic stallion, and he had all the trappings of Roman wealth and prestige. His procession was a proclamation of his and Rome’s superiority.
Jesus was crucified not because he was a nerdy theologian who annoyed the campus bully. He was crucified because he was a radical who was mobilizing people to question, engage, and hold earthly empires accountable for their violence.
But being a follower of Jesus requires us to look at the whole of his life: his birth, his childhood (as much as we know of it), his ministry, how he spoke to people, where he ate, where he rested, and where he performed miracles. Being a follower of Jesus means embracing a blessing found in the Mishnah, a Jewish commentary: “May you be covered in the dust of your Rabbi.”
He, being fully God and fully human, could do what none of us could: show us how to live the culture of the kingdom of God here on the earth.
Jesus said, “Follow me.” We are to follow his example because he is the way of healing and wholeness for the world. He is the only agent of true peace, shalom, for people then and for us today.
Sarah Bessey writes of our calling as shalom seekers so beautifully in Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith. In the Kingdom of God, we join with God in co-creation, in the work of the new earth. We love and we follow Jesus. We shape our lives into His life, to live here on earth as He would live among us. We weren’t called to follow political parties or ideology, nationalism, consumerism, or power. Instead, we were called to apprentice ourselves to Jesus’ way of life. We were called to be part of establishing the Kingdom of God here and now in our walking-around lives. Partnering
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I shared about our work in the city, but I also wrote a letter to my sisters in the suburbs, asking forgiveness for the ways they’ve felt alienated by urban do-gooders who suggest that anyone who doesn’t live in the city isn’t truly faithful. I told them that geography is not a reliable indicator of fidelity. I could almost feel the pressure gauge of “I’m not enough” release, both for them and for me.
“Being a Christian feels less like a to-do list of righteousness and more of a to-be posture of relationship. I want to be open to his feeding and present for his gathering. I want to be accepting of his gentle leading and willing to be carried.”
The manifesto is also a list of the ways that the city of earth has broken my heart and the ways that the city of God has healed it.
Lisa Sharon Harper calls concentric circles of relationships. “God’s intent for the world is that all aspects of creation would live in forcefully good relationships with one another,”
1. Our hearts break when we believe God is displeased or angry with us. When our picture of God is anything but loving, good, and just, we’re in danger of never truly finding wholeness in him. But in the kingdom of God, we look to Jesus for our clearest picture of God. So we are invited to love and be loved. 2. Our hearts break when we believe that we are not wanted and that we have no place in the world. But in the kingdom of God, we remain in God’s love. So we are beloved. 3. Our hearts break when we feel that we are not enough so we believe in scarcity. But in the kingdom of God, there is
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The second area of seeking shalom is in my relationship with myself. 4. Our hearts break when we feel that our bodies and skin are unwanted, unlovely, or liabilities in this world. But in the kingdom of God, we know that God breathed his very image into humanity, which means every single person is an image-bearer of a beautiful God. So we will see the beauty. 5. Our hearts break when we tie our value to our production and run ourselves ragged in order to accomplish and gain more. But in the kingdom of God, rest and work have equal value; the economy of God is measured by love and trust, not
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8. Our hearts break when we give in to pride. When we’re so aware of our gifts, so confident in the ways we can help, so eager to show off how amazing we truly are, we forget that we do not have to grapple for worth. But in the kingdom of God, the first are last and the last are made first—like Jesus, who “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:6-7). So we will serve before we speak. 9. Our hearts break when we give in to our fears that keep
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broken, are most in need, are most vulnerable to the oppression of the world. So we will show up, say something, and be still. 12. Our hearts break when we see violence of any type—violent speech, violent actions, violent retaliation and self-preservation. But in the kingdom of God, we beat our swords into plowshares and refuse to use violence of any kind to achieve peac...
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1: We are invited. 2: We are beloved. 3: We are enough. 4: We will see the beauty. 5: We will rest. 6: We will choose subversive joy. 7: We will tell better stories. 8: We will serve before we speak. 9: We will build bridges, not walls. 10: We will choose ordinary acts of peace. 11: We will show up, say something, and be still. 12: We will be peacemakers, not peacekeepers.
Theologian N. T. Wright puts it like this in an interview: “If you want to know who God is, look at Jesus. If you want to know what it means to be human, look at Jesus. If you want to know what love is, look at Jesus. If you want to know what grief is, look at Jesus. And go on looking until you’re not just a spectator, but you’re actually part of the drama which has him as the central character.”
Hebrews 1 was asking me to focus on Jesus, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for all that came with it. As a Shalom Sista, it’s easy for me to say, “It’s all about Jesus,” but what does that mean, exactly? It’s easy to be intimidated when you look at the bigness of our Savior: Jesus with his extravagant love, his reckless pursuit for justice, his staggering intelligence, his foolish bravery, his wisdom that confounds us all. In fact, God’s extraordinary act of love—a deity taking on ordinary humanity for us—could be just as intimidating a picture of God as an exacting and angry tyrant.
As I caught my breath, the Holy Spirit reminded me of a time where I was sure God was good, loving, and kind.
We are invited into the circle dance of God’s love, which transforms our hearts and brings our wholeness.
This was the nexus of my shame and perfectionism. This is the problem with being a peacemaker before you yourself are whole: you absorb pain and release heartache.
Sweet Sista, what words have you attached to your soul that try to limit your identity and force you to live with shame? What are the things you tell yourself that you would never say to your worst enemy? When you look at yourself in the mirror, who do you say that you are? Our hearts break when we believe we are not wanted and have no place in this world. In the kingdom of God, we remain in God’s love. We are beloved. It would be a long time until I learned this.
Paul was walking around Athens one time when he noticed that the Athenians were earnest in their faith but were misguided by the lure of perfectionism. They wanted to get the whole “religion” thing right, so they built idols to every single god—even to one called an unknown god. I imagine the residents looking around and thinking, “Let’s just cover all our bases so that when the time comes, we can say, ‘We were competent, faithful, and wise. We did not make a single mistake.’”
“In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), Paul told them, borrowing the words of Epimenides, a popular philosopher-poet. In whom do you, Sista, live and move and have your being? Whom do you let define you? Who calls you their own?
There are no hustle buses in the kingdom of God. Righteousness is standing tall because we are already right. Already accepted. Already loved and valued just because we exist. Belovedness requires a vulnerability that says “I am worthy because I am.” Nothing more. Nothing else.
As we celebrate her belovedness, we remember ours.
In her poem “Difficult Names,” poet Warsan Shire says to give your daughters difficult names, for in those names their characters are refined and their instincts will be honed. This is true.
Beloved and Enough are two sides of the same coin of identity. One faces God: “I know you call me Beloved.” The other faces the world: “God calls me Beloved, so I am Enough.”
We are baptized as Beloved on the mountaintop, and Enough is what we take down into the valleys. These names work in tandem to create our wholeness.
It’s quite possible that we who are saturated with stuff and ideas and opportunities need to read this story and be amazed at the confidence of Jesus in a scarce place. Jesus overcame the scarcity thinking of “I’m not enough” by trusting in the abundance of the kingdom of God.
Two spiritual names flesh out our kingdom identity. God calls us Beloved; therefore, we are Enough.
Instead of getting into a legalistic debate with the Pharisees (because religious people love to get lost in the weeds of knowledge), Jesus’ response was to tap into their sense of compassion to an animal—a sheep that has fallen into a pit—to expose their misguided efforts.
This counters the narrative that Sabbath keeping is only for the comfortable or wealthy—two-income families or those with more than they need. If we identify that others cannot themselves practice Sabbath because of constraints like poverty, then as shalom seekers, we look to facilitate opportunities for them to rest.
Yes, that’s right. Helping others find rest is just something Shalom Sistas, ambassadors of Christ’s mercy and goodness, do.
I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed. —Mary Oliver
Shalom Sistas are women who are deeply in touch with our compassion for everyone, which makes us particularly vulnerable to despair and hopelessness.
The Swamps of Sadness are where all the despair of Fantasia rests. Fantasia itself is a glorious place, but the swamps are where the brokenness lives. They are also the home of Morla the Ancient One, who knows how to stop the Nothing. To become the warrior he needs to be in order to truly champion Fantasia, Atreyu must walk through the swamps and not let the sadness overtake him.
There’s something we can learn from Atreyu and Artax, though. Sadness is not something we can avoid. To be the warriors our brokenhearted world needs, we must allow ourselves to feel sadness, deeply. But we must not sink too deeply into that sadness. We need to practice subversive joy: a joy that resists despair.
My favorite description of joy comes from theologian Willie James Jennings. “Joy is an act of resistance against despair. . . . [Joy] resists despair and all the ways that despair wants to drive us toward death,” Jennings said in an interview. “Death in this regard is not simply the end of life, but it’s death and all its signatures—death, violence, war, debt, all the ways in which life can be strangled.”
Instead of singing along to our song, the world will always tell us, “You should be ashamed! Look at all the suffering! How can you find joy?” Even so, a Shalom Sista chooses joy as an act of resistance against despair.
The Girl Guides of Weihsien knew the power of song too. Mary Previte, a survivor of Camp Weihsien, was just a little girl when she became a Girl Guide in the concentration camp. In an interview at the age of eighty-two, after recounting the horrors of bayonet drills, electrified wires, and guard dogs, she said that singing her song of joy in a strange land is what saved her. “We were constantly putting things into music,” she said. Often, there was a little bit of a twist of fun to it. . . . One of the things that we sang when the Japanese were marching us into concentration camp was the first
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Jesuit priest James Martin writes that joy “does not ignore pain in the world, in another’s life, or in one’s own life. . . . Rather, it goes deeper, seeing confidence in God—and for Christians, in Jesus Christ—as the reason for joy and a constant source of joy.”
I’ve often wondered, at what point does another person become my enemy? When she flips me off? When she approaches my car? When she embarrasses me in front of my babies? According to Jesus, people are never our enemies. A Shalom Sista knows this, and so when people hurt her, she will tell better stories.
