Madang Journal [Vol 7, June 2007]

Abstract

"The following is the Bible reflection that I have presented at the International Conference(June 17~20, 07) in Amman, Jordan. It was organized by WCC to launch the Ecumenical Forum on Palestine and Israel. The title was “Peace that Jesus Gives.”And the text was John 14:25~27. Jesus says “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”Some other versions read,“ Peace that I give is not the world gives.”Here we are in conversation with Jesus of Galilee who stands against the Roman Empire. Jesus rejects the Pax Romana. Peace that I give you is not the Pax that Roman Empire gives. At the same time and by implication Jesus rejects the peace of the Jewish religious establishment and nationalist movement, for it is not the order of life in which all peoples“, Jews and Gentiles”can participate. Furthermore, Jesus tells that the Spirit will kindle fresh vision of peace among his people and among us and that the Spirit will teach all dimensions of peace. In this conversation with Jesus of Galilee, the fresh vision of peace breaks in the present order of life. The Spirit will mediate the vision of peace among the people in a fresh way. Peace is nothing but the new garden of life, the creative order of new heaven and new earth in which the fullness of life will be realized, in which whole life of all people and all living beings is secure for conviviality in all its dimensions, in which the fiesta of life is celebrated among all peoples and among all living beings. This is the peace that Jesus gives to all living beings as well as to all peoples and nations. The peace of Jesus cannot be the Pax Americana, just as it cannot be the Pax Romana. It cannot be contructed by the geopolitical hegemony of the global empire. This is radically clear. There can be no true peace anywhere, derived from the reality of this world, dominated by the Pax Americana. This is true in the West Asia, in the Africa, in the South, Southeast and Northeast Asia and anywhere in the whole world. All peoples and all living beings are condemned to the PAX or rather to common destiny of “unpeace”that the world gives. All living beings are condemned to the fatal destiny of domination, violent suffering and wars. All peoples and all living beings are groaning together, and we hear the cry and groaning clearly among the peoples here in the West Asia. The Spirit participates in this cosmic groaning. In the midst of such groaning, suffering peoples in Philippines, in the Sri Lanka, in East Africa, in North Korea, East Africa and everywhere are aspiring the very peace that Jesus gives. In our spiritual eyes, there is a fresh and new convergence for the new peace that Jesus promises. We discern in many places dynamic aspirations of peoples in their own religious, cultural and philosophical wisdom. The Buddhist visions, the Islamic visions, the Hindu visions, the Confucian and the Taoist visions as well as popular cultural and secular philosophical visions are concertedly seeking to respond to the aspirations of all the people and all the living beings. We discern resolute movements of the people to build peace for full life in every corners of the world. In the mist of sufferings and aspirations of the peoples we discern a strange and mysterious convergence of visions, wisdoms and movements for a new and fresh vision of the great peace cosmic as well as local, national, regional and global. Jesus peace opens mysteriously a new horizon of peace in the midst of strange convergence of multiple and diverse visions of the people. The peace of Jesus intervenes into this age and into this world that the principalities and powers dominate in the name of Pax, whose real name is war and destruction. Let the Spirit open our eyes to see the emerging vision of peace. It is the ground of our hope for peace for fullness of life. Reading of the Bible in the biblical land and among the biblical people has a special dynamics. It has to detect the tendency of the Jewish and Christian ideology of Zionism and reject it, just as we do ideological reading of texts that are prone to the racism and the patriarchism. It has to reject the texts that are prone to ideology of Christendom and global empire. Furthermore, the reading of the Bible has to be radically“ kairos event” in which the text comes alive in the present reality of the life of all living beings and all peoples. There is an inner convergence of diverse Biblical historical visions of peace in the Bible as well as convergent interaction with the wisdom of the “gentile people.”In Asia this means a “kairos event”which contains a creative convergence of visions of the people in diverse religious, cultural, philosophical wisdoms. This requires “cross textual reading”of all different texts. This is entering into a mysterious process of convergent liberation of all living beings for fullness of life. The reading of the Bible in the Semitic world is an Asian conversation in Asian languages, cultures and religions. The Semitic world of the life has its richness in wisdom and its wholeness in the cosmic order of life. This dimension cannot be reduced to any rational discourse. This means that the vision of Jesus on peace for life is a construct of rational and reductionist calculation; but it is a holistic cosmos of all living beings."(PG 4-5)