• It’s official. The death toll of American military in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has now topped the number of people killed on Septtember 11. The wars born out of a response to terrorism have now produced more deaths than the terrorist attack itself. And that doesn’t even take into account the estimated 6,600 Iraqi civilians who died in July and August alone. Clearly, peace is not yet.
• In other headlines, the Sudanese government is once again accused of sending military aircraft to bomb villages in Northern Darfur in a continuing conflict that has already killed some 400,000 people over the last 3 years and displaced some 2 million more who are now living in refugee camps.
• And in a vivid symbol that peace in the holy land continues to remain an elusive image to grasp, the democratically elected Hamas government in Palestine has rejected a coalition government because it would effectively accept Israel’s right to exist. Clearly, peace in our world is not yet peace in our time.

• When you read these headlines, day after day, without ceasing, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. The problems are massive, the issues are complex, and the decisions seem to be out of our hands. What can one person do after all? What can I do? Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” but how do I make peace between the Sunnis and the Shiites? James wrote, “A harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.” But how do I sow peace in Darfur, or Palestine, or in the other countries whose tragedies have not yet made the headlines? What do these words mean for me, for you, here in this place, safe in our sanctuary, so far from the action. What can one person do?
• It’s not a new question. Lao Tzu, the father of Taoism who lived in the 5 th century B.C. is credited with this saying:

If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.

If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.

If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.

If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.

1. 2000 years later, Mahatma Gandhi echoed the sentiment when he said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” And then he lived out this truth in his life.
2. Last week I attended a 5-day Interim Ministry training in New York. We spent a lot of time talking about Systems Theory and how it applies to our ministry. Systems theory understands all of life as connected and how one part of the system behaves affects the rest of the system. As individuals, our bodies are systems, made up of systems. As we interact in the congregation, the congregation is a system. And how the congregations interact with each other and with our neighborhoods and with our wider communities, all of those systems are affected by how the individual pieces behave in the system. The bottom line in systems thinking is simply this: We can’t control the behavior of other parts of the system; we can only control our own behavior. But, when I change the ways that I behave in the system, it will inevitably change the system as a whole. So change can begin with me.
3. That kind of thinking leads to a new twist on the Serenity prayer. It says: “God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it’s me.” Where does peace begin? It begins with me.

• So what if, what if I changed my behavior? What is I resolved to be the change I wish to see, and began to sow seeds of peace in myself and in my family, and in my church?
• And just suppose that each of us made that commitment in our own lives, and then committed to work together in this place to sow seeds of peace in our community.
• And then, what if congregations joined together to witness for peace in ways that others noticed, like we did this week in the ecumenical parish. On Thursday, 7 congregations and 2 campus Christian groups joined together for a 24-hour prayer vigil. On Thursday evening some of you joined me for our 2-hour piece of the Vigil. Shortly before 7 p.m. we received the peace pole from Vineyard Christian Fellowship. Now this is a congregation we don’t know well. We’ve not interacted much with and I suspect if we were to talk theology we wouldn’t agree on lots of things. But as they brought the peace pole and the light of Christ and banners proclaiming peace into our chapel, and as we exchanged hugs and handshakes and whispered “The peace of Christ be with you…” we sowed the seeds of peace. 2 hours later, we engaged in a similar ritual in the chapel of University Lutheran as we passed the peace pole to that congregation, and the witness of peace continued.
• But just suppose it didn’t stop there. Suppose that circle continued to spread and more congregations got involved. And more faith groups joined the circle, Jews and Christians, and Muslims, and Bahai, and Buddhists, and Hindus, and Native American religions, all standing shoulder-to-shoulder acting for peace.
• And suppose our voices, individual voices, were raised as one voice, and our actions, individually started, were collectively raised in acts of peace, what change might we see? What could be the result?

• Jesus often spoke in parables. So I share a parable with you this morning.

"Tell me the weight of a snowflake," a cola-mouse asked a wild dove.

"Nothing more than nothing," was the answer.

"In that case, I must tell you a marvelous story," the coal-mouse said.

"I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow-not heavily, not in a raging blizzard-no, just like a dream, without a sound and without any violence. Since I did not have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the 3,741,953rd dropped onto the branch, nothing more than nothing, as you say-the branch broke off."

Having said that, the coal-mouse flew away.

The dove, since Noah's time an authority on the matter, thought about the story for a while, and finally said to herself, "Perhaps there is only one person's voice lacking for peace to come to the world."

Those who have ears let them hear. Amen.