"Why We Worship: The Kiss of Peace" - Sermon for Ash Wednesday

Why We Worship: The Kiss of Peace
Ash Wednesday/Midweek Lent
March 6, 2019
Grace, Mankato, MN
1 Thessalonians 5.12-26; Matthew 18.1-9

Do you remember your first kiss? I don’t mean the slobbery kisses from mom and dad nor do I mean the stifling ones from Aunt Sally or Grandma Johnson. I mean your first real, intimate kiss, the kind that produced tingly anticipation and butterflies in your stomach. I think first kiss was supposed to be with Debbie, a neighborhood girl who lived a block over from me. Somehow we’d arranged that I’d go to her house and we’d “make out.” Now, because I was in the fifth or sixth grade I’m pretty sure we didn’t know what making out really meant, but I was pretty sure I did know it involved kissing. It turns out her invitation was something of a setup. The neighbor kids had been invited to hide behind the couch and watch. The embarrassment and disappointment I felt shows the depth of importance that kissing has in our relationships. One has to become vulnerable to kiss and vulnerability is risky.

Interestingly, kissing was a hot topic in the early church, primarily involving the holy kiss of peace. The apostle Paul tells the Thessalonians to greet each other with a holy kiss, and they aren’t the only ones he instructs. It turns out that the kiss of peace was practiced in several parts of the early church liturgy, so it must have been significant. Even so, it seems there is some question about what the kiss actually meant in worship and why it was practiced. And it probably comes as no surprise that apparently there were some folk who enjoyed it too much and got into it a bit too fervently. You see, the church practice of sharing the peace mirrored the secular practice of greeting: full on the lips whether you were male or female.

There were also some interesting ways to share the holy kiss of peace, but clearly it has evolved since then. For example, one person would place their hands on the other person’s shoulders while the recipient of the peace clasped your elbows in return. These days, although some people offer a peck here and there, mostly we shake hands (or fist bump if we are concerned about spreading germs.)

This Lent we are exploring the topic of why we worship. We are looking at the different parts of the worship service and plumbing the depths of ritual to have better understanding of what we do and why we do it. On Ash Wednesday, a day we don’t normally share the peace, we discover why it’s a good thing we should do so.

The most obvious reason for the sharing of the peace is that it is a vehicle of forgiveness. Usually placed before the meal, which includes the offering, the sharing of the peace is a reminder that we are not to approach the altar if there is anything standing between us and our brothers and sisters. Through the sharing of the peace—still an intimate action without kissing—we would be reconciled to one another just as we have been or about to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. Even so, the peace is not only a sign of forgiveness, but is an opportunity to reflect on the importance of reconciliation. We are reminded to make peace with someone if we haven’t already.

There’s more. For the early church—and for now—there is also an important communal aspect to the peace, really at its very heart. The kiss of peace served to bind the new Christian community together in crucial ways that couldn’t be done otherwise. Individual grievances had communal implications because fractured relationships threatened to split the community. So the kiss of peace bound them together and helped guard against divisions. Furthermore, the sharing of the peace was egalitarian in nature: whatever social, economic or cultural differences there were, though they didn’t disappear, were greatly smoothed over through the equality of love. Slaves greeted free, woman greeted men, poor greeted rich and so on. The result was that the kiss of peace among societal unequal persons became counter-cultural. The church was different.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and a time of reflection and renewal in our life of faith. It’s the beginning of our journey with Jesus on the road to his suffering, crucifixion, death and ultimately the empty tomb. The ashes are a reminder of our mortality, our brokenness, and a sign of repentance, but they also cleanse us. Tonight, I invite you to reflect on God’s desire to reconcile you to him and to others. I invite you to ponder the power of the practice of peace to bring about restoration, even if you don’t feel it or see it immediately. You see, for it doesn’t really depend on you but rather on God working through you. You don’t have to kiss and nobody’s watching, but you know what you will be about. Peace be with you. Amen.