The exciting on-campus employment news of this school year: I now work as a chapel assistant.
We all know my slight (read as: tremendous) obsession with worship, to the point of never missing a chapel service last year, so I think eventually the chapel office realized that I was always there and figured they’d hire me. It’s a great job, part altar guild, part usher. The chapel assistants are responsible for setting up the space (putting up hymn numbers, setting up the Bible, providing water for the preacher, preparing the communion elements and table on Fridays) and acting as ushers each day (greeting people, handing out bulletins, helping people find seats, attempting to close the door quietly when people come in later). We’re also kind of on call for whatever else needs to be done, so you might find us putting labels on water bottles or ironing choir robes or jumping in as liturgists if needed.
Today was the last day of classes, and chapel, before Thanksgiving break. Generally speaking, this is not a well-attended day of chapel (I remember there were only a few of us there last year). Many professors cancel classes and many students leave early for Thanksgiving. The plan was for the service today to be a Thanksgiving service of prayers and hymns as we move into the break.
But then the Ferguson verdict happened. And that service didn’t seem appropriate with so much of the seminary community mourning this decision, what it means for the world, and how it shows the state of racial affairs in the country. Knowing the despair of those within our own community whose hunger for justice is not abstract, but a constant battle, knowing the faces of those in our school who fear for their own safety and the safety of their families, a Thanksgiving service didn’t quite fit. So the chapel office was in contact and collaboration with the Association of Black Seminarians to shape a new service for today’s chapel time. It was an extremely powerful service that created the space for anger and lament to exist in a sacred space.
My job is a job of support, a job of making things happen so that others don’t have to worry about it, being calm and generally pleasant so that whoever is leading in worship feels loved and supported. It’s being a warm, welcoming presence for whoever steps through those doors. And that was the job today, with a bit more last-minute running around than usual, but when I took my place at the doors of the chapel to welcome people inside, I realized how different today was. This was the first time since I’ve been a chapel assistant, perhaps since I’ve been in seminary, that we’ve experienced an event with such gut wrenching consequences. An email had been sent around from the President’s Office inviting everyone to chapel at 11:30 for a time of prayer in response to the Ferguson verdict, so almost everyone stepping through those doors knew that was the focus of the service. They came in with it weighing on their minds, and I suddenly thought, “How do I even greet people?” My normal chipper “good morning” was certainly not appropriate. And as I settled into a more reserved, “Morning”, or “Hello” or “Welcome”, I had another thought:
How am I going to pass the peace?
It is our tradition at Princeton to end the service with the Passing of the Peace. For those of you who are unaware of this tradition, the Passing of the Peace is a time in the worship service where we greet one another in the peace and love of Christ. The traditional formula is that one person says, “The peace of Christ be with you,” (or “The peace of the Lord be with you”, or other slight variants) and the other person says, “And also with you.” This sometimes gets abbreviated to “peace be with you,” or “peace,” or sometimes merely a greeting (and of course people debate the theology of all of that). Where it is in the service varies, though it’s usually towards the beginning. My favorite place to put it is after the prayer of confession and the assurance of pardon, so that we greet each other in the spirit of forgiveness and grace. As a visitor you can learn a lot about a church’s community life by their Passing of the Peace. I’ve seen ones that are mostly formal handshakes of only the people in your immediate radius, and I’ve seen ones that last five minutes where everyone feels the need to hug every other person in the room.
I’ve never asked why we do the Passing of the Peace at the end of chapel services, but I’ve always imagined it’s because it’s important to help bring the community together (I don’t trust any church that doesn’t do the Passing of the Peace regularly), we don’t have time to do it in the middle of the service, and it helps the flow from the worship service to the fellowship of lunch. It’s gotten to the point that it’s such an ingrained tradition that services that don’t end with the Passing of the Peace officially (such as some evening services hosted by student groups) end up having an informal Passing of the Peace out of habit. We all stand around awkwardly unless someone starts passing the peace.
As a chapel assistant, part of my job is to stand at the door as people exit and shake hands, passing the peace.
And as I stood back there today, I thought, “How can I possibly pass the peace today?” As protest chants remind me, there can be no peace without justice, and the fact that we had to have a service like this today shows that we live in a world without justice. How could I even wish for peace today, when that word has become a guilt-tripping shorthand for “be quiet, don’t make a fuss”? Where is the place for wishing peace when perhaps we need anger to give us enough fire to take to the streets and raise our voices? How could I, a white person, blithely talk about peace to my friends who will never find peace in their lifetime because of how people like me have rigged the system against people like them? How could I wish peace to all of us gathered here while peace must be impossible for the family of Michael Brown? How could I pass the peace, on today of all days?
But also, how could I not?
There’s a line I particularly love that often shows up in benedictions, though its original source is Philippians 4:7. It’s wishing for “the peace of God which passes all understanding” to be with the people, keeping their hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of Christ. “Passes” is also translated as “transcends”, and looking at the Greek, the implication is that this peace is above, superior to all of our understanding. It goes beyond understanding. I love that phrase because it invokes images of a peace that comes in the midst of turmoils. A peace that is impossible. A peace not caused by any of our efforts, but by a God that comes in and stands with us in our anger and despair. A peace that does not erase what we feel but rather gives us the courage to use it. A peace that sustains us for one more day. A peace that strengthens us without numbing us. A peace that finds us when no other peace can even be glimpsed.
In a workshop he led at Westminster Choir College recently, Michael Hawn talked about the importance of the Assurance of Pardon, that it should never be rushed because the words “You are forgiven” might be the most important words some people hear all week. I agree—and I also think that, especially on days like today, someone might desperately need a prayer for that kind of transgressive peace.
How much of that was I able to convey in a handshake and a few words? I don’t know. I try to stay open and honest and vulnerable but that has never been my natural inclination (ask any of my speech teachers) and almost everyone finds it difficult to make sure each word comes alive when you’re repeating the same thing over and over again. There were more embraces than usual, though. I swear I hugged some people I’d never spoken to before. Sometimes that’s just what needs to happen. Many people stayed in the chapel after the service to pray, in mourning and in anger.
I have been angry. I am still angry. I have spent a lot of time with Psalm 44 in the last 24 hours, which yells at God for being asleep while God’s people die. I don’t particularly want to stop being angry because I don’t want to fall back into complacency, though I inevitably will, at some point. At a rally this evening here in Princeton I listened to impassioned speeches almost all of which carried the subtext of, “Please, don’t let this be another thing that we care about for a few weeks then let drop away.” I hear people talking about this being a catalyst for change, and perhaps I’m jaded but I see the holidays looming and our best intentions being lost in the busyness, at least for all of us privileged enough not to have to deal with our racial divides on a daily basis. I hate it. I hate that so many of us can pretend this doesn’t exist and come up with excuses to make ourselves believe that our silence is not contributing to the oppression of others.
But I wonder if that peace that goes beyond all our understanding to keep us in the knowledge and love of Christ can also keep us from that complacency. I wonder if that peace can truly be the peace of Christ, who flipped over tables in the temple in his anger over the economic injustices taking place there. Christ, who stopped the (legal) stoning of a woman. Christ, who challenged systems that seemed set in stone. Christ, who died so that all might live: that you might live, that I might live, that Michael Brown might live.
If it is truly Christ’s peace that we share, then I might find strength enough to hope that that peace will not deaden us but embolden us and infect us with His passion for human life and dignity. If it is truly Christ’s peace that enters us, I might be able to dream that we will all continue to rally and march and scream until something ACTUALLY changes. If it is truly Christ’s peace that we wish for each other, I might dare to believe that we might not be able to rest until we’ve taken up our crosses and our privilege and followed, even to the cop cars and the police station and the courthouse. I think we might see Christ through the tear gas.
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