Perfect Peace

How the Unitarian Universalist Sermon Sign this Week is Wrong

One of my daily pleasures is driving down a meandering, tree-lined road through my neighborhood before I get to the ugly desolation of the ubiquitous strip that afflicts every American town. On this road, in the shadow of Ascension Health (it used to be called a hospital but that’s so déclassé), squats the local Unitarian Universalist church.

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

They do not appear to be a large conregation, though the building, during the era of covid, was completely redone, but they are full of civic vigor. For example, through the month of pride, they cheerfully fly all the sexuality flags individually, instead of being content to have them jumbled together on one meager scrap of fabric. They also generally vaunt an enormous BLM flag and a bright yellow banner that just says “Love.” The cherry on top of their extravagant signals of virtue is that they always entice passersby with upcoming sermon titles on their sign. The best one of all time said

Lesson of the Loons

I treasured that for weeks and sometimes pray that they will put it back. I lament that I never heard that sermon. I hope someday I will happen upon it online somewhere. This week is worthy of a whole post, though, because it is the declaration of one of my pet peeves. I haven’t been able to get a picture because I’m always behind the wheel and that would be a danger both to me and everyone else on the road, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. The sign says

True Peace is the Presence of Justice

It’s only Wednesday but I have now driven past it six times and each time I’ve wanted to stop my car, trundle across their lawn, open the glass (in a polite but Karen-esque manner), and replace the word “Justice” with almost anything else—if I could cobble letters together from my own church, or maybe print and laminate them myself. “Mercy” would be a good one, or “Christ,” or “Charity,” or, as their own banner proclaims, “Love.”

Since I can’t do that without getting in trouble—something I would die to avoid—as a treat to myself and to you, I would just like to complain for a few minutes about the modern conception of “Justice” and compare it with what I think the Bible has to say. Lest you think the subject is irrelevant, let me remind you that there are wars and rumors of wars going on all over the world, but especially in the place where, in the words of Joan Osborne, God was one of us, though not as a slob or on a bus but rather as one who accomplished true peace by the blood of his cross.