Ryan Weaver

storyteller//gospelplanter

.: a Legacy among the Living…

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The Scriptures teach that when followers of King Jesus die our soul is present with him. We don’t get wings, and we don’t become angels. We are no longer messy and broken and stained.

When we die, we don’t need bags of medicine to fight an invasion of cancerous death.

The Scriptures teach that when we die, followers of King Jesus won’t need to worry about tomorrow or today or forevermore. We won’t need to weep and mourn.

The Scriptures teach that when followers of King Jesus die then, our story lives on as a narrative wrapped in the grace and love of Yahweh.

I’m honored to celebrate the life and death of my father this week. And I am so grateful that his pain has ended, and these bags of medicine are no longer needed to sustain his life. Dad isn’t here any longer.

The man, Kevin Von Weaver, has left his legacy among the living.

After 8 years of battling multiple myeloma, my Dad is resting in peace because of the victory of Jesus the King.

Death has no victory in this life remembered.

.: peace in the city…

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Peace. We pray for peace in the city. We work for peace in the city.

The media news outlets keep reminding us that Baltimore City is in a state of “uneasy peace”. Even with the most-recent news, the delicate balance of peace between many individuals and agencies is the responsibility of the collective. There is no party more responsible for peace than another. In the ecosystem of the city… peace is the responsibility of all citizens, elected officials, law enforcement, governmental agencies, non-profit organizations, and faith-based churches. But this tension of peace is not only present in Baltimore City. This delicate balance is present in my city… and yours as well.

Peace-seeking is rooted in the personal, familial, and communal.

Working for peace begins in our personal lives, in our own families, and among our neighbors in our own community. Working for peace and doing justice for strangers in another city while ignoring the peace-work and justice-needs in our own neighborhood is a level of hypocrisy that will undermine even the most beautiful peace and justice efforts. If we are breathing, we must carry peace to ourselves. If we are fathers and mothers, we must carry peace to our children. If we are children, we must carry peace to our mothers and fathers. If we are married, we must carry peace to our spouse. If we are brothers and sisters, we must carry peace to our siblings. The work of peace will extend from these relationships to our neighbors… and then to our co-workers… and then our community… and then our city… and then the neighboring cities in our region. Because the work of peace and justice is LOCAL.

The work of peace is relational.

This relational nature of peace is the reason why workers for peace must mainitain a sustained attention to the personal, familial, and communal. We must recognize the tension, and name it. We must give the tension it’s due diligence. We must give it room to shape and mold us, our families, and our communities while we seek peace in the tension. I have written and spoken previously about the true context of peace in tension.

Peace is experienced in the midst of the storm… in the midst of the tension… while our anticipations and anxieties rage… while suffering and pain and death are striving to be the climax of our story.

Peace is NOT the absence of tension and striving. Peace is NOT the calm and the rest that we so often imagine in connection to our peace-thinking and peace-speaking and peace-working. Peace is NOT experienced as a contrast to anxiety and suffering. Instead peace should be viewed in the context of the “in between” nature of life… and the “in between” nature of justice. Peace is a place of exemption from the havoc of war, oppression, rage, and injustice in the midst of the tension that this havoc has created.

Peace is HARMONY with HOPE in the midst of the tension.

Peace is SECURITY in HOPE while the tension is creating havoc.

In the Scriptures, Jesus the King spoke of peace in the city. He looked over the skyline of Jerusalem with mourning and spoke of the eirene that he desperately desired for the city. Jesus lived in the tension, and promised a peace that would prevail in the city through the pathway of relationship.

In the Scriptures, the Prophets of old reminded the nation of Israel in exile that the work of peace is her responsibility. Israel was scattered through the surrounding nations and tribes and cultures… but the work of peace and justice was not the work of others alone. The challenge to be carriers of peace, reconciliation, and hope is also extended to us. We are intended to carry the GOOD and the HOPE to each and every city.
  

Doing GOOD in the city requires an acknowledgement of DIGNITY in relationship.

This is the hard work of peace in the midst of tension.

This is the necessary work of peace in the city.

Every life is valuable. Every life matters.

.: Justice between…

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Someone said it this weekend in one of my social media feeds::

Baltimore:: the world is watching.

After yesterday, I am now confident this statement is true.

My family watched the reports from the streets of Baltimore throughout the day on April 27th. When the time came to close our day together, instead of our normal time of stories and prayers, we turned on the live news coverage… allowing the violent footage to fill our home… allowing the hopeless madness to invade our thoughts… allowing the chaos to move our emotions… allowing the tension to fill our eyes with tears.

As we watched the community center on the Eastside of Baltimore burn, and the emergency responders work, and the bystanders move about, and the reporters speak… we allowed these images to fuel our compassion and shape our prayers.

These are not the times to shield our children from the effects of delayed justice and prolonged hopelessness. These are not the moments when we turn our attention to a meaningless diversion. These are not the days when we seek the pleasantries of distraction. These are not the seasons when fear and destruction should go unseen and unnoticed. This is the time for the work of peace. 

This is the time to engage injustice and hopelessness with the power of love… first in our homes, then in our streets.

Yesterday, in my morning prayers, the closing words centered upon the seeds of peace::

We profess to be people of peace, Lord, but keep us from the temptation to proclaim peace when there is no peace. Show us today where peace is most needed in our community and in our world. Show us which of us must plant the seeds of peace, which of us must water them, and which of us must yet become gardeners of your peace. Amen.
+ April 27 (commonprayer.net)

I love Baltimore. Not just for the architecture and history. Not just for my memories as a traveler. Not just for the proximity to the city I love. And not just so that anyone else may see me saying this.

I love Baltimore because there are men and women engaged in the work of peace and justice in those very streets. These are men and women who love Baltimore. These are doers of justice among the poor, the overlooked, the powerless.

The work of peace is not without painful wages.

Joining the hopeless will always come with a cost.

 
I do not pretend to know the path to justice for all in the streets of Baltimore, but I will not hesitate to express my dedication to pray for those who are doing the costly work of peace, and to anticipate the culmination of this work. I will wait to see how my family and I may provide support, and in the meantime I will not step back from seeking justice in my own city alongside those who are working for peace in this sacred place.

These are not the times to judge from the distance between. These are not the times to take sides between. May we be quick to remember that justice exists in the space between.

These are the times to seek the justice between. 

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