Peace that Lures Us Forward - An Advent Series Reflection from Rev. Sarah Fiske-Phillips

When I was asked to write about peace, I thought it would be simple. It felt like a theme woven so deeply into my life that the words would rise to the surface. In elementary school, we began each day by reciting the Peace Builders Pledge: I am a Peace Builder; I pledge to praise people, to give up put-downs, to seek wise people, to notice and speak up about hurts I have caused, to right wrongs; I will build peace at home, at school, and in my community each day.

Later, in my years at Chapman University, majoring in Peace Studies, I explored the vastness of the concept, how peace lives on the global stage, how it unfolds in history and policy and movement-building, how it becomes the quiet work of people refusing to give up on one another. I lived and breathed peace for so long, it felt like something I should be able to define easily, as if all of this exposure would give me clarity.

And yet, the more I contemplate the word peace, the more ethereal it becomes. It is intimate and expansive, grounded and elusive. It encompasses everything from the ache we feel watching war unfold in Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine, to the deep yearning in our own chests for stillness, grounding, and wholeness. Peace stretches from the personal to the political, from the soul to the systems that shape our lives, and somehow it remains just out of reach…something I can feel but not fully name.

There’s a line in my favorite musical, Rent, that has always stayed with me: “The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation.” And maybe that is why peace feels so hard to define. Creation is never fixed; it is always emerging, reshaping, evolving. It grows toward the light, splits open, withers, regathers, begins again. If peace is a form of creation, then perhaps it is not something we arrive at but something we participate in…a living, moving process born of courage, truth, tenderness, and the mysterious pull of God’s transforming love.

Advent is, at its heart, a season of mysterious becoming. It invites us to keep watch on the horizon while refusing to miss the holiness unfolding right in front of us. It asks us to loosen our grip on what we think the future must look like so we can be awakened to what God is creating. Advent calls us to dwell in the in-between, the not-yet, and the already.

So perhaps peace, like Advent, is an invitation rather than a destination. An invitation to create space within ourselves for God’s grounding presence. An invitation to create connection with one another, even, and maybe especially, across difference and fear. An invitation to create justice and compassion in a world that desperately needs both. Peace is creation…ongoing, unfinished, sacred. May this Advent find us awake to that creation, willing to be shaped by it, and courageous enough to take our place in its unfolding.

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Rev. Sarah Fiske-Phillips serves as Co-Senior Minister of Live Oak United Church of Christ in Brea, CA. The great-granddaughter and granddaughter of Disciples ministers, she hopes to carry their legacy forward through justice-centered ministry. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Ministry at Pacific School of Religion, supported by Disciples Seminary Foundation, deepening her call to pastoral care and nurturing vibrant, connected communities.