Ever since I can remember being a part of Christian worship, I have partaken in giving "the peace" to others and blessed in receiving it from many. The peace is not everyone's "cup of tea" - there are some who make sure they don't move from the security of their seat, and others who, at a moments notice are off around the worship space.
As a Church of England chorister (the photos do exist and are probably best kept in storage) I remember it distinctly as part of the Anglican Liturgy - all very formal then though. Oddly enough, I don't remember it in the United Reformed Church that I attended with my parents as a child, but it might have happened. I remember it in an exceptionally joyful moment of worship in my Uncle's Parish Church in Jersey, in the midst of the Eucharist, and Anglicans in that setting when they do the peace, seemed so joyful and intentional and not intense about it (kinda "take it or leave it) - lovely music too as folk greeted and blessed one another. Then I became a Christian in a Baptist Church, and the giving and receiving of the peace became so much more focused and intentional and, as I was to learn from my studies, was absolutely central to Baptist Worship and especially the sharing of Communion.
In the most recent Baptist service book, these are some of the delightful sentences:
'The Kingdom of God is justice and peace. Let us then pursue the things that make for peace."
More traditionally: ' Christ is our peace. He has reconciled us to God in one body by the cross. We meet in his name and share his peace.'
Or 'We are the body of Christ. In the one Spirit we were baptised into one body. Let us then pursue all that makes for peace and builds up our common life.'
I'm not sure we do the peace very well. It so often turns into a meet and greet and chat, and more often than not, we seem to go to the folk we know time and again, and the ones that we always get on with and have no issues over. Rarely, it would seem do folk push beyond their normal circle of close friends in the church.
Where does this highly significant part of our worship come from - have we made it up, seemingly like halftime in the middle of a sports match, where the oranges are brought on and the coach gets to chat? A natural moment in the worship to pause and breathe and be normal again? Or is it basically the repeat of the pre-service chat we had earlier?
Actually, the biblical and historical roots show something very different and extraordinarily rich. It shows us that its nothing to do with what personality type we are, but everything to do with intentional relationship. After all, there are some who dislike "the peace" with an "annoyance inexpressible" and blame it on their personality type - "I'm an introvert, I'm happy to watch from the side-lines!"
Actually, when we look at the scriptures, the New Testament leaves us with little wriggle-cringe space on this, because it's all to do with communion and all to do with relationships. Baptist Christians hold the Lord's Supper (aka Communion) as a very important fellowship meal where the living presence of Christ is recognised. That's seen in 1 Corinthians 11: 17-34, and specifically vs 18 where Paul accuses the Church at Corinth of taking communion whilst there are divisions among them, and in vs 27 he specifically warns them not to take communion in an unworthy manner - the result of which is to bring "sin against the body" - namely the church family. And vs 28 is the cruncher, where he says before taking communion, a person should examine themselves. The Church at Corinth had problems - lots of them. First, worship was chaotic and many just moved from their secular life in the community as if there was no difference. Some of them arrived in worship drunk and saw no difference between their secular lifestyles and following Christ. Second, some of the men visited the temple prostitutes and again thought that their new freedom in the Spirit gave them permission to do so. That's why communion and worship was a real problem. Paul has to crack the apostolic whip and come down hard on them. Well some of that's quite shocking and you might say "well, we don't do that!" But it's only half the story.
The early church took seriously the discipleship teaching by Jesus and specifically (in this context) Matthew 18 15-17 where Jesus addresses the issue of a brother/sister in the church family "sinning against you" and what to do. The steps for resolution are set out - go quietly 1:1 and resolve the matter, if not, take someone with you to help resolve the matter, and still if not resolved, take it to the church family (membership). This is where the importance of "The peace" in worship starts to make contextual and relational sense. It's quite challenging, and has nothing to do with half time, catching up on the news, nor a break for a breather, but everything to do with relationships. And in the context of the issues in the Church at Corinth, actually something that is really important to get right, and not an optional extra for the shy personalities.
There is, however, yet another level to consider, especially for Baptist Christians, which is that of covenant relationships. Belonging to a Baptist Church, aka "Church Membership" is essentially a Covenant Commitment. Our Baptist predecessors almost certainly didn't use the word "Membership", but they did use the word "Covenant". The Covenant was a beautiful set of promises that went way far further than a modern day constitution.
Here is a part of WBC's original covenant - in the historic book I have, it shows the original founders of the church that committed themselves to it.
