When I did some studying in August with my colleague Julia Wharff Piermont, Sr. Minister at Worthington Presbyterian Church, she shared with me about Nov. 11, 2018, being the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day. She also shared some resources with me this week as I prepared the sermon, although I think our sermons were in different directions. In fairness, my own sermon went in a different direction as I worked through the texts and reflected on war and peace from a theological perspective.
I love the sermon snippet from Rabbi Lewis. When I first read it several years ago, I thought I would use it one day when preaching on the singing of Miriam's song after the crossing fo the Red Sea, but it seemed to fit well with where this week's sermon. Originally, I had a third point discussing what we can do as Christians in pursuit of peace, but I had plenty of sermon before getting to the third point, so I cut that in my Sunday morning run through.
As I finished the sermon, I found myself feeling really wiped out physically. I found preaching about the deaths and casualties from WWI, realizing that we are still a world at war, and struggling with how to reflect on that from a theological perspective took a toll on me that most sermons do not.
For me, the tolling of the bells added to the sermon, as did having a baptism as part of the worship.
I wrote a paper in an Ethics class in seminary about just war criteria. We do not hear much about it from the church or the military (at least I don't) in our public conversations these days. I'm not sure if it is because just war criteria is no longer considered valid, or if no one asks the question because no one wants the answer!
“Just War” November 11, 2018, SAPC, Exodus 14: 10-30; Romans 12: 9-21; Denton; Richard B. Culp
10 As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the Lord. 11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” 13 But Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”
15 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to go forward. 16 But you lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the Israelites may go into the sea on dry ground. 17 Then I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them; and so I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army, his chariots, and his chariot drivers. 18 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gained glory for myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his chariot drivers.”
19 The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. 20 It came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel. And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night; one did not come near the other all night.
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. 22 The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. 23 The Egyptians pursued, and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot drivers. 24 At the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and cloud looked down upon the Egyptian army, and threw the Egyptian army into panic. 25 He clogged[a] their chariot wheels so that they turned with difficulty. The Egyptians said, “Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”
26 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers.” 27 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. 28 The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. 29 But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.
30 Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.
Ring bell three times.
introduction: At 11:00 am local time, on the 11th day of the 11th month, churches around the country are asked to toll their bells 21 times to commemorate Armistice Day because today is the 100th anniversary of the armistice to cease hostilities on the Western Front of World War I,
the cessation took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918.
We will hear the bell toll 21 times through the sermon in and around 11:00 our time.
Bell tolls three times
Move 1: What do we make of war
a. Armistice day marks the cease of hostilities in what was then known as the War to End all Wars.
1. Later that war became known as WWIWorld War I when it turned out not to be the war to end all wars.
1. A brutal, deadly war that introduce weapons like submarines, machine guns, poison gas, grenades, tanks, airplanes, and more -- have become part of our arsenals, as did airpower and strategic bombing (https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/08/opinions/world-war-one-first-total-war-ben-ghiat/index.html)
3. 116,516 Americans died and over 200,000 were wounded.
The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I are estimated from from 15 to 19 million deaths and about 23 million wounded military personnel, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties)
4. War started with miscommunication; broken relationships; intrigue; assassination.
3. The war ended and another war was almost immediately on the horizon.
4. We may not have more wars now, but I would guess we know more about wars than ever before.
5. Tactics and weapons change; but we cannot move beyond wars.
ring the bell three times
b. .Sounds a bit like the Israelites in Exodus.
1. Remember the irony of the Israelites situation - they are in Egypt in the first place because Jospeh has brought them to Egypt to save them from starvation.
2. But times and loyalties shift.
3. Pharaoh and Moses, God’s appointed leader cannot seem to communicate
4. Plagues rain down on Egyptians; death visits.
5. Israelites allowed to leave, but then find themselves in a race to escape, literally a race to save themsevles.
6. but are not going to make it. The powerful Egyptian army with its chariots (superior weapons can win a war)
7. Climactic scene - God parts the Red Sea; the Israelites cross over; then the walls of water act as allies for the Israelites and drown out the Egyptian army.
7. the enemy is defeated; Israel is saved; peace will reign;
8. or maybe not. the time in the wilderness and in the Promised Land will prove to be a time with war after war.
b. Presence of war shapes our perception of God and of humanity.
1. some argue that the ongoing presence of war in our world, the violence and brutality, are signs that there is no god, just a human race that only knows war and power struggles.
2. Others look at war and see the sinfulness of humanity on full display, but also claim that the fact the human races in the midst of “centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred and avarice and oppression and injustice, spawned and bred by the free wills of men, the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce men and women who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity.” is surely a sign of God and God’s grace. Thomas Merton (The Seven Storey Mountain, is the 1948 autobiography of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and a noted author of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Merton finished the book in 1946 at the age of 31, five years after entering Gethsemani Abbey near Bardstown, Kentucky).
3. through the years Christians have developed criteria to evaluate war - a just war theory. What would make a war just for God’s people? how should war be fought to be just? And now just war criteria has added a component of how can things be rebuilt after the war. if all the criteria are met, then there are grounds for a just war.
4. I don’t know about you, but I hear less discussion of just war criteria than the resigned note that is is just another war, as if we are immune to war or war is just a part of normal life.
Ring bells three times
Move 2: What does God think about war?
a. Old Testament suggests God not only condones war, but sends Israel into war.
1. One of the challenges, one of the mysteries of interpreting the biblical text is how to handle all the wars in the Old Testament and God’s role in them.
2. what are we to make of God, who saves Israel by drowning the Egyptians?
3. I am reminded of a 1974 sermon preached by Rabbi Albert Lewis: Talmudic interpretation of the crossing of the Red Sea: After seeing Pharaoh's soldiers drowned in the Red Sea, the angels in heaven wanted to celebrate the enemy's demise. God grew angry with this and said, '"Those are my children too.'" (Mitch Albom, Have a Little Faith: a true story, 76).
c. hard to know the mind of God, so perhaps we should look at the fullest expression of God we have - that is, the Son of God.
1. When Jesus arrived on the scene, the great power in the world was the Roman Empire.
1. They spoke of pax romana, the Peace of Rome, a two-century period when there was peace.
2. or at least that was their story.
3. Historians have a different view of Roman peace. The Romans had mastered the art of talking about peace while waging almost constant war, always – of course – in the interest of serving their pax. They littered the landscape with temples to peace and inscriptions about peace at the same moment their regiments were crushing rebellions and slashing their way to more and more conquests (brutal peace as exemplified by the practice of crucifixion)
4. But the peace Jesus was talking about and demonstrating was shalom, not pax. It was not the peace that was brutally enforced in the emperor’s name, but a peace nurtured by a loving God. (Harvey Cox, When Jesus Went to Harvard,126)
4. A counter-cultural message of loving peace in a world of brutal and violent peace of the Roman empire.
5. A counter-cultural message of peace that and love that is punctuated by Christ’s death on the cross.
Ring bells three times
d. Paul’s letter to the Romans reveals the counterculture nature of Jesus’ followers.
1. No surprise, since Jesus himself offers a counter-cultural move when instead of raising an army to take on the Roman authorities of state and the religious authorities, Jesus submits even to his death.
2. In light of Jesus’ action, Paul can exhort the Romans: If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God;[c] for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
d. We are still a world that knows war. We are still a people who teach the ways of Christ.
1. In fact, today we baptize a baby and commit to teaching him about the ways of Jesus Christ.
2. We will surely have to acknowledge to him that war is still here and going strong.
3. But we will we teach him about following Christ, the one we call the prince of peace and teach him to look toward a day when God’s love will overcome all things, even war.
Ring bells three times
Conclsuion:
CHRISTMAS BELLS, a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Christmas Day, 1863, two years after the tragic death of his wife, in the midst of the Civil War, where he son was fighting.
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said:
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said:
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Ring bell three times
“
No comments:
Post a Comment