Emmanuel Church, you have a new mission statement! Vestry — the elected representatives of the members of this church — has spent months reflecting on what this church is for, what its distinctive calling is, who it is meant to serve. This mission statement was deliberately crafted in an all-day meeting, and every word was carefully chosen. It is an action plan! There is much to say about this dynamic road map to Emmanuel’s future! But for this morning’s meditation, allow me to draw your attention to one sentence in the middle of the statement: We strive for justice and peace.
If the job of the preacher is to equip the saints for their work in the world, then this morning I would like to share some perspectives from the Christian spiritual and ethical tradition to inform your conscience as you strive for justice and peace.
The other night I was at a social gathering of B. C. High alumni and friends on the Cape. One of the alumni, a Roman Catholic spiritual seeker who came here to Emmanuel to worship last winter, struck up a conversation with me about the Bible. He mentioned some of the war stories in the Old Testament, then he said, “against that background, you can see how extraordinary Jesus was.” Yes, I agreed, and more than that, against the background of current events in the Middle East, you can see how extraordinary Jesus is.
Jesus, a Jew who emerged from Nazareth, then an insignificant peasant village in the Galilee, was formed as a human being by the culture and history of his time and place, and by the religious traditions of his people that included those old war stories. By his day, the glory of the warrior king David was ancient history and legend. Palestine was under the iron control of imperial Rome, then the world’s only superpower, that suppressed revolt without mercy or distinction between combatants and civilians. Despite Rome’s domination, a significant minority of the Jews were zealots who mounted fierce guerilla resistance against the occupying power and were treated by the Romans as the moral equivalent of terrorist insurgents. Although it was certainly one of his options, Jesus did not become a zealot. He never took up arms. Rather, he sought to heal the spiritual and bodily diseases of his people by compassionate teaching and effective healing. It took a while for the powers of that world to recognize his activism as a most dangerous kind of revolution. When they came to get him, he went without a fight. The gospels are very clear: Jesus was a man of peace. No matter what some Christians will tell you, Jesus could not be enlisted in waging war. Not then, and not now.
Bear in mind his core spiritual and ethical teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, called the Beatitudes:
(Matthew 5:1–11)
Jesus is a man of peace.
This week, when I read the appointed lesson from the letter of Paul to the Ephesians against the back-story of war in Israel and Gaza and Lebanon and Iraq, I was struck by the uncanny synchronicity of the reading, and not for the first time. Often a particular reading will “show up” with a message pointing to current reality.
The main theme of the letter to the Ephesians is God’s plan to reconcile Jews and Gentiles. “Gentiles” are people other than Jews, who in ancient times regarded Gentiles as intrinsic enemies, that is, strangers to the covenant and outside of God’s loving kindness.
The letter addresses the Christians in Ephesus from Paul’s Jewish/Christian perspective:
“You Gentiles,” it reads, “aliens from the commonwealth of the covenants of promise — you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Christ came to proclaim peace to those who were far off, and those who were near. For he is our peace, who has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between Jews and Gentiles.... You are no longer strangers and aliens,” he writes, “you are citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. We are one humanity, not two....”
This is the gospel of radical inclusion. This gospel breaks down the boundaries people generate from xenophobia, ignorance, malice, self-interest. The genius of the gospel according to Paul is its vision of the universality of grace flowing from the compassion of God. Anyone who really “gets” the gospel will pursue peace.
When Jesus taught the Beatitudes during his Sermon on the Mount, he elaborated:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.”
Love of enemies gives rise to the practice of nonviolent resistance to evil. Nonviolence is at the core of the Gospel love ethic. This is not passivity in the face of evil, far from it. It is active opposition to harm doing, using every tool of intelligence and strategy and persuasion at our command. To practice nonviolence we need to be wise as serpents, gentle as doves.
Nonviolence was required of the earliest followers of Jesus. The first Christians had to lay down all weapons to receive Baptism, because everyone baptized committed to acting in the world as Jesus had acted. No Christian would shed another person’s blood.
Then, as the Christian movement spread throughout the Roman Empire, many in leadership embraced it, and at length the Emperor Constantine made it the state religion. Now Christianity faced new moral dilemmas, among them the question of state-sponsored violence. Unlike the original Christians, who were ordinary working people or subjects of the Empire, these Christians had the burden of state on their shoulders. Most dramatically, they had to protect their people from annihilating attacks from the barbarians sweeping down from the north. Although they were well aware of the gospel’s ethic of nonviolence, they were responsible to protect their citizens. They were up against a profound moral quandary. On the one hand, they were bound to protect the innocent; on the other hand, they didn’t want to lose their souls in the discharge of duty. In conscience, they had to answer whether anything can justify a Christian taking up weapons against others.
Over time, in the press of necessity, many Christians came to the consensus that in some situations resort to violence by Christians can be justified. This came to be articulated by moral philosophers and theologians as the principles of just war.
Over time, in the press of necessity, many Christians came to the consensus that in some situations resort to violence by Christians can be justified. This came to be articulated by moral philosophers and theologians as the principles of just war.
I hasten to say that the theory of just war is not the same thing as a gut feeling that one is justified by outrage or self-interest to do whatever one feels like doing, and it pains me to add that appeal to the language of just war has been used on countless occasions in self-serving ways by unprincipled Christian leaders to rationalize revenge, greed, rapacity, ambition, and insane ideologically-driven policies.
All the same, the classical principles of just war theory are important to remember whenever armies prepare to go to war or whenever they are engaged in war, as we are now in the Middle East, because they are meant to prevent or restrain the spiraling tragedy, and they serve as a constant reminder of the nonviolent core of the Christian ethic.
JUS AD BELLUM: when is it right to go to war in spite of the strong presumption against force?
JUS IN BELLO: the conduct of war remains subject to continuous moral scrutiny.
(from The Challenge of Peace, 1992)
Most likely, as a citizen you express your ethical beliefs through political processes. But even if government fails to be an ethical actor, you have a place to stand from which to make a difference. As a member of the church, you are called and authorized to strive for justice and peace. But if you need encouragement, if you need to know someone’s got your back, be assured! Here you are part of an ancient and venerable ethical tradition that holds at its very core the value of nonviolent peacemaking, and this community explicitly stands for that ethical tradition.
So call the White House; contact your representatives in government; write a letter to the paper; demand that all parties to war be bound by principles of restraint, justice, and compassion; give to Episcopal Relief and Development or to other relief agencies that work for the wounded and displaced civilian casualties.
Pray night and day for those who mourn, that they will be comforted, and for the peacemakers, those children of God, for theirs — and yours — yours, my dear friends in Emmanuel — in your hearts and in your hands — is the kingdom of heaven!