"A Legacy of Peace"
Questions that need to be asked.
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, January 26, 2003
Text: John 14:15-31
It was January 18, 1991 and the temperature outside was as low as it has been here in Toronto this past week - it was bitterly cold. At around two o'clock in the morning I got in my car and then on a ferry that was travelling between Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and Bar Harbor, Maine. I was on my way to begin my sabbatical at Harvard University. When I got into the hold of the ship it was minus 30 degrees - it is no place to stay! When the truck engines were started up in order to keep the diesel warm you could barely breathe.
I went upstairs to try to find some warmth it was still so cold that the mist from the bay was freezing against the window and you couldn't even see a light outside. It was a dark, ominous and very dangerous night. When we got up above, there was a great deal of noise, as all the radios on the ship were turned on full volume. You see, January 18, 1991 was the beginning of the Gulf War. We huddled around our radios listening to what was happening and finally as we approached Bar Harbor we got back into our vehicles and drove ashore.
At around 5 o'clock in the morning I had to go into the immigration office to present my J1 visa and, again, everyone in the office was watching the news on CNN or listening to their radios. I had to present my credentials and say that I was arriving in the country for the first time. I'll never forget how kind they were to me in Bar Harbor that night - they had freshly brewed coffee and doughnuts for me and I thought: "I'm going to like it here in the United States of America." They couldn't have been kinder, but it was obvious from the looks on their faces as they gathered around the radio and television that there was a great deal of fear in the air.
One young woman in particular seemed to be more upset then the others. One of the truckers who had gone to present his papers for Customs asked her if she was all right and why she was so distressed. She said, "For nearly everybody else here it is another war in a distant country, but my husband is on board one of the ships in the Persian Gulf. For me it is a matter of life and death."
I remember driving away from that immigration office and realizing once again the terrible pain inflicted by war. War is not just something that happens in distant lands, to unknown faces and names but something that happens at home, for war involves the whole world and all of us in it, and wherever there is conflict every one of us is part of it - at a greater or lesser distance. And so when I hear us talking of war again my heart breaks that humanity has once again come to this place and to this turning point in its history. Oh, we cannot be naïve and assume that there is a place that we can escape to, some safe haven where war has no impact upon us. There is no such place.
I read a little while ago of a man and woman who decided in the 1970s to get away from the rat race and the dangers of nuclear war. They examined all the islands and remote places in the world where they could live to escape the terrible dangers of the arms build-up and decided, after all their research, that they would move to the Falkland Islands!
There is no place to run from conflict. There is no ideal space where the sin and the anger and the selfishness of humanity cannot touch us. We all have to face it. We also all have to face the fact that there are amongst us those who enjoy war, who plan and thrive on it.
I read not long ago a passage written in the beginning of the last century: "Mankind has grown strong in eternal struggles and it will only parish through eternal peace." This was Volume One, Chapter Four of "Mein Kampf." In other words, there are those who genuinely believe that conflict between people, struggles between nations, cultures and ideologies is what makes us strong, and that peace makes us weak. So when I hear the devotees of that belief speak in all manner of cultures and languages and styles and ideologies, I cannot help as a Christian but turn to a source that is greater than myself - Jesus of Nazareth. I believe that we as Christians, more than anything else, should ask ourselves: "For what should we pray in these dangerous times?"
There are times, I must admit, when I wonder whether I am being led by the Spirit in any way. Rick Tamas and I, who were planning the Contemporary Service six months ago, decided that on this day we would talk about peace, and as Rick and I said this morning: "Who was whispering in our ear?" The text that we decided to choose for the young people to celebrate this morning was John 14, written about a time when the disciples were worried and fearful for Jesus was leaving them. They were worried about their future, because without their Messiah and without their Lord they felt defenceless.
He had spoken of his own crucifixion, He had warned them that they might have to bear the same scars as He and in the midst of their fear, Jesus gives them a legacy. He took them aside and said: "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me." And then He said to them: "My peace I leave with you. Not as the world gives, give I unto you. For I will leave you with the Spirit, the Comforter and you will not be alone."
You see, throughout Jesus' message He offers his disciples peace. Peace that is not acquiescence, peace that is rooted and grounded in what He offers. Through his own death and resurrection and the coming of the Spirit, He gives them courage and strength and his eternal presence.
This is not a peace that the world can give. It is not something that the world can offer. It is something that is born only out of faith and comes from the spirit of Christ. It is an objective peace. It is a peace that mends our relationship with God the Father. It is a peace that forgives our sins and reconciles us with the Father and with one another. It is a peace that is given, and we must receive it.
But it is also a peace that is subjective: It is the peace of faith. It is the peace of knowing we live in and through and with the presence and the power of God, every day of our lives. It is the peace of Christ's spirit touching our lives. Jesus not only offers that peace in John's Gospel as a gift for the disciples; elsewhere in the Scriptures He calls on those Christians who have been the recipients of that peace to have the courage to share it with others.
In one of the most famous passages in the Scriptures, in Matthew 15, Jesus said to his disciples when giving them instructions as to how they should live and follow him: "Blessed are the peace makers." Now, if you look at the Greek, there is a double entendre - a double meaning. First there is the meaning that they are the recipients of peace. As we have been forgiven, as we have been reconciled to God, we have been the recipients of all God's grace and love. Second, we now as the recipients of that peace must live it, must make it. Having been forgiven, we must now forgive our enemies. Having been reconciled to God, we should be reconciled to one another. Having been given the great gift of the cross in the resurrection of Christ, so too, we must bear the same scars of that cross and share the joy of that resurrection with others. We are then, not only peace recipients but also peace makers and, as followers of Jesus Christ, that becomes our raison d'être. He is our authority and He alone.
A number of years ago, one of my very close friends at university was called up - conscripted - by the South African Defence Force to enforce apartheid. Against the advice of all his friends, his mother, his father, even against the advice of many of his Christian friends, he made a conscious decision to refuse. He was put on trial, and when asked why he refused to serve, he said: "Because I can only follow one, and his name is Jesus of Nazareth. I cannot fight for what I believe to be untrue and at the same time stand under the banner of the cross." He spent five years in prison for those convictions.
And so, following Jesus Christ is a difficult and sometimes painful path, but we must be peace makers. In all things pray for peace, hope for peace, struggle for peace, ask for peace, demand peace, die for peace.
But there is more. It is not just a matter of peace, it is also a matter of profound justice. It's no good to simply say, "Be at peace," if you don't believe in the power of justice.
David Trimble, a great leader and a brave man, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 for his work in Northern Ireland. When he accepted that prize he said the following: "Peace is not the absence of war. Lasting peace is rooted in justice. It is produced by a culture of democracy and the cherishing of the rule of law." In other words, true peace, lasting peace is not just withdrawing from the world and saying there can be no conflict. It is the struggling for that which creates the source of peace, that which makes it last, that which is just and that which is true.
You see that in the great prophets of the Old Testament. The prophets of the land around Jeremiah were saying, "Oh, peace, peace, just let everything be fine," when it was not fine, when Israel was corrupt. When its priests, monarchs and leaders were wrong, when they were not following in God's shalom, God's justice, God's peace. Not the peace that the world gives, that says everything must be quiet, but the peace that is never content unless justice is done. Jeremiah came into the midst of all of this and said: "You cannot say 'peace, peace' when you are yourselves not right." We need to examine our hearts, to examine ourselves. When we talk of war we must not simply paper over reality as if somehow that status quo is all right. For example, what happens if innocent people potentially can be killed? What happens if there are children killed in the bombing in Baghdad? What happens if people elsewhere have chemical weapons dropped on them without warning?
It is not a state of peace when there is no justice, when people cannot go to bed at night and know that they and their children are safe. No, you can't say "peace, peace" where there is no peace. Neither can we just go rushing into war as if it is something that we have the divine right to do, without questioning ourselves. I don't know if you feel like I feel right now, but let me tell you honestly: I am confused. I seem to have little or no power, little or no evidence, I don't know what the truth is. I turn a page in the paper and I think I understand the situation, then the next day I turn another page and it changes. I don't know whether I'm being lied to by one side or the other, and I feel completely and utterly at sea. As a servant of Jesus Christ I want to know the truth because only the truth sets you free. but I don't feel I know the truth right now. But this I do know: that in any talk of war we must ask ourselves some very, very serious questions, and that these questions need to be answered.
I have never been a great believer in the Just War Theory. In fact, I've often thought that war is the problem, not the solution. But the Just War Theory is something that has been around since the time of Augustine. Further developed by Grotius and St. Thomas Aquinas, it has at times used to justify all manner of inequities and bad wars. But there is a kernel of truth within it that requires people to ask the right questions. As servants of Jesus Christ and followers of the living God, these are questions that everyone of us needs to ask, and I have found them helpful and empowering. There are five questions.
One: Is there just cause, is there jus ad bellum? In other words, are we doing what we're doing because of anger, hatred, self-interest, pride or envy? Are we doing what we're doing simply to retaliate, to avenge old wrongs, to support bad systems, or is there a profound sense of justice? Is there a profound sense that going to war will bring about a just end? If there is not, then there is no just cause. And the proof, the burden of evidence (in a legal sense if you're looking for justice) must support the facts and must support the cause. If nothing else right now, this is something that still has a great question mark over it. It is something all reasonable people must ask and seek and answer for.
Two: Is a proper authority being used to support the war? In other words, is it truly mandated on the basis of what is right and just? Is it a unilateral decision, only in the mind and heart of one person or a group of people, or can it be sustained with proper authority in a world that is so often divided?
One of my great fears in all of this is that the people of the world are sadly being divided along racial and religious lines. If authority is going to be given, it must be based on something much greater then simple self-interest.
Three: What are our intentions? Chapter Four of the Book of James warns that war is often born out of lust, self-interest and a desire for power. If that is our motivation then, in my opinion, we are wrong. If our intention is to see justice done, to make people's lives better, to extend God's shalom, then our intention is right and just. But I believe we must do a lot of soul searching.
Four: Will it succeed? That doesn't mean out-and-out victory, it means will the goal that motivated the war at the beginning be manifested and produced? In other words, will getting rid of tyrants necessarily bring justice, democracy, peace and the rule of law? It seems to me that you will only be able to say you have succeeded when the people in Iraq, who have lived under the terror of Saddam Hussein and his neighbours, can live with the same freedom that we Canadians do.
And lastly, five: Are the ends proportional to the means? In other words, if we are trying to save human lives do we then take more in the quest to save them? The means must in fact coincide with the ends; the world you desire to see when the bombs have fallen must not be so destroyed that there is nothing to rebuild. You see my friends, whatever happens, lives are going to be lost. Innocent lives are going to be lost, young men and women on both sides lost - it's bound to happen. We need to search our hearts and minds and ask ourselves these questions.
There is one lasting caveat, one lasting thing that I believe needs to be said: When those who advocate war do so, can they in all honestly stand side-by-side with Jesus of Nazareth, right there with Him and say this is just, this is right, this is God's shalom? And I ask that because there is one to whom we are all ultimately accountable, every one of us. Those who perpetrate violence and use chemical weapons as a threat to others, those who exercise immense military power, have one to whom they are all accountable - Jesus humbly said, "There is one greater than myself, one to whom all authority is given." Even he realized, as the son of the living God, that he was accountable to his father. So is the world, so are you and I. Therefore let us pray for peace, hope for justice, and pray that God will lead our hand. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.