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"Working for Peace in Defiance of the World"
Judges 6:11-24
Mark 9:30-41
A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
January 27, 2002
University Baptist Church
Minneapolis, MN
I collect notes, quotes and prayers in a little book in my office. I pull them out for inspiration and challenge. Among the most profound is the following prayer which I picked up from Ken Sehested, Executive Director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America:
"From the cowardice of resisting new truth;
From the laziness of being satisfied with half-truth;
From the arrogance of thinking we know all truth;
Deliver us, O God."
I used it as a screen saver for a few years and I am reminded of it again this week. The Waging Peace class introduced me to a book by Walter Wink called "The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millenium." The new truth that Wink gives us and causes us so much trouble is that the world is stuck in a never-ending cycle of violence. I called it’s sister cycle the Agag cycle or the cycle of vengeance last week.
This cycle of violence is built right in to the psyche of our world. It’s in our nationalism. It’s on the TV from Jerry Springer to real-life dramas, even cartoons. It’s in the speeches by leaders. It’s in our relationships. It’s in our churches and it’s even in our Bibles. But what is also in the Bible is the breakthrough of God, most clearly displayed in Jesus as he taught us to break the cycle of violence. That is the hope for the world. It is the hope for our very souls. And it is largely ignored by the church and the world.
To make matters worse, we don’t know the difference between violence and peace. We even call violence, peace. We call some of our missiles Peacekeepers. The prophet Jeremiah warned against those who would proclaim, "Peace, Peace" when there is no peace.
Let’s look briefly at the story of Gideon in the Hebrew Scriptures so we can get a handle on this. The Hebrew Bible books of Joshua and Judges contain the story of the conquest of the Middle East, written by the victors. Their methods are pretty familiar. They outright destroy their enemies and are punished for showing compassion upon them. These scriptures have been used as religious precedent in every battle from the Crusades to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire to the holocaust to the present war on terrorism. But it is up to us to see where God breaks through and gives us a way out of our madness. In the midst of Gideon’s conquest, God has him build an altar which we need today. An altar that says that God is peace. As the book of Revelation repeatedly reminds us, "let anyone who has ears to hear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches."
The story of Gideon is a story of the Hebrew people fighting against the people of Midian. The Midianites were nomadic people not dissimilar to the Palestinian Bedouins who are being moved off of their lands as present Jewish settlement expands in the Holy Lands. As this scripture opens, the Midianites are moving into the land occupied by the people of Israel. Why? Because there is a drought happening in their land.
The Midianites had gotten so large that they started to overwhelm the Hebrew people. The people of Israel had to struggle just to eat and to grow crops. They saw no way out of their situation. That is precisely when God intervenes.
When we feel like we are insignificant. When we feel as if there is no hope for us. When we feel as if we are not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough, not acceptable enough, God chooses us and says, "I’ve got work for you."
Our work is the work of peacemaking.
Gideon and his people were starving and he and his family had fled into the hills for safety from the overwhelming Midianites. That is when God came to him promising him safety and comfort. YHWH’s messenger said to Gideon, "Go in this might of yours and deliver this land from the Midianites, do I not send you?"(6:14)
Gideon, of course recognized the absurdity of this statement. He said, "Don’t you get it, my family is the smallest and the weakest of my whole tribe. It won’t work." The angel of YHWH responded, "But I am with you, to deliver you."(6:16) "Don’t worry about your circumstance or even the size of your army. For I am with you, to deliver you." In other words, when all is counted at the end, it will not matter how great you are as much as it will matter how faithful you are. And your faith is measured by how much you trust in God.
To prove that God was with Gideon, the angel had him create an elaborate stew as an offering. Just as it was finished, the angel touched it with his staff and it was all consumed with fire at which time the angel vanished. Gideon remembered how YHWH led the people of Israel through the desert as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Gideon realized that he had seen an angel of YHWH and had lived to tell about it.
God’s message to Gideon was then, "Peace be unto you." And so Gideon built an altar right there called "God is Peace".
So the question comes, when we are at war with the present-day Midianites, why do we not sacrifice to the God of peace at this altar? The problem is that we don’t believe that God is peace. We believe that God is war. In one of the great Biblical ironies, Gideon destroys the altars to Baal right after building an altar called "God is Peace".
Gideon had a glimpse of a world with the assuring presence of God. He had a strong conviction of peace and community, but he did not have a transformation. And he quickly retreated to the known: the cycle of violence. He lived his life like most of us do, drunk and abused by the myth of redemptive violence. As Walter Wink put it: "The Myth of Redemptive violence is the story of victory over chaos by means of violence. It is the ideology of conquest, the original religion of the status quo. The gods favor those who conquer. Conversely, whoever conquers must have the favor of the gods. The common people exist to perpetuate the advantage that the gods have conferred upon the king, the aristocracy, and the priesthood. Religion exists to legitimate power and privilege. Life is combat. Any form of order is preferable to chaos, according to this myth. Ours is neither a perfect nor a perfectible world; it is a theater of perpetual conflict in which the prize goes to the strong. Peace through war; security through strength: these are the core convictions that arise from this ancient historical religion, and they for the solid bedrock on which the Domination System is founded in every society." (Wink, 1998:48)
And here we are with an altar called God is Peace. Peace is not only the absence of conflict. That’s not peace, that’s tranquility and we often get the two confused. Peace only comes through a transformation. And ultimate peace can never come as long as we believe the myth of redemptive violence. And that’s why the Hebrew prophets, Jesus and even Muhammad came. They all came to give us a new view of peace.
What might it look like if we all recognized all of our altars as places which drew us toward peace in this world?
Jesus’ ministry is a life-giving alternative to the myth of redemptive violence, this 5000 year cycle of violence. He envisions a new way of being rooted in community, equality and noncompliance with violence’s ways. When we are born again, we are transformed from the cycle of violence—the world’s way, to a way of peace—God’s way. In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus outlines four acts of defiance to the cycle of violence. I love Mark’s simplicity and straightforwardness. He packs a lot into eleven verses.
First, he not only tells the people that he will be killed by violent people, but that he will rise again. The disciples didn’t know what that meant, but we know it meant that he was not going to resist the violence of the world. By so doing, he could expose it for what it was, a cruel lie that is no match for the power of God and God-inspired people.
Second, he overhears the disciples arguing about who is the greatest. He said, "If anyone would be first, that one must be last and be a servant of all." This means that the old rules of getting ahead by any means necessary don’t apply anymore. We find our worth in our service not our status.
Third, he takes a seen-but-not-heard child to his side and tells the people to welcome them, because Jesus is like one of them. The great warrior God is like a seemingly insignificant child, another crack in the armor of the myth of redemptive violence.
Fourth, Jesus rebukes the disciples for forbidding someone to cast out demons in Jesus’ name. The disciples were upset because the man didn’t ask permission first from the ones who had been specifically chosen to be in charge. Jesus said, status is not important. It is a form of violence to withhold power from another. "Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us." What? This means trusting perfect strangers? We can’t do that. Can we?
(Wait until you see what the UBC Streamlining Task Force has been cooking up.)
Jesus’ work was to offer a powerful alternative to the myth of redemptive violence. He told the disciples over and over again that it would not be easy. He told them that everywhere they turned, there would be people who called on them to renounce this new way and fall back into the violent cycle.
But Jesus said "blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God." We are to be peacemakers who work for peace in defiance of the world—in defiance of the cycle of violence. We know that redemptive violence is a myth. It only leads to more violence.
The Apostle Paul would say in his first letter to the church in Corinth, "Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God."(I Cor. 1:26-29)
Gideon built an altar on that mountain three thousand years ago called "God is Peace". Think about it, friends, our enemy is not this religion or that religion. Especially if this or that religion is doing the work of God and sees the work of all humankind as that of peace. Whoever is not against us is for us.
Perhaps our real enemy is shortsightedness. Perhaps our real enemy is selfishness. Perhaps our real enemy is fundamentalism, be it Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim or pagan. Perhaps our real enemy is that we don’t believe enough. Our real enemy is the domination system which is supported by the myth of redemptive violence.
We have before us an altar that proclaims God is Peace. If we believe that God is peace, is not God then open enough, wise enough, strong enough and able enough to lead us in the ways of peace.
I had the opportunity a few years ago to visit the Islamic Center in Washington, DC. With our shoes off and sitting on the floor, members of the Alliance of Baptists sat where many Christians fear to tread. The Sierra Leon Islamic teacher told us about Muslim beliefs and practices. He told us about how the Islamic faith has three holy books, the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Koran. The Islamic Community knows more about Christianity than many Christians do for they have read our holy texts.
When I asked our Islamic friend about the most common misunderstandings about Islam, his response was, that they do not believe in the equality of women and that all Islamics are people of war. He explained that from his perspective men and women are equal under Allah, but simply have different roles in society. He also explained that Islam is a religion of peace and holiness.
I was so incredibly impressed with my Muslim sisters and brothers, how they pray at least five times a day. Each time before praying Muslims are encouraged to elaborately wash themselves, removing any physical uncleanliness as they approach Allah. If we prayed that much, might we be closer to living a life of peace?
Sisters and brothers, we must believe and live as if we believe that God is peace. If we don’t then we are all sunk.
Albert Einstein said, "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." So let us prevent war. Let us build peace. Let us wash ourselves clean in the waters of righteousness. Let us bathe ourselves in the knowledge of God in God’s many names. May we be delivered from the cowardice of resisting new truth. May we be delivered from the laziness of being satisfied with half-truth. May we be delivered from the arrogance of thinking we know all truth.
And through it all, may we sacrifice to a new altar, one that says and believes that God is Peace. One that encourages us to break the cycle of violence and recognize that however popular, redemptive violence is a myth that can only lead to more violence.
And if God is peace, not war, then we have a lot of repentance and work to do as we walk with God by our side. But the good news is that God is willing to help transform us, renew us and be born anew in us. All we have to do is take a conscious step in God’s direction, a step out of the cycle of violence. Together, I know that we transformed people can work for peace in defiance of the world. For working for peace in this way is working for God, for Jesus, and for all of humanity.
Amen.