First Presbyterian Church of Willmar
July 22, 2012
Sermon
“For he is our peace.”
This is a difficult weekend to speak about peace. Once again our nation has been ripped apart by incredibly evil violence from within. Once again we have witnessed the senseless murder of just ordinary people of all ages in an environment of relative security and comfort.
It was a just a fun outing on a hot summer day to see a new movie. Twenty-five year old James Eagen Holmes entered the theater, fired off a couple of gas grenades and as the smoke began to clear he starting firing randomly into the audience. He came decked out in full military assault gear armed with 2 handguns, a shotgun and an AR15 assault rifle. All had been legally purchased by him. He had almost 7000 rounds of ammunition on him, all of which had been purchased on the internet. In just a very few minutes he had shot 71 people, 10 of whom were dead where they fell. Two more died at the hospital. Others are still considered in critical condition.
This incident became the 6th “mass shooting” in the first 20 days of July in such diverse communities as Chicago; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Dover Delaware; and of course Aurora, Colorado. If you include the last week in June you can add Omaha to the list. The incident in Aurora resulted in the most people wounded in a single incident but the deaths at Virginia Tech remain the greatest death toll in a mass shooting. We find no peace in the workings of this world.
There are no simple answers. The causes of violent mental illness are as diverse as are the causes of the social, community and familial abuse that are at the root of some of the incidents.
Something is going to change. Either we will finally make a real effort at addressing some of the issues and some of the problems – and yes I believe that the easy availability of weapons of mass destruction like an AR15 assault rifle is among the problems – or we shall self-destruct as a society. Something is going to change.
Yes, we have enemies outside of this country, and many of them wish us harm. But more Americans died in Chicago in 2012 than in Afghanistan. More soldiers have committed suicide this year than died at the hands of enemy combatants. We have rampant corruption in our political and financial institutions, and a population of elected officials at the state and national level who bow fearfully to the NRA and line up to take the money of the financial and oil industries.
Something is very wrong.
I looked at the scripture lessons for today several weeks ago. I was struck by Paul’s comments on the demand for peace between factions in the early church. I guess it struck me because of the factionalism in the PC(USA). The word “peace” is used in a variety of ways in the New Testament. In this instance Paul is literally commanding the parties to recognize that in Christ all the walls dividing us within the Christian community have been torn down. Stop trying to rebuild them. People who confess Christ need to focus on faith and love, charity and mission, not differing lifestyles and legalistic rituals. That’s the kind of “peace” Paul is referring to. The plain old cessation of divisive animosity. Paul says we are commanded through Christ to find unity among and between ourselves.
What happened in Aurora took me to another use of peace in the New Testament: the peace that Christ has brought to us.
In John 14:27 we read “Peace I leave to you, my peace I give to you, the kind of peace the world cannot give.” Jesus was not naïve about the world and its powers. Neither was John. The word “peace” is only used 6 times in the Gospel of John and each time it is tied to Christ Himself.
In John 16, Jesus is fast approaching His death and is trying to both reassure the disciples and remind them of the realities of this world: “Do you now believe? The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered…. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world! [16:31b-33]” He’s not talking about the absence of warfare or even the absence of the kinds of conflict that Paul was addressing. Nor was He talking about some kind of sentimental feeling of well-being.
Evil is a real force in this world. It has many faces from demeaning insults in casual conversation to institutional corruption to senseless violence. In Christ’s world there was a peace of a sorts enforced by the overwhelming power of violence that Rome could unleash at any moment. One path that our society might take is to move closer to that draconian enforcement of order that marked Rome and its empire. That’s the peace that Jesus is referring to when He contrasts His peace to the peace of the world.
The peace of Christ is the assurance that God is with us; that Jesus has conquered the evil of this world through the absorption of all human suffering on the cross. The peace of Christ is sealed through His resurrection. The peace of Christ brings with it the courage that we need to face the evil of this world, of this nation, and dare to proclaim that there is another way. The peace of Christ brings with it the hope that we can live in this world as redeemed people, awaiting the return of our Lord in glory.
The pursuit of peace in this world, that which proceeds from the peace of Christ, requires – as the prophets pointed out time and again – that we work for a just society in which we treat one another fairly and with the love that Christ has given us. Some say that would be naïve. Jesus was not naïve. He was a realist. He understood that the peace that the world tries to sell us can only end in death.
Truly pursuing His sense of justice and loving fairness can only begin in our hearts. It sounds so trite, but the peace of Christ enters into our hearts and we cannot spread that peace until we are able and willing to make it ours.
This is a difficult week. We live in difficult times. Yet the ancient message of the Gospel that is meant for our lives today is still the same. The words of St. Francis are still the words with which we must start: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment