Preaching Peace

The War is Never Over

Suicide rates are up among military personnel.  Given the extreme stress that soliders are under this should occasion no surprise.  What did surprise me was this bit of information from an article on Yahoo.com:

"The true incidence of suicide among veterans is not known, according to a report last year by the Congressional Research Service. Based on numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the VA estimates that 18 veterans a day — or 6,500 a year — take their own lives, but that number includes vets from all previous wars."

6,500.  Now that is a staggering number.  18 a day, almost once every hour, a solider or former solider takes their life, sometimes they takes someone else's life with them.

These are those for whom the war is never over, it has gotten into their head, it has crept into their bones, under their skin.  They have been taught to kill or be killed and that killing does not end on the battlefield.  The battle goes on in their hearts, minds and lives, it has 'body memory.' 

I am terribly bothered by this statistic.  This is not 1975 where troops were returning home to cries of 'baby killers.'  This is 2008 when bumper stickers, medal awards and parades for home town heroes laud those who have put on an American military uniform.  Yet, another hour goes by and pills are taken or a bullet fired, and another life is gone.

I would like to speculate on the internalizing of the mimetic crisis, or the sacrifice of the self out of a sense of guilt or shame, but that wouldn't ease the sorrow I feel or the frustration I have with America's inability to recognize the horrors of war in it's after care for military personnel.  Our VA system has to be one of the worst in the world.  Why?  Because we sent these men and women out on an 'honorable' mission and they have found there is little honor in shooting first and asking questions later.  Too many dead babies and women and civilians.  Too many friends blown up.

War is terrible. The problem is it is never really over...

Michael

No Sand in the Can

My parents are part of that generation born in the 1920’s and come of age during The Great Depression. Then they weathered World War II. As an American born in the 1950’s my experience has been that of working/middle class prosperity. My folks never dwelt much on how hard times were during the depression. To them it was just growing up. There was nothing to compare it to.

So now we hear that we are entering into the worst financial crisis since that time. No one knows where it will bottom out or how bad things might become. Granted, there are differences. Hard times today will be different from hard times seventy five years ago. But some things remain the same.

A sense of loss is a sense of loss.

Where I live, in Britain, the latest analysis indicates we stand to suffer the worst of it. Some rather conservative estimates are that the government will take on a greater debt load than it had at the end of World War II. That debt was just paid off a few years ago. So now they’re looking at a new burden of debt on the next few generations. If that, at least.

It’s hard to get my head around the scope of it. The macros of it are quite macro. It will be interesting to see how we, broadly speaking - people of faith, will deal with this new reality. In some sense we might be on the cusp of a new emergence of the realm of Christ. I hesitate to use the term “new reformation” because I consider it inadequate. The same goes for “re” emergence.

The first casualty will be the prosperity gospel. More people will see it in the light of day as the illusion it is. Not the blessing of God, but the chickens of greed coming home to roost. There will be probably be other disillusionments. Which, when you think of it, it isn’t a bad thing to be disillusioned. If illusions masquerade as truth then they need to go away so that truth can be seen more clearly.

For the last five years I’ve served in a church setting where the material resources are limited in a way I never experienced in the American Church. But what constitutes church is the same everywhere regardless of wealth or poverty.

One of the key elements of church is the sense of community amongst the people. While we all like to get paid, money can sometimes be an encumbrance to community. We start looking at the price tag as opposed to intrinsic values.

The realm of Christ here and now in our tangible world is ultimately intrinsic. Societal storms rage on occasion and people do get swept away. Hopefully, there will be many among us who seek a creative integrity and in-depth spirituality in addressing the emerging challenges. There will no doubt be a host of Christian snake-oil vendors offering the latest cure-all and there will no doubt be takers.

But I also am hopeful that something new may come about.

My mother once said that during “the war” there would be occasional drives to collect stuff for the war effort. One time the war effort needed bacon grease and folks were paid a few pennies by the weight of it. Mom said someone was caught putting sand in the bottom of their bacon grease can to make it weigh more. For a few cents more.

There really are no short cuts to the realm of Christ. But when you think about it, or pray on it for that matter, there really don’t need to be. It’s all right there. And it’s coming.

Take Care – John Mann

A welcome January read

  Sisters and brothers, I had the privilege of seeing the inauguration of our new president from the conference room @ the Raven Foundation in Glenview, Illinois.  Check out their website.  Adam Ericksen, their director, is also on staff @ First Congregational Church in Wilmette.  He's facilitating a class on The Shack.  The book comes with his recommendation for personal reading and use with groups, and now with mine.  It's quite a read, a way of exploring who God is and just how far away from God our theologies and God concepts have strayed.  Costco has it for $8.19.  I would like to know what you think.  I wept at times, being a parent myself.  God's love jumps from the page to my own heart, maybe yours, too.  It is quite possible our Monday evening group will take up this book for study.  And as for our Monday study group, we hope to get started.  So far it has been a snowy winter, deliveries arriving on Monday afternoons (-;

mary mckinney
mayfield township, illinois 

A Joshua Generation

A sermon preached at The Church of the Advent, Westbury

"Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

I have to admit that I do love this line from John.  Poor Nathanael will be remembered for having said that forever.  It's understandable why he'd say that.  Nazareth, and that part of Galilee were infamous for bandits and a rough way of life.  It was the "wrong side of the tracks" to anyone who lived in Palestine at that time.

And I have to admit that I heard Nathanael's question in my head as President Elect Obama's train rumbled toward Washington yesterday.

"Can anything good come out of Illinois?"

Illinois has had 3 out of the last four Democratic governors of the state indicted or imprisoned, so it's not hard to imagine someone along the train route wondering, "Can anything good come out of Illinois?"

But something good HAS come out of Illinois, something so unexpected, so wonderful that it simply could not have happened had God not willed it.  Do you not remember that the Sunday after the election, we had the reading from the fourth chapter of Judges, where Deborah calls upon Barak to lead an army of 10,000 against Sisera, and promises him victory? 

Yes, something good has come out of Illinois.

But I don't want to load too much on our new president. I don't want to put the weight of "being Jesus" on him at all.

For me, he is our Joshua.

Dr. King led us out of the land of our oppression, but he wasn't permitted to enter into the promised land with us.  He saw the promised land, but he knew that he would not live to cross over into it with us.  He led us out as Moses led his people out of Egypt, but only now after 40 years, do we enter into the time of promise.

It is no accident that there have been 40 years since the death of Dr. King and the inauguration of Barak Obama.

And now, after 40 years of wandering, we have crossed over the Jordan.  If we count the election as the day of crossing over, then this celebration of the inauguration is the heaping up of the 12 stones as a mark, a remembrance of what God has done for us and in us.  We are entering into a whole new chapter of human existence, and I think people are ready for the change because almost everyone has come to the place where they believe that the old ways of doing things just... don't.... work.

But I have a warning.

When Joshua led the people of God into the land of Canaan, there was a time, a moment of great promise, but it didn't end well. 

When they entered the land of milk and honey, the people were content to live as God led them, a sign to the rest of the world that theirs was a God who could be trusted.

But after years of prosperity and blessing the people began to look around them at their neighbors, the Philistines, the Edomites, the Amalekites and the rest, and they decided that they wanted a king.  "All those other nations have a king, we want one too!"

And they abandoned the ways of God for the ways of the world.  God warned them through Samuel that it wasn't a good idea.  "If you want a king, I'll give you one, but you won't like it!"  But they clamored for a king all the louder and God let them go their own way.  And as He had said, it ended badly.  A divided kingdom and finally years and years of exile.

We face the same time of decision.  Will we walk forward in the ways of God? or will we return in time to the ways of the world?

It falls to you and to me to speak this truth into the present moment.  Our new president cannot do this.  He is too constrained by the demands of his office.  He has done the hard work of leading us across the Jordan, but you and I, God's kingdom of priests have the task of calling this country and the rest of the world into a new way of walking.

We have an enormous task before us.  Like the city of Jericho, the walls of the fortress that have brought us to this place of crisis as a country are tall and thick and mighty.  They will not come down unless God wills it, and the way that we that we bring the power of God to bear is by our obedience.  We are called to do what we hear God say, not what makes sense.

What sense did it make, to walk around the city of Jericho?  For six days the warriors of Israel walked in a circle around the walls of the city, saying and doing nothing.  Once each day.  Just wearing themselves out.

And on the seventh day, God commanded that they walk seven times around the city, and when they heard the sound of the trumpets, they were all to SHOUT! 

It made no sense, to walk around and around, and to yell at the walls of the city, but they did, and the walls fell.  Flat.

We will be called upon, in the months and years to come, to do things equally as foolish as this, to allow God to demonstrate His greatness in our midst.  Our victory will not be in our own ideas or in our own strength, but in our obedience.

And the strength to do as God asks, the strength to do what seems foolish so that God might prosper us, lies not in obedience born of obligation and rules but in an open heaven.

When Nathanael hears Jesus say that He saw him while he was still under the fig tree, he is mightily impressed.  "You are the Son of God!  You are the King of Israel!"  But Jesus knows what Nathanael means by this.  He knows that "Son of God" refers to Psalm 2, a coronation psalm, and that "King" for Nathanael means king in the old sense, the world's sense, and so He corrects him.  "Just because you heard me say this, do you believe?  Truly I tell  you, you will see the heavens opened and angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

Only when we see the heavens opened, and the glorified Son of Man will we know the strength to do what it is that lies before us.  Only when we look up into the face of the Father and know His smile upon us will we be able to obey out of something other than obligation.  Then we will be able to sing in a new way what we just sang, "Oh, how I love Jesus, because He first loved me..."

This is strength that proceeds from joy.  Not our joy in the Lord, but His in us shall be our strength.  "The joy of the Lord shall be your strength" (Neh. 8:10) refers not to our joy, but the joy He takes in us!  when the heavens are opened, and we know personally, intimately His joy in us, then we will be able to walk as the Israelites walked, into the land of promise, claiming every bit of land on which they placed the soles of their feet.

We stand at a moment of birth.  A whole new humanity stands waiting to come into being through God's initiative, and we celebrate that this week, but it is just a beginning, just the first steps of entering into the promise.  And the way forward lies under an open heaven.

Amen.

Welcome Mr. President

Dear President Obama,

It has been a long time coming, from the time you announced your candidacy to your inauguration tomorrow.  For many of us Christians in America who love peace and pursue it, the months leading to the election were fraught with both optimism and uncertainty; we wondered whether we would get more of the same warmongering that we have seen for the past eight years or whether change would come.

Yet is has been longer still for African Americans; forty years since the beloved Martin Luther King Jr left his dream in a pool of blood at the Lorraine motel.  They may have taken his life but they "didn't take his pride" and tomorrow, you are his pride.

It has been longer still for an America split in two like siblings in rivalry; we played out the Cain and Abel story for four long, pianful years.  On three days alone we lost over 50,000 beloved brothers at Gettysburg.

It is longer still for an America where Jefferson could pen that all men were created equal, but it has taken us over 200 years to include women and African Americans. In a sense tomorrow has been over 200 years in the making. 

Forgive me for getting theological at this point, but tomorrow feels eschatological in some ways.  More than just a sense of destiny, or fate.  There is just something really right about what will occur tomorrow.  And this is my problem, but I sense not mine alone.  I worry that I am putting too much faith in your presidency.

I hear you when you say it will take a long time to get out the ditch we as a people have dug ourselves into these past 8 or 16 or even 40 years; I hear you when you say we must make the necessary sacrifices, I have already begun asking myself what I need to do and I am willing to bet that tens of millions of Americans have also heard you call and are preparing to do the same. 

At the same time, I hear the biblical resonances or echoes of liberation and jubilee in an Obama preseidency; partly because you used these metaphors in your candidacy, partly because others have used them of you. 

If I could ask one thing of you as my President it would be this: take the nuclear option off the table.  Followers of Jesus do not carry arms, let alone command others to carry arms or engage in military actions so I know your faith will be tested as a "Christian" commander in chief.  But nuclear bombs or any WMD is not and can never be an option for one who will put his hand on a Bible, and Lincoln's Bible at that.

I know you will face many hard decisions.  I expect that you will make mistakes, presidents are not saints.  But I beg you not to make the desparate mistake of being the biggest bully on the block.  I have had enough of that for the past eight years.  Take WMD out of all your equations; the universe will balance out well enough without them.

Blessings on you and your administration; hang tough, be gentle but firm and always hopeful.

Your friend,

Michael Hardin

Im Memoriam: Rev. Rick Judy

On January 10th, Preaching Peace lost a wonderful member, the Rev Rick Judy (Church of the Brethren).  Rick was our National Conference Co-Ordinator.  Rick began helping us back in 2006. I last spoke to him when he was in the hospital just after the New Year, but had no clue that his earthly life was about to end and a new life about to begin.

Rick was one of the gentlest spirits I have ever met.  He was a repository of knowledge about the Historic Peace Churches, expecially their hymnody.  I have no doubt that as he took his last breath here, he greeted the angels with a song in God's kingdom.

Lorri and I will miss Rick.  He would want us to take a moment and sing a song though, that was his style and so I shall. This one's for you my brother.  Peace to your memory.  With love,

Michael

Is Anyone Out There?

On a recent Sunday afternoon the word went out: “We’re gathering to protest ... !” Lend your voice and join the march. Let it be known.

I decided to go for a walk through the neighbourhood instead. After worship I needed a transition to my day off more than I needed to join the angry mob in protest of the latest atrocity.

One time in the 9^th grade I was in the cafeteria eating my lunch, minding my own business when this other kid with whom I had been engaging in a mutual aggravation contest came along and mashed a Hostess Twinkie on the front of my shirt. I went after him and before push came to any further shove, a teacher intervened.

Mr. Cotton was his name. He took us down to gym, down to the wrestling room and gave us each a pair of 16 ounce boxing gloves. “If you guys are intent on fighting,” he said, “here’s your chance.” He made us take off our shoes to tread on the wrestling mat and when we started swinging it became clear what his motives were. It was nearly impossible to gain any purchase in stocking feet and get in a good punch. There was a lot of swinging, missing and falling down. With much energy expended.

Mr. Cotton let us fight as long as we wanted, which wasn’t long. Both of us soon saw the futility of it and “shook hands” in peace. I think all the animosity between us was dissipated by the energy we expended.

The fights going on now are considerably more lethal. As much as we pray for peace, wish for it, work for it and no matter how many cease fires, pacts, treaties and accords are put in place, it seems that people are intent on fighting it out until no one is left standing.

Yeah but, he wiped a Twinkie on my shirt! I forget what I did to him to inspire that.

They took our land – they blew up my grandparents – they killed my sister – they attacked our school – layer upon layer of intractable grievance that will fester as long as people are alive to keep the sores open.

As much as I have marched for peace, spoken out for it, protested the wars and worked to make the world a better place, I also realize there are people locked in a death struggle. I feel for them and for the innocent victims of their violent rage. But I also admit that there is something in me that says, “A curse upon them for their violence. Let them reap what they sow. Let them fight it out. To hell with them and their stupid war.”

I realize that I shouldn’t feel that way. But I do. Does anyone else?

Take Care – John Mann