Sermon Archive
The war against violence
Sermon preached by Robin Boyd at Holy Communion on 5 September 2004
Jeremiah 18.1-11 ; Philemon 1-21 ; Luke 14.25-33
What can one say about Friday's events in that school in Beslan? Our hearts go out to those children and those parents: children injured and disfigured; a little girl, perhaps, coming to the realisation that her mother is dead. People deliberately shooting at the backs of children trying to escape: people deliberately detonating mines which will bring down the roof of a building filled with women and children. Yes, this is Evil, Evil which nothing can excuse. And justice must take its course. Justice, not vengeance: above all not vengeance on other innocent people, for that would add to the victory of Evil.
We've heard a lot, since 9/11, about "The War against Terror". I don't believe it works. I don't believe it can work. But War against Violence is a different matter.
I was born in Belfast, and grew up there. I lived in Ireland again for seven years in the 1980s. And I became convinced, as did most of my friends - Presbyterian, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, whatever - that you cannot defeat terror by terror. Whether it was an IRA bomb in a Protestant pub, or a British soldier kicking down the door of a Catholic house on the Falls Road, it was terror: and reciprocal terror never produced peace: it never will. We rightly condemn the hostage-takers of Beslan - and the more we hear, the more our hearts are sickened by their cruelty. But I am deeply concerned when we simply condemn them without going on to ask why they acted as they did... Ultimately you have to listen to the other side. Ultimately you have to talk together
I'm salvaging at least a bit of my original sermon; because I think today's readings have a lot to say to us as we try to see our way beyond the terrible events in Beslan. All three passages are about change: changing a pot on the wheel; changing a relationship; changing the world.
1. So first - Jeremiah and the potter. When I lived in India I often watched a village potter at work. Fascinating! And - Yes - often the potter wouldn't be satisfied with his first attempt, and would flatten it out on the wheel and start again. Change is possible.
One day round about 587 BC, God told the prophet Jeremiah to go and watch the potter- and then tell what he had learnt to that collection of depressed and frightened Jews, surrounded by their enemies of a different faith, among whom he lived in the ruins of Jerusalem. Not all that different, in some ways, from the people of Chechnya today. Jerusalem had recently been flattened by the Babylonians - today we call them the Iraqis. All the important citizens had been taken off to prison camps in the Baghdad area, and Jeremiah was left with the dispirited group who remained behind. He was a pretty uncouth sort of a prophet, and a very gloomy one, who didn't pull his punches; and people mostly didn't like what he told them.
But this time it was different - and all because of the potter. So what was the message? "God is the potter: we are the clay". But isn't that a message of fatalism, of predestination? No: not for Jeremiah. It's a message of hope. "You have a second chance. Yes, you've gone wrong, and suffered. But if you repent, are sorry, do a U-turn - then God will start again. . God wants to change you: God wants to make a new nation of you!
2. Now we fast forward about 600 years and come to St Paul, at a time when he was a prisoner - most likely in Ephesus, just in from the western coast of what's now Turkey. St Paul could be just as gloomy and rugged as Jeremiah. But this letter to Philemon shows a different side. Philemon was a well-to-do Christian whom Paul had brought to the faith, and he lived in Colossae, a city some distance inland from Ephesus. One of his slaves, called Onesimus (which means "helpful"), had run away. Probably he'd done something wrong, perhaps stealing. And he had turned up in Ephesus, where Paul was under house-arrest. Probably Onesimus was looking for sanctuary, and hoped that Paul, as a friend of his master Philemon, could provide it. And through Paul this young suspect-on-the-run had become a Christian.
And Paul - as God's assistant potter, so to speak - helps Onesimus to reshape his life. He writes a letter to his friend Philemon, asking him to take Onesimus back It's not at all like the usual somewhat grumpy Paul. This is a letter full of kindliness, with quite a bit of humour - and, disguised under the language of love, a powerful appeal for justice. People have often said, "Why didn't Paul come out clearly against slavery?" Well, in a real sense he does here. "This young man has perhaps wronged you: if he has, I guarantee to pay back anything he owes you. For he has become my son - my son in Christ. So I want you to take him back - no longer as a slave, but as "a brother beloved". And then the pawky humour - actually a double pun. "His name is Onesimus, the useful one, the Handyman. I know he's been pretty unhandy for you, but from now on he'll be really and truly handy". Then the second pun. In Greek chrestos means useful, handy, the same as Onesimus. But Christos, with just one letter different, and pronounced almost the same way, is Christ, the Messiah. "He used to be achrestos - useless, without Christ; but now he's euchrestos - really useful, really "in Christ". So treat him as you would treat me". Paul's punning is all about the possibility of change.
Did Philemon do what Paul asked? Well, if he didn't, I don't think this letter would have been preserved. So once again - like Jeremiah and the potter, we have change. There it was changing a nation. Here it's a change in personal relations: but also a revolutionary social change, a first step towards the abolition of slavery. Legally, Philemon could have killed Onesimus, the runaway slave. By writing a letter, Paul changes the situation from violence to negotiation; by writing this letter he changes it from negotiation to forgiveness.
3. Finally, in today's Gospel (Luke 14) we see the tough side of Jesus - even a hard side. Jesus is still in the middle of his mission of teaching and healing; he is popular, and crowds of people are clamouring to become his followers. Yet suddenly his words take a hard edge. "If you don't hate your father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even your own life, you can't be my disciple". Tough words. And he goes on, "Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me can't be my disciple". Jesus' friends were only too familiar with the sight of condemned criminals carrying their own cross-beam to where the vertical crucifixion-post stood waiting for their death. Jesus is virtually saying, "Follow me if you will: but it could cost you your life".
I have met Christians in India who - quite recently - have had to suffer for their faith - beaten, losing their homes, being publicly accused of being traitors to Indian culture - which they are not. In Palestine and Chechnya people are suffering simply because they are Muslims. Most of the tears in Beslan today are Christian tears. And it seems that all over the world a great wedge is being driven between Christians and Muslims. These things ought not so to be
Jesus' mission is to change the world, to remake it as God wants it to be. That is the task he gave his disciples. That's the task-force we belong to; and the task is - changing the world. And it's tough. It will involve suffering. .
Does that mean that we ought to go out and look for trouble? I don't think it does. Jesus didn't mean "Everyone who follows me must hate his nearest and dearest". I'm sure that a lot of Jesus' disciples were actually encouraged by their families, including Peter's famous mother-in-law. But there can be situations where young people who hear Christ's call may be positively hindered - by their loved ones - from obeying that call; and when that happens, the cost of discipleship can be very high. There are many people in America today who are finding it costly to challenge the idea of a War against Terror.
Are we expected to go out looking for a cross to pick up? I don't think so. But some day the cross will be there. I think of Gordon Wilson who, after his daughter was killed and he was injured by a bomb on an Armistice Day in Enniskillen, dedicated his life to seeking an end to violence in Ireland.
Are we called to give away all our possessions? Not necessarily: and Jesus had friends who were well-off. But we do need to do the arithmetic, and see what we can do with our money, and what we can do without. For some people the call may indeed come to give up everything and travel light for the sake of Christ. I think many of us know people like that.
4. So we come back to Friday's events in the school in Beslan. And we can't avoid the question, "Why did it happen?" What do we know of the thoughts of those young Muslim women who had seen their husbands killed in Chechnya, and went as suicide bombers to Beslan? How were they to get their cause on to the world's agenda when two of the great world powers, America and Russia, were united in condemning as terrorism anything they could do? Can any world power claim that it alone - with its allies - is entitled to use violence, and that every other use of violence is terror?
Jesus came to challenge that sort of power, and to change the world through the gospel of peace. Not by killing. Not even by dying to kill - the death of the suicide bomber. But by dying to give life.
I didn't start with a text, but I'll finish with one: John 10:10, a word of Jesus: I have come that they might have life - life in all its fullness. . . These are sad days. But it's a challenging time to be a disciple of Christ. We Christians need a lot of changing. The world needs a lot of changing. Violence will not change it. But love will.
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