Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen
“I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside
I'm gonna study, study, war no more
Down by the riverside
I'm gonna study, study, war no more
I ain't gonna study war no more
Ain't gonna study war no more
I ain't gonna study war no more”
Ain't gonna study war no more
I ain't gonna study war no more”
650 Billion
dollars.
That’s more than
the next seven countries combined:
China, Saudi
Arabia, India, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France.
650 billion
dollars spent on the military.
CNBC reported
last year:
KEY POINTS
- The U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan have cost American taxpayers $5.9 trillion since they began in 2001.
- The figure reflects the cost across the U.S. federal government since the price of war is not borne by the Defense Department alone.
- The report also finds that more than 480,000 people have died from the wars and more than 244,000 civilians have been killed as a result of fighting. Additionally, another 10 million people have been displaced due to violence
To put that in
perspective, the human cost of the wars that we fought in response to the 9/11
attacks has now exceeded 250 people, dead or wounded, for each person killed on
9/11.
Financially, what
that means is that since 9-11 each one of us has contributed approximately
$18,000 toward that war effort.
During that
period of time, then, my wife and I together with my children account for $108,000
in spending on those wars.
On an annual
basis, our government spends $2,000 on the military for every man, woman, and
child.
He shall judge between the nations, and
shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Isaiah also says
in Chapter 11:
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge
of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
There are many
markers that Christians have used to determine “genuine” Christianity.
When the Roman
empire required people to declare “Caesar is Lord!”, the early Christians
refused and instead confessed “Jesus is Lord!”
This witness cost many their lives, and for a while defined ‘genuine
Christianity’.
Throughout the
first centuries of the Church one of the sources of division was the
understanding about who Jesus was.
The Nicene Creed
was adopted in 325 and amended in 381.
This creedal statement became the enduring marker of the Orthodox
Christian faith.
The Bible.
All Christians
lift up the Bible as God’s word.
But how we
interpret the Bible, what passages are most important, what passages can now be
ignored, and all sorts of similar issues divide us.
For many, the
approach a person takes to the Bible defines whether they are a genuine Christian
or not.
Similarly, social
issues become defining for many Christians—what is our response to:
·
Abortion
·
Homosexuality
·
Poverty
·
Immigration
·
Healthcare
·
Justice
·
Gun control
·
Drug and alcohol abuse
·
And Civil Rights, just to name a few.
I had a college
professor who once mused that all of the divisions among Christians today were
the result of the questions they asked during the medieval period.
He said that it
might make more sense to define denominations today based on their positions on
these very important issues.
What is the true
Christian Church? For many people that
is defined by the position that a Church body takes on these various social
issues.
He shall judge between the nations, and
shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Although all of
these things I have cited are important, today I’d like to lift up this issue
from Isaiah.
Peace.
An end, not only
to wars, but to the education of warfare.
Imagine, for
example, a world in which no one knew how to make a nuclear bomb, anymore.
Imagine a world
in which our sons and daughters would not be sent off to die in a foreign land,
fighting for a cause no one understands.
Imagine a world
in which the government spent the tax dollars on programs such as healthcare,
as opposed to the military, because it cared more about healing than killing.
Imagine a world
in which no country would seek dominance over the other because they all
submitted to the reign of God.
Peace.
Is peace
impossible?
And for people of
faith, is there a disconnect between living in a land that considers itself to
be founded on Christian principles, BUT which at the same time maintains the
most lethal military force in the history of the world.
Peace.
It’s the name of our
congregation.
Ironically, our
congregation was founded in part due to some conflicts within the other
congregations in the Valley, back in the day.
A while back,
someone commented online how ironic it was to see “Peace” and “Lutheran” in the
same name.
We have become
known for our struggles and the controversial issues we’ve dealt with.
What got lost in
all the debate and the fall out was the official position that we could be one
in Christ even as we disagreed on these issues.
It was called “reconciled diversity”.
It was an effort
to lift up ‘Peace’ as the defining quality of our Church.
It didn’t work
very well. Many people left because they
disagreed.
Peace among
Nations.
Peace among
congregations and Churches.
And peace between
people.
It all starts
with that last one.
Can I so love my
neighbor that I can give up any desire to prevail in a conflict and instead
seek to live in harmony and peace?
If we are ever
going to experience peace among all nations, first we will need to learn how to
live at peace with our own families.
A marriage ought
not to be a war zone.
A brother, a
sister, is not an enemy.
Children ought
not to revolt against parents and neither are parents to dominate their
children.
Not learning
warfare anymore begins at home.
It’s learning
instead the way of Peace, of Shalom.
And peace is not
just the lack of conflict, but healing and reconciliation.
One of the most
important things is to realize that "Love and Peace" is not just some “hippy”
ideal of kids on pot, but the vision of God himself for our world.
When I consider
the prospects of Peace in our world, I both despair and hope.
I despair because
we simply cannot seem to break our addiction to the making of war.
The United States
has been engaged in military conflicts 93% of the years since its
founding. There have only been about 20
years total that we were not involved in any military interventions and wars.
That causes me to
despair of any hope for peace.
But the other
side to that is that peace begins with me.
I have learned
over the years that I do not have to resort to conflict, I can choose peace
instead.
If I have been
wronged, I can choose to forgive.
If I have
experienced hatred, I can choose to love.
I can seek
healing and reconciliation, not vengeance and retribution.
That gives me
cause for hope.
But more than
that, much more than that, is the promise of God.
God promises us
that one day he will bring peace to the earth and reconciliation to all people.
I may despair of
the possibility that we humans will ever learn to live in peace, but God
promises that that day will come, not because of our efforts, but because of
his.
And so we wait.
And we pray, “Come,
Lord Jesus.”