I heard a story about a church minister that had put on a marriage seminar. One of the skills that the minister taught the couples in attendance was reflective listening. It is a method of listening to what someone is saying and then reflecting or repeating what you heard the speaker say back to them. It is a slow and methodical way for couples to communicate. Yet it can be highly effective, especially if things between the couple are tense emotionally. Once the minister explained the skill he then asked the couples to practice. After a few moments one of the guys spoke up and said “I don’t think this is going to work for my marriage.” The minister replied “Why not?” The gentleman explained, “This seems nice and all but when I fight I just want to have a fight.”
That’s fair. There is some emotional release in fighting. A good fight can make us feel alive and vigorous. Sometimes a fight can remind us about the things that are meaningful and important to us. Anger isn’t always bad. It is good to be upset about the things that are truly important. However, often we just fight and it is not over anything important. The Roman Empire liked to fight too. When it came to armed empires the Romans were like no other. They tried to convince the world that their fighting was designed to create peace. The Roman approach was called Pax Romana or The peace of Rome. It was peace that came at the end of a sword. It was a peace enforced by fear, blood and graves. Basically the Roman army showed up to your town or city and killed anyone who got in their way. Then terrorized the rest. At the end of the fight they smiled at you and said “Welcome to the Roman Empire where we are all about peace, and by the way don’t forget to pay your taxes.” The people they conquered lived in fear of the next time their master came for a visit.
You might imagine then that Christians in Rome might just want to give Rome a taste of its own version of peace. You hurt us so it is natural that we would hurt you. That is how the world works. You punch me, I punch you. Especially living in the USA it is hard not to consider fighting back. Regrettably what I hear from many of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ is a call to battle. We Christians have taken it on the cheeks too much and it is high time we return the favor. We are surrounded by enemies that need to be defeated and so the time has come to fight back. To take back our country and churches and values.
In 2012 Dan Cathy, a Christian and COO of Chick-fil-A, made public his private thoughts about homosexuality and gay marriage. Those opposed to Cathy’s view responded with threats and anger. Mike Huckabee, former Baptist minister and media political commentator, was incensed at the criticism of Dan Cathy’s comments. Huckabee used his media presence and called for Christians to fight back and battle against the hate thrown in Cathy's direction. Huckabee called for a Chick-fil-A appreciation day. On appreciation day Christians were told to go to their local Chick-fil-A and order something. By doing this Christians were told that they would be fighting back and taking a stand. On Chick-fil-A appreciation day 2012 thousands of Christians and those that felt in common cause lined up to buy and eat chicken sandwiches and waffle fries. While Chick-fil-A did not report their sales figures for that day they did confirm that was a “record setting” day. I have no idea what the motives of all of those people might have been. Yet many who participated in the Chick-fil-A appreciation day 2012 felt that some kind of a victory had been achieved. People looking for victories are people looking for fights.
In Romans 12:18 Paul says, “As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” Just when we get all settled with the idea of living at peace with our family and others who think, vote and talk like us Paul brings up this pesky little Greek word pas. It is a word that means every, all or everything. Small word for such an all encompassing thought. Paul is signaling that peace is not just something I have. It is something that as followers of Jesus we are to share with others. Peace is something that is supposed to be nurtured and grown in our lives, homes, cities and communities. Peace isn’t something that is just for me and mine. It is something that others, because of the presence of Christ followers, should be experiencing as well.
I have seen posts on social media from fellow Christians that have comments such as “Can you help me out? I have this atheist friend and could use some good ammunition.” As a church kid I had been told to be ready at any moment to go to battle. You needed to have some Bible passages, at the ready, to defend your faith. If an atheist said that the Bible could not be trusted you needed to quote 2 Timothy 3:16 from memory. Not only that you needed to have answers to whatever questions an atheist might throw your way. You needed some good ammunition to fight back because there was a battle to win and atheists needed to be defeated. There was a battle being fought and you needed to be ready. Since then I have noticed that we Christians have a piquant for battle cries.
Just about every Christmas it seems that Christians get told to stand up and fight because there is a war on Christmas. Perhaps we might check the retail Christmas sales figures before we conclude that there truly is a war on Christmas. Yet Christians, just about every Christmas, are told to stand and join the battle so that Christmas. I have been to India. Maybe you have been outside of America as well. I have met fellow Christians in India who had their home burned down because they were baptized into Christ. I have spoken to Christians in India that have been severely beaten just because they showed up for church on Sunday. Just because someone doesn’t say “Merry Christmas” does not mean that you are being persecuted for your faith.
Walk into just about any Christian bookstore (or just look online) and you will see book titles such as The Invisible War, Winning the values war in a Changing culture, The Culture Wars, Battle Ready, The Hardcore Battle Plan, Every Man’s Battle, Every Women’s Battle and Financial Armageddon. These are just a few of the titles that are calls for Christians to join some kind of a battle. There is an enemy to fight and a victory to be achieved.
I don’t know about you but I am totally exhausted from all this battle talk. Just how many battles am I supposed to be fighting? It is hard enough to muster up the energy to cook and clean up dinner every day as well as to continue on ongoing, never ending battles.
Eph. 2:14-16 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
In 2013 there was an obituary posted about a nun. Her name was Antonia Brenner but she was better known as The Prison Nun. She was born into a family of wealth in Beverly Hills. She had been twice divorced and was the mother of seven children which meant she could never join an existing nun order. So she started her own. Mother Antonia had a deeply rooted vision of God that eventually led her into solidarity with the poor, broken and wounded. And while she could have done anything she chose to do ministry at La Mesa Prison, a maximum security prison, in Tijuana Mexico. La Mesa is one of the most dangerous prisons in the world. It is filled with Mexico's most violent criminals. The men in the prison have raped, killed, and beaten people to death. Yet when Mother Antonia came around those hardened criminals melted. She became neither a guard nor a prisoner. She was connected to both groups. She became someone of goodwill, fairness and reconciliation. One time Mother Antonia left the prison to take a rare vacation to visit her family. While gone a riot broke out at the prison. Guards and prisoners had been killed.
She quickly returned and was eventually allowed to enter the jail to negotiate. After just a few moments of talking to the prisoners, they put their weapons down. In fact one prisoner said that “As soon as we heard her voice we threw our guns out the window.” She was not a trained negotiator. The reason she brought peace from hostility is that every day, after she had heard confessions, offered teaching and counsel, she didn’t leave to go home. Instead she walked down the hallway and laid her head down in an 8 foot by 10 foot cell that she lived in for 30 years. She ate the same food they did and lined up every morning for roll call.
I have served as a local church youth and senior minister. I have done lock-ins (Why, was this a good idea?), mission trips and service projects. I spent many a year doing all kinds of events with and for youth. I got to know them. They were folks that I have laughed and cried with. We had conversations about life, faith and God. Some of those former youth group teenagers are now ministers serving in local churches. Some are serving Christ in ways outside of the church walls. Some have gotten married and others have gone through the pain of divorce. Some have known the dark night of depression and others struggled with addictions. Some, in their own limping ways, have looked for God.
And some of those teenagers that I have known are gay. They have faces, names and stories. They have a Mom and a Dad. They have hopes and fears. They aren’t shouting or screaming their identity in anyone's face. Yet for many of my brothers and sisters in Christ they have become part of “those people” that I am supposed to engage in battle. I have been told, along with their parents, that the best way to redeem LGBTQ people is to shun them and shut them out. I take that a little personally. Those are my kids that you want to battle!
The passage from Ephesians is all about Paul addressing Jews and Gentiles who have become Christ followers. Paul is addressing a common issue in the early church. That is how can Jews and Gentiles, who since birth have been told to battle each other, going to get along in the church? Paul says that those who are baptized followers of Jesus are now part of the same community. A new kind of community. Paul tells us that the cross of Jesus has ended the hostility between Jews and Gentiles. There is no more us versus them. One of the effects of Jesus' death and resurrection is that God’s vision of a new way to be human can now exist. No longer do people have to battle each other for supremacy. Victory has already been achieved. The battle is over.
Oneness is not incidental to the purpose of the gospel. The Good News of Jesus is offering us more than just waiting to go to heaven some day. The Good News really is good. It is offering us a way to deal with the racial, economic, and educational barriers (to name a few) that our culture often goes to battle over. There are many Christian leaders that have told us all who our enemy is supposed to be. We have been told that to have a strong Christian witness requires us to be dismissive, argumentative and domineering towards other people. Especially those who don’t look like, talk like or vote like we do.
Sean Palmer in his book Unarmed Empire puts things this way:
May I tell you that the church has been lied to. We have been told that to be a Christian means certain behaviors at the ballot box, supporting certain political policies and even eating at certain restaurants. We have suffered under a misinformation campaign that has convinced us that real and genuine Christianity is free to mock particular people, free to name-call, free to be rude and unkind. We have been lied to that we can say anything as long as it is called biblically accurate. This has never been true.
This is the same problem that Jesus had with the Pharisees. They were so concerned with the law that they failed to see that people were more important than the law. The Pharisees weren’t wrong about their information, they were wrong about God. They were wrong about God’s love for people. As tempted as we might be, the Bible is calling us to peace: As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
We can stash away our swords. We can put away our picket signs. We can stop sending those almost true emails. We can stop spouting naked opinions and acting as if our naked opinion were the truth. We can turn off talk radio and cable news, which are intentionally designed to stir us up. When we choose peace instead of war we declare to the world I won’t play your game. I won’t do gay verses straight. Not going to pit blue states versus red states. I don’t choose blacks over whites or whites over blacks. I don’t have to continue the animosity between men and women. I don’t have to pick between loving my nation and showing compassion for a foreigner.
Belligerence and antagonism may be the popular currency of the country yet it is the clear message of Paul to live at peace. Jesus via the words of Paul is inviting us to participate in a different way of doing life. After all it is Jesus that taught us to pray “May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Living our lives to be “at peace with everyone” is to live out God’s will on earth. It is to bring a slice of heaven here to earth. A new peaceable kingdom has arrived. Might our lives, our words and our actions reflect it.
Comments
Post a Comment