Violence
The sermon today is about violence. I could go on and on for hours like a Fire
and Brimstone preacher, however Father Matthew said to keep this under an
hour. So fifty-nine minutes it is. I think I just caused a violent reaction
amongst a lot of you.
Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers,
many times in the last few years have we heard this phrase uttered from the
lips of politicians and now-a-days, more-often-than-not tweeted. Sandy Hook, Columbine, Las Vegas, and many
more tragedies that we have watched play out on the Internet and on
television. Jesus Wept is the shortest verse
in the Bible. The New Testament was
written close to two millennia ago and I am here to say that Jesus has not
stopped weeping.
Even in the Gospel we read today about the
vineyard and the absent owner. Violence
abounds even to the point of killing the owner’s son. When Jesus talks about the owner, he is
referencing God. We know that Jesus is
the owner’s son and he was crucified. We
live in a violent world, a world full of trials and tribulations and peace
seems but a distant dream. Will the Lord
come back to remove the tenants from the vineyard (Earth).
In one of the most famous stories of the
Bible, Jonah is sent to Nineveh to proclaim the word of God and demand
repentance. The King of Nineveh took
this to heart and proclaimed ”Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil
ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion
turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”
God was pleased and changed his mind about
destroying Nineveh. However, Jonah
wasn’t pleased and became angry with God.
The ensuing conversation between God and Jonah is very good and I would
encourage all of you to pick up your Bible and read and meditate on the
dialogue between Jonah and God.
Violence has been a part of man since Cain
slew Abel. Wars have been almost non-stop
since we were cast out of the Garden.
The United States has boasted that we are a
peaceful nation. How so? I read an article that said we have been at
war 93% of our short existence. I found
that hard to believe but when I did some research, I was dismayed to find it
true. If you take into account the major
wars, it doesn’t seem like we have truly been at war that much. But if you look at all the Indian wars, the
small conflicts overseas, rebellions, and such the facts are true.
It seems we revel in war. If you resist you are labeled unpatriotic and
may be thrown in prison. If you protest
you are labeled as un-American. Our
movies and television shows are full of violence. Video games promote violence. Violence breeds violence!
My father was a police officer in Fort
Wayne. I was raised around guns and
violence. As far as I know he was only
shot at once and when he recounted the event to me I was horrified. When I was about nine years old, I received a
BB gun for a present. I went out in the
woods with a friend and I saw a cardinal perched in a tree. I took careful aim and with the first shot, I
bagged my first and only kill.
I approached the small bird, lying in the
snow, blood oozing out of his small body and I was overcome with a feeling of
utter shame. I cried at the taking of
his life and I have never been able to “hunt” again. For my thirteenth birthday, I received a 22-caliber
rifle. I did not hunt, but I did shoot
targets. This did not stop me from
trying to kill a big husky that was attacking my little hound dog late in my
teenage years. As I reflect on those
episodes, I understand the difference between violence caused by anger and
violence because of a lack of compassion.
During the period of my life when I lived
in Miami, I was called to jury duty for a murder trial. When twenty-eight of us were marshaled into
the courtroom for our initial questioning, I was shocked. Why?
Because the first question asked by the defense attorney was, “How many
of you or how many of your family, have been victims of violent crime?” Over half the hands went up and those people
were dismissed from the jury. Over half
… think about that.
Our early church, before Constantine was pacifist. Origen said that Christians "do not go
forth as soldiers.” Tertullian wrote
"only without the sword can the Christian wage war: for the Lord has abolished
the sword.” Clement of Alexandria wrote
"... he who holds the sword must cast it away and that if one of the
faithful becomes a soldier he must be rejected by the Church, for he has
scorned God."
This changed in the time of Constantine - the Council of Arles
in 314 said that to forbid "the state the right to go to war was to
condemn it to extinction,” and shortly after that, Christian philosophers began
to formulate the doctrine of the Just War.
We haven’t stopped since.
Violence, most of the time, is a result of
anger. Why the anger? I am not immune, you are not immune, we are
all human and we all experience anger.
Jesus himself overturned tables and whipped the moneychangers in the
temple. That I suppose could be called
righteous anger. My anger is more the,”
Did you see what that idiot just did. He
ran a red light, the moron.” Hank taught
me to say, “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” whenever I had a
bout of road-rage. I confess I have
called out the Holy Trinity more times on the road than I have in church.
This though is the key to reducing
violence. The violence exists in each
one of us because we are not at peace with ourselves. So how do we become more peaceful? WHEN we come to the realization that CHRIST,
exists inside each of us. We need to
recognize the Christ in us as illustrated by Thomas Merton.
Oh God, we are one with
you. You have made us one with you. You have taught us that if we are open to one
another, you dwell in us. Help us to
preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to realize that there can be no
understanding where there is mutual rejection.
Oh God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we
accept You, and we thank You, and we adore You, and we love You with our whole
being, because our being is in Your being, our spirit is rooted in Your
spirit. Fill us then with love, and let
us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one
spirit which makes You present in the world, and which makes You witness to the
ultimate reality that is love. Love has
overcome. Love is victorious
Now I would like us all to do a little exercise. I promise you this won’t last long. Please take ahold of the hand of the person
on each side of you. Then close your
eyes. Take a deep breath and hold it,
feel your heart beat, feel the touch of the people around you. Slowly exhale. Now together say, I recognize the Christ in
me. Now open your eyes and looking
around say, I recognize the Christ in you.
That wasn’t hard was it? How did that make you feel? I think, I believe, that for a bit anyway,
Jesus stopped weeping.
Anger management, is I think, a major
factor in reducing violence. Remember
though, that there are some that would manipulate our tendency to violence for
their own ends and if anyone tells you to hate, resist.
When we stop for a second and realize that
Christ is in each one of us, how can we hate.
Removing our anger is probably not entirely possible, but reducing our
anger to manageable levels is. It takes
practice and it takes commitment.
Christ is the cornerstone upon which our
church is built. Christ is about love,
peace, and even righteous anger. But I
am here to tell you if your anger is based on greed, envy, pride, hate, and
racism, it is not righteous. If you want
to get into a fight because someone cut in line at the movie theater … it is
not righteous. If you want to fire
photon torpedoes at the guy in front of you who is driving to slow, it is not
righteous.
John
16:33 “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
Today,
when we pass the peace, I would like us to say Shalom to each other. Mean it, own it, and let the Shalom of Jesus
pass from us and through us. Let the
Shalom of Jesus reside in us and radiate from us.
