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The Rev. Frank Logue
Peace, Peace A rumble of thunder together with a red glow lighting the night sky—Victoria, Griffin and I know the sights and sounds of a Ketyusha rocket attack. In 2000, we were in northern Galilee staying at a Kibbutz when sirens went off, the sounds of thunder rumbled in the distance and the sky glowed red. No one seemed concerned. We asked and learned that Syrian-backed soldiers were shelling the town of Kiryat Shmoneh…again. Though the rockets passed over our heads no one else seemed concerned as the attacks had been following a predictable pattern. While there was a bomb shelter we could use, no one else was headed there. Instead we watched the rockets red glare and listened to the sounds of the Ketyushah rockets slamming into Kiryat Shmoneh. The next morning our guide, Chelli, caught up with us. She had gone ahead to make arrangements and was in Kiryat Shmoneh when the shelling started. She waited out the rocket attack with others from the town, who took the whole event stoically, huddled together in the bomb shelter, families gathering with a stranger to provide her protection. Buildings were destroyed but no lives were lost that night. Life went on. Soon after, Syria withdrew from southern Lebanon. That was then. This is now. The news from the Middle East is so dismal that some are hailing this week’s events as the beginnings of World War III. The outlines of the conflict are clear enough. Following an attack on Israeli soil by the militant group Hezbollah, Israel launched an offensive against the terrorist group into their neighboring nation of Lebanon. More violence begats more violence, and just yesterday before sunset led to a halt Hezbollah had fired 120 Katyushah rockets into Israel on that one day alone. For its part Israel had kept up a steady stream of soldiers and armaments massing on the border while continuing to strike against targets within Lebanon from air and ground. More than 350 Lebanese and more than 30 Israelis have died in the 12 days of open warfare. In that serendipitous bit of synchronicity the lectionary texts already picked for this day have us reading from the Prophet Isaiah, I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will lead them and repay them with comfort, creating for their mourners the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace, to the far and the near, says the Lord; and I will heal them. Peace, Peace to the far off and to the near says the Lord. Timely words indeed. The exact words I want to hear after having seen enough of war on CNN. But what did Isaiah mean? For whom is there to be peace? After all, the next words from the prophet are: But the wicked are like the tossing sea that cannot keep still; its waters toss up mire and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. So there will be peace, peace for both the far and the near, but none for the wicked. Who’s far? Who’s near? Who is wicked? If you came hoping for pat answers to a world of complex problems you may be disappointed, but I hope not much. You see I can say “Jesus is the answer” and mean it. But what are we to think about our country’s role in this? What about our own roles? As to the word wicked…Wicked, interestingly enough is the book I am currently reading. The basis for a hit Broadway play, the book is Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. The book offers a novel approach to considering the origin and nature of evil. And in the book, title character (who is by the way a minister’s daughter) tells her college roommate, who is the good witch Galinda, “I just think, like our teachers here, that if ministers are effective, they’re good at asking questions to get you to think. I don’t think they’re supposed to have the answers. Not necessarily.” Without getting into the thornier issue of what it means for the Wicked Witch of the West to give me preaching advice, I will nevertheless cling to the idea that a sermon works well if it gets you to think rather than settling you in with some easy answers that require no thought. Peace. In the current context, peace is an end to war, a ceasing of open hostilities. This is a first step toward the deeper meaning of the word peace. This is an important first step as agreed on by all the Bishops of the Anglican Communion when they gathered for the Lambeth Conference in 1930, they stated, “War is incompatible with the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” At the time the War to End All Wars was behind them and another world war was looming large. 28 years later in 1958, the same group gathered and said, “The Conference reaffirms that war as a method of settling international disputes is incompatible with the teaching and example of our Lord Jesus Christ, and declares that nothing less than the abolition of war itself should be the goal of the nations, their leaders, and all citizens.” Peace is the goal. This is nothing new. Every one of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines serves the cause of peace. That’s the goal of our military, right? To preserve the peace. But we should work to preserve peace knowing not that we can always go to war if it doesn’t work out, but knowing the truth of what the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church wrote in 1931, “Peace will never come without preparation, effort, risk and sacrifice.” The peace that Jesus Christ brought came with his own preparation, effort, risk and sacrifice. The peace that Jesus brought came through the sacrifice of the cross. And this is where we cross over from peace as an end to hostilities to the deeper meaning of peace. For as we are King of Peace Church in a world filled with wars and the rumors of wars, we have to remind ourselves what sort of peace it is that we are talking about. After all if there is no peace in our world, then why do we proclaim Jesus as the King of Peace. It would seem that we give our Lord the title of King of a non-existent nation. Many of you will already know, but it bears repeating, that our logo cross explains what we mean by this. This cross presents in picture form, what we mean when we declare Jesus to be the King of Peace. For we declare Christ to be the King of Peace in a world that does not always seem peaceful. In fact, our world is quite the opposite. The swirls on the cross represent the very real chaos, in our lives, in our families, in our towns, and in our world. If you were an ant crawling across the face of that cross, all you would see, all you could know, would be that chaos—things out of control. The cross points to a deeper reality. The deeper reality is that no matter how out of control life may seem to get, it is never beyond the power of God. Anything that happens in our lives, in our world, is not beyond the power of God’s love as revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ. The swirls in the cross are contained within the boundaries of the cross. Nothing we are experiencing is beyond God’s power to heal and to transform. This is the Good News to counter the news we see coming from the Middle East today. None of what has taken place or is taking place is beyond the power of God to redeem. But here is the question for you to take away for today. The one that I can ask, but you can only answer in your own life. How can the peace you experience in the power of the cross make a difference? You see, the Light of Christ, the comfort of the cross, these are not pocket warmers for a cold world. The Light of Christ is meant to be spread into the darkness. It may be a bit of a stretch to hope that we can shine the Light of Christ so brightly in our families and in our places of work and among the people we meet that we will make any difference right here, much less in the Middle East. But the Gospel calls us to just that task. For the people to whom Isaiah spoke were the righteous who were turning back to God. The Lord promised those who turned to him, both those already near him and those who were far that he would heal them. But he said that the wicked were lost. Why? Doesn’t God love them? Yes, but this is judgment and it is self-fulfilling judgment. God said, But the wicked are like the tossing sea that cannot keep still; its waters toss up mire and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. The wicked in the sense taught by Isaiah in this passage are those turned from God and chasing after things other than God for their sense of security and peace. People who seek their peace in things other than God ARE like a tossing sea that cannot keep still. This is not judgment, this is just true. And for those who put their essential trust in arms and warfare, there is no peace. For those who put their trust in economic trends and the stock market, there is no peace. For those who put their trust in other people, there is no peace. The peace that comes to the far and the near is the peace of turning back to God, the peace of knowing that none of the chaos which swirls around our world on this Sunday morning is beyond the power of God’s love to redeem. That is the deeper peace, the real and lasting peace. The question is how are you going to share that peace with the people you meet this week? For sharing that peace of Christ is the only way that you can make a difference. Sharing that peace is the way you change your world. So how are you going to give peace to the far off and to the near this coming week? Amen.
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