SERMON: The Idea of Enemies (Isaiah 2:1-5)

In the year 1930, there was a movie made about World War I that Im sure

you all have heard of, if not seen for yourselves. Its called All Quiet on the

Western Front. In one scene, the soldiers are talking and a character asks where

do wars come from anyway? Another replied, well, one country gets mad at

another country, and they start fighting. The first soldier asked do you mean that

one piece of land gets mad at another piece of land? No, the other replied. "The

people of one country get mad at the people of the other." With that, the first

soldier picked up his rifle and started walking away. When asked where he was

going, he said, "I'm going home. I'm not mad at anybody!" I wish it just came

down to that. Sometimes when I look at the news about yet another school

shooting at Florida State and an attack in Jerusalem and all this violence, I simply

cannot reconcile it with the people I know in my day to day life: such kind,

generous, unassuming people like all of you. With people like you, I wonder too:

where do wars come from anyway? But its just not that simple. Anyone who says

it is that simple is usually considered a Pollyanna in this age of nuclear weapons,

IEDs and terrorism.

Yet here is Isaiah this morning with his vision of peace. Is he a Pollyanna?

You know, the Israelites knew a lot about violence and war. They knew a lot about

enemies too. They would not agree with the soldier in that movie: they most

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certainly were mad at somebody! When Isaiah spoke his words to the people, their

country had been utterly humiliated; their temple destroyed and their people sent

into captivity. They are stuck between the world powers of that day; Babylon and

Assyria. You may have noticed if you ever skimmed through the Hebrew

Scriptures that its characters were all too familiar with violence. In fact, our Bible

study right now here at Pilgrim is studying different kinds of Psalms, and it is

amazing that in the Psalms (Israels prayer book!), there is so much mention made

of enemies---I did some research and the word enemy can be found over 70

times! In their prayers! And it is not peaceful, love your enemies stuff. It is often

seething with resentment or cowering in fear.

And yet still, here comes Isaiah with this vision of peace. What IS this? He

does more than promise peace one day; he states it as fact. He paints a picture of

all the other nations coming one day to the house of Jacob, not to plunder or

conquer or subdue them, but to learn Gods ways from them. And those teachings

will overshadow all previous knowledge of war. God will be the peace between

them. The Israelites desperately needed this vision of hope. Do we feel our own

need for peace? Is it a sentimental prayer or a trite wish expressed by beauty

queens? Or do we long for it, like people in the middle of the fray, in the center of

the worst that humans can do? There is a proverb that says without a vision, the

people perish. Notice that when Isaiah begins, it does not say he heard a word

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from the Lord, but that he saw a word. What does it mean to see a word? Can we

find it in us to see what Isaiah saw that day? The United Nations building has his

words carved into the wall across from their building. Sometimes we do need to

see the words to remind us what we stand for, why we are doing what were doing.

What is your vision? What is Pilgrims vision? We are only individuals in a

small family church, but how are we living into this vision of peace? Lets start

with the closest thing to uswith ourselves. How do we make peace with

ourselves? The image of a plowshare from a sword may sound ancient, because

most of us have never used either. But a plowshare tills the ground, digging and

making way for growth. Are we committed to doing that within our hearts and

within the troubles in our lives? It is certainly easier to blame someone and to

nurture anger.

And then, how do we make peace in our relationships, given to us for this

life? A respected psychologist John Gottman has done research for decades about

intimate relationships in response to the sharp rise in divorces since the 1970s. He

emphasized that couples who stay together bring a sort of generosity into the

relationship, wherein they actively search for things to appreciate and say thank

you for. This is as opposed to (whether or calm or angry) looking for ways that the

other will let you down, misunderstand you or cause a problem. He found that

couples who were focused on criticizing their partners actually miss nearly 50% of

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the positive things their partner is trying to do! He used the analogy of kindness as

a muscle, saying that it is not a fixed trait but must be exercised and can grow

stronger in anyone. So this does not only apply to romantic relationships but any

relationship in our life! And it is nearly impossible to approach those relationships

with this generous and kind state of mind if we are not at peace with ourselves.

Imagine with me what the world would be like if more people were at peace

with their friends, parents, spouses or other loved ones; if we were not always

anticipating the next time that person would hurt us. I think there would be quite a

ripple effect outward. Now I am not saying that peace with any of these people

looks like excusing them from things they have done to harm us. I am not saying

the abused should stay with the abuser! Making peace with ourselves may mean

having a distance between ourselves and someone, but ultimately we will have to

find a way to integrate that broken relationship into the rest of us which is trying to

become whole.

When I think of such a task, I think about all our veterans, whom we

celebrated a couple weeks ago here. They know all about going through something

terribly difficult and having to somehow go back their lives and make peace with

that so that they can live again! Perhaps they of all people are ones who can see the

vision of peace most clearly because they more than so many of us know the deep,

aching need for it. They fought against a real, flesh and blood enemy. Perhaps they

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can teach us a thing or two about how to love our enemies in the midst of conflict

and violence.

Ruby Bridges can teach us something too. She was the six-year-old who was

one of the very first African-American children to integrate into the New Orleans

public school system. For months as she came to school, she had to go through

lines of angry parents hurling slurs, insults and hatred. A huge number of them

pulled their white children out because this one black child was there. Can you

imagine how a child that young would deal with that?? At the time, Ruby was

making national news and she caught the attention of a child psychologist at

Harvard named Robert Coles. Dr. Coles went to meet Ruby and asked how she

could stand the abuse and the persecution. She told him she prays for those hateful

crowds. When asked why with incredulity, Ruby said that she went to church every

Sunday and that they were told to pray for people, even bad people. She did

exactly what Jesus was trying to get us all to do! And she never missed a day of

school that year!

Only a few years before that, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered

a sermon in Alabama where he said something almost as radical:

When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do
it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has
misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false
rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It
might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some
move in life. Thats the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not
this sentimental something that we talk about. Its not merely an emotional something. Love is creative,
understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of

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love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be
caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.

He was like Isaiah. He knew about enemies. These were not empty words. By

1960, he had been put in jail five times, had his home firebombed twice, and

received nearly daily death threats against him. Dorothy Day, Kings contemporary

and a great nonviolent activist among the poor said that I really only love God as

much as the person I love least.

And then one last example (of which there are so many) that brought me to

tears: In a book by Philip Yancey entitled Rumors of Another World, he describes a

reconciliation hearing in South Africa and how a policeman by the name of Van de

Broek confessed how he, together with other officers, had shot an 18 year old boy

at point blank range, and then burned the body to destroy the evidence. He went on

to describe, how eight years later, he returned to the boys home and forced his

mother to watch as he bound her husband, poured petrol over him and set him on

fire. And when the story was finished, the judge turned to the boys mother and

asked: what do you want from Mr van de Broek? She replied, I want him to go

to the place my husband was burned, and gather up the dust there so that I can give

him a decent burial. Van de Broek, head down, nodded in assent. Then, she

said, Mr Van de Broek took all my family away from me, but I still have a lot of

love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to my home and spend a

day with me so I can be a mother to him. And I would like Mr Van de Broek to

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know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too. I would like to

embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real.

(SILENCE)

So the impetus really is on us; on people of faith to show the world that this

vision WILL come to pass. We are the ones who pave the way for it, starting with

our own lives, with whoever or whatever our enemies are. You see on your

bulletins that today is observed around the world as Christ the King Sunday. That

means that we answer to a higher authority, we walk towards a brighter vision that

those the world offers for us of dominance and might. As we enter into the waiting,

watching, hopeful season of Advent next Sunday, this is the perfect time to pray

for peace and live towards peace with everything we have from the deepest parts of

ourselves to the farthest reaches of the world. AMEN.

Because we know war, and rumors of war, and the endless background noise of almost-war, we are
ready to sing, "dear desire of every nation, enter every trembling heart." It is a season that gives voice
to our yearning. And because we yearn, we can live into the season. Advent just rings true.
If that dwelling-with-us is God's answer to our yearning, then why are we still yearning?
Did you notice how he began this prophecy? "In days to come," reads the NRSV translation. "In days to
come..." But the literal Hebrew is a bit more nuanced. "In the back of the days," or better yet, "In the
midst of the present." Isaiah is suggesting that the present moment is ripe, or to use an appropriate
Advent term, pregnant with God's presence.
I remember talking with a pregnant woman not too long ago, and she talked about the first time she felt
movement. It was subtle, almost imperceptible. So subtle that she was not entirely sure that she had felt
anything. "Was that really movement? Or did I just imagine it?" So she tried to be very still and very
quiet so that she might be sensitive to the hidden reality.

Dana Gioia is America's director of the National Endowment for the Arts, a poet himself. Gioia has written
a poem about the appropriateness, indeed the urgency of our celebrated rituals. I share only the last
stanza:
Praise to the rituals that celebrate change Because it is not the rituals we honor, But our trust in what
they signify. So let us be touched with astonishment at learning something new And dream of a future so
fitting and so just that our desire will bring it into being.

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What is Christmas, if it is not a dream, a vision, a promise of peace on earth so fitting and so just that
our desire will bring it into being?
Advent is the waiting place. It prepares us for God's greatest event. Advent is like the hush in a theatre
just before the curtain rises. It is like a hazy ring around the winter moon that means the coming of snow
that will turn the night into silver. We had to wait for God to get the world ready. Now, we wait for God
to get us ready.
Then when the Messiah comes Isaiah describes what that will be like. In Chapter 9, Isaiah writes:
For to us a child is born,
To us a son is given,
And the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty
God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace

There will be no end.

He will reign on Davids throne
And over his kingdom,
Establishing and upholding it
With justice and righteousness
From that time on and forever.

What can we help people see?

Can you see Christian and Muslim women all dressed in white? They were lying on their bellies near
the main highway in Monrovia, Liberia, where everyone could see them. It was embarrassing to President
Charles Taylor. They protested until he finally agreed to attend peace talks in Ghana. When the talks
faltered, the women came to Ghana. Can you see them? They linked arms around the government building
until the talks started up again. The tragic civil war in Liberia finally came to an end. Can you see the women
dancing in the streets?
Can you see the rice paddies, green and lush, stretching as far as eye can see in Cambodia? More than
a dozen programs are ridding the country of land mines and providing survivor assistance to Cambodian
people. The number of men, women, and children killed or injured each year by mines has fallen from a high
of 4,320 in 1996 to 286 in 2010. Can you see the farmers working in the field?
Can you see the children carrying signs near the Capital? PROTECT CHILDREN, NOT GUNS. Marion
Wright Edelman and The Childrens Defense Fund refuse to be quiet about gun violence. They never give
up. Against all the evidence, they believe weapons can be turned into plowshares or simply turned in at the
local police station. Maybe children in your Sunday School classes can make some signs.

When Rev. Traci Blackmon picked me up from St. Louis International Airport last
week, she was in a state of exhaustion that allowed her to be little more than present.
A hospitable local clergywoman, she had been working on the front lines of the
Ferguson demonstrations, organizing several of the local rallies demanding justice. I
could see why she was one of the most respected pastors in the area. She told me how
she had been establishing safe havens and healing circles in churches for those too
traumatized to march among the armored vehicles that lined the streets. Much of her
work was behind the scenes, coordinating efforts between property owners,

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politicians, and police officers for long-term solutions to the war zone that Ferguson
had become. She had also been challenging newcomers.
Whats the difference between Mike Browns murder, she asked, and any of the
other murders of unarmed black people at the hands of police? Why is his murder
causing this kind of response?
I think its the blood, she answered for me. They left him lying on that street
for four hours. Everyone was forced to absorb it.
The bloodcrying from a silenced corpse.
The bloodpooling around indecently, publicly, provocatively.
What was your blood saying to us, Michael Brown?
What response were you demanding through it?
Maybe it was asking, How long will you allow our skin color and fashion sense to be
justification for our execution?
The sight of Mike lying there for hours conjured up memories of how Southern racists
would leave the lynched bodies of Black people dangling from trees to send a
message: This will happen to you too, boy, if you step out of line. The tree youll hang
from is more valuable to me than you are.
Mike Brown wasnt just killed, he was overkilled.
Our team took a moment to celebrate a people who had acquired one more tool for
their quest for freedom. That night, more than a week after day one of the initial
demonstrations, we felt a vibe in the air that Lisa Sharon Harper, who was with me,
described as the move from rage to determination.
Ferguson is a window into Americas soul. It reveals the disturbing pathology of our
nationone that has historically manifested both domestically and overseasto meet
human crises with brute militarism instead of creative compassion.
Americas very founding illustrates that when people feel the pressure of tyrannical
rule, they will eventually seek freedomat whatever cost. Although Ferguson is two-
thirds Black, its police force and public servants are virtually all white.