What to Say, What to Do

Sermon preached by Dr. Daniel R. Anderson-Little, Pastor

Trinity Presbyterian Church, University City, Missouri

September 29, 2002

Matthew 21:23-32

[10-7-02]

Have you found yourself saying that? "I just don't know." Why do we have so much trouble knowing what to say and what to do about what is going on in the world and what the current administration's approach is to the current crisis? Instead of jumping into the debate, instead of adding our voices, we have remained curiously silent. I am not comfortable with that silence; that silence does not stand in the mighty river that flows from the prophets and the apostles, from the patriarchs and matriarchs of our faith; but in times when I do not know what to say, or what to do, I tend to retreat to the security of silence.

I believe that we have been silent for a variety of reasons. First of all, the issues are highly complex and our knowledge about the world is partial. We don't know the connection between the terrorists whom we know want to do us harm and Iraq. And unsubstantiated presidential assertions that the link exists does little to help the rest of us form meaningful opinions. Every course of action is fraught with danger and terrible consequences, and we feel unprepared to offer opinions.

The ongoing debate (if you can call it that) in the country certainly encourages silence when the President has the audacity to accuse even the United States Senate of not being "interested in the security of the American people" (New York Times, September 26, 2002). Of course the administration must promote its policies, but comments questioning other Americans' loyalty and concern only serve to warn people off from serious debate.

And of course, there is September 11. A year later, we are still outraged. The enormity of the death and destruction still weigh heavy on us. This past week I had a long conversation with a friend whose brother-in-law was killed in the World Trade Center massacre. She spoke of the incomprehensibility of the awful events and the desolation that has resulted. And she feels like a lucky one: a month after the attacks, rescue workers found her brother-in-law's remains, or what was left of him. "At least they found his wedding ring," she said. We not only want to strike back, we want to make sure that such a slaughter never happens again. That impulse to make the terrorists pay is a healthy and natural impulse, and makes it more difficult for many of us to know what to say and know what to do when the drumbeats of war begin to pound.

We live in a dangerous and highly charged time, when little is certain. At the very time when our voice, our action is needed, it is easy to choose silence and let history march forward at its own inevitable pace. At least it has been easy for me to choose----as if I needed one more thing to have to think about and perhaps even get in trouble for.

It was easy for me until this past week when I read something that shook me to my core. Breyten Breytenbach is a South African poet and teacher who spent seven years in apartheid jails convicted of, you guessed it, terrorism. Last week, in The Nation magazine he wrote a Letter to America. Breytenbach wrote:

Your history has shown how powerful a moral catharsis expressed through popular resistance to injustice can sometimes be; I have in mind the grassroots opposition to the Vietnam War. And all along there was no dearth of strong voices speaking firm convictions and enunciating sure ethical standards.

Where are they now? What happened to the influential intellectuals and the trustworthy journalists explaining the ineluctable consequences of your present policies? (And here is the part that nailed me to the wall) Where are the clergy calling for humility and some compassion for the rest of the world? ... Are these voices stifled? Has the public arena of freely debated expressions of concern been sapped of all influence? Are people indifferent to the havoc wreaked all over the world by America's diktat policies, destroying the underpinnings of decent international coexistence? Or are they perhaps secretly and shamefully gleeful, as closet supporters of this Showdown at OK Corral approach? They (and you and I) are most likely hunkered down, waiting for the storm of imbecility to pass. How deadened we have become! (The Nation, September 5, 2002)

We have hunkered down, hoping that this dangerous storm will pass without maiming us, hoping that things will work out, assuming that we don't know what to say, that we don't know what to do. But the fact of the matter is, we do know what to say and we do know what to do. And as Jesus reminds us in our gospel lesson this morning, we speak and act with an authority that comes from God -- not as people who know what God thinks about every action and issue, but as a people who know that God created the entire world to live an a peaceful and just community. Because we worship and serve this God, and because we speak and act with authority, the church is not, as Breyten Breytenbach suggests, narrowly defined by nationalism and national interests, but by a global concern for all of God's creation. The church may not have specific policy recommendations, but we can and we must help frame the terms of the debate that consider not only American interests, but also the very real human interests of people all over the globe. And so we must speak and we must act.

If the church of Jesus Christ is going to fulfill its calling, it must insist that war is not a commodity to be sold like toothpaste or antacids, but that it is a terrible choice that must be undertaken only in the most extreme circumstances. We must expose the crass attitude about war that was expressed this summer when White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said that the President wouldn't start promoting the war until September because, as he stated, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August" (New York Times, September 7, 2002).

If the Church of Jesus Christ is going to fulfill its calling, it must insist that we talk about the whole consequence of war. We have so merged Saddam Hussein with the Iraqi people that we talk about them as one and the same. We will get Saddam, we will make him pay, we will remove him. But these phrases serve to sanitize what will really happen: a whole nation will be gotten, innocent women and children will pay, many more people than Saddam will be removed. In times of war innocents do die, so we must always choose that option as the last and least desirable choice available to us. If we need any more evidence that violence is a poor tool to change people's hearts and minds we only need to look at Israel. The violence committed by Israelis and Palestinians has continued to spiral upwards, and it has brought the sides no closer; it has only hardened positions and made peace more elusive.

If the Church of Jesus Christ is going to fulfill its calling, it must insist that we see our current conflicts as global conflicts. We talk about September 11 as an attack on America, and it certainly was. But it was also an attack on the world. Nearly 500 foreigners coming from 91 countries were killed in the Trade Center attack. If the 20^th Century was the American century, the 21^st Century will be the Global Century. We are intricately interconnected. We need one another in ways that we never imagined before. America can talk about unilateralism and pre-emptive strikes, but that will only remove us farther from other people of good will, who live under the same threat, but who see their destiny wrapped up with ours. In the Global Century, we will have to see the world from other's perspectives, we will have to understand other world views, we will have to discover other ways of living and relating to one another.

If the Church of Jesus Christ is going to fulfill its calling, it must insist that we see the interconnectedness of all that threatens life on this planet. We must not only seek to secure a world where terrorism does not exist, but to build a world where the water is pure, where the air is clean, where people of all places have their basic needs met. Environmentalism and economic justice cannot be treated as topics for another day; they are part and parcel of the current debate. Jesus said, "For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?" (Matthew 16:26).

If the Church of Jesus Christ is going to fulfill its calling, we must call all nations to account. While the United States has promoted many wonderful qualities around the world, and has helped millions of people gain freedom and dignity, we must also remind ourselves that we do not always act from the purest motives. The closer the conflict to oil, the quicker we are to respond. When a despotic dictator suits our purposes, we are curiously silent about "regime change" preferring to use back channel diplomacy and the positive effects of free trade. As a nation, we have and continue to subject a portion of our nation to substandard living. This does not disqualify America as a moral force for good; but it should temper our rhetoric and remind us that we only have part of the truth for human good; we need the rest of the world.

If the Church of Jesus Christ is going to fulfill it calling, we must be about more than words. In the Book of Revelation there is a vision of the New Jerusalem: "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." (Revelation 22:1-2). As the people of God, we are called to be that river that flows forth from this place, not only speaking of peace, but being the vehicles of God's healing -- a healing that extends not only to the shores of our nation, but even as far as Iran and Iraq.

What do we say? What do we do? We engage in the debate -- and if there is no debate, we insist on having one. We speak of the God who loves peace, the God who cares for every person around the world. We speak of a vision where people have the dignity and respect that God intends for all. And we act. We write letters, we promote peace locally and globally. If you want to work with others in this church, in two weeks on October 13 there will be a lunchtime gathering at Do Kirk's house -- you are invited to get involved. Like a generation ago, when this country had descended into another attempt to settle international conflict with violence, we will have to do more than just worry about it. We are called upon to speak and to act.

Thirty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the church about speaking up and acting up for peace. Dr. King stated:

I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will be still rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. And as we continue our chartered course, we may gain consolation in the words so nobly left that great black bard who was also a great freedom fighter of yesterday, James Weldon Johnson:

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet, with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered;
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

(Sermon "Where Do We Go from Here?")

This is our journey; this is our hope.

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