Dec 23, Immanuel: Our Hope for Peace

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Advent 4
December 23, 2007
W. Gregory Pope

IMMANUEL:
OUR LAST AND ONLY HOPE FOR PEACE

Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19;
Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

Where do you look for hope and peace in this world?

In a recent Courier-Journal interview Wendell Berry said, “Hope is a theological virtue. That means that you’ve got to try to have it. It’s not just a feeling. You’re not hopeful just because you woke up in a good mood. You’re hopeful because you found reasons. You’ve convinced yourself that something better is possible, and you’ve found a way to work for it.” [1]

Have you found reasons to be hopeful lately?

Hope is crucial to rolling out of bed each day. Hope brings to us a way of looking at life with what David Stendal-Rast calls “openness for surprise.” People of Hope have the capacity to be surprised. Sometimes life has dealt us such grave hardships we will not allow ourselves to Hope, to be open for surprise. The latest surprises have been too painful. But C. S. Lewis says that surprise is the signature of Grace.

Have you found reasons for hope lately? They can be difficult to find.

Babies as Signs of Hope

Sometimes hope comes wrapped in a blanket and lying in a crib, making you roll out of bed in the middle of the night. The screaming song they sing pierces your night-time peace. But their presence gives you reason to hope.

Henri Nouwen writes about two friends of his who struggled with the idea of bringing a baby into this world but decided to do so anyway. The baby’s name was Hannah. Nouwen said when he held her, because he knew her parents and their struggle with this maddening violent world, he said he was able to see her in ways he had never seen a baby before. He said, “This small and fragile child, looking trustfully at me with her beautiful dark eyes, told me something new about resistance that I had not known before. She told me that there is hope even when optimism seems absurd; there is love even when people die of fear; and there is reason to celebrate even in a civilization dressed in mourning for its own rapid decline.” [2]

Giving life to a new human being can be an act of resistance in this world. It is saying loudly: For us life is stronger than death, love is stronger than fear, and hope is stronger than despair. [3]

Babies can be signs of hope.

The Sign of the Baby in Isaiah

Such was the case in Isaiah’s day.

Isaiah had been called by God, says Molly Marshall of today’s text, “to speak the divine word to a beleaguered nation suffering an identity crisis.” [4] Do you think we can relate?

Jerusalem is under the threat of attack from surrounded neighbors. King Ahaz is scared to death and intimidated. Scripture says his heart “shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.” He’s so frightened he’s about to make a major policy decision to appeal for help from Assyria, a decision Walter Brueggemann says reflects “short-term panic and long-term foolishness.”

Into that situation of threat, panic, and foolishness comes the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah tells King Ahaz: “Be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint.” Isaiah invites the king to courage, based on a reassessment of reality. He engages in political analysis of the international scene. He tells Ahaz that the war-making kings will not be in power much longer.

The prophet is trying to help the king see that the world looks very different when you are not consumed by fear. The choice King Ahaz faces is the choice you and I face - the choice of “faith versus fear” and the two worlds that result from faith or from fear. [5]

Isaiah brings a needed word to us as he, firmly in the prophetic tradition, talks about faith and fear as a public policy issue. Whether we choose the path of faith or fear matters significantly in concrete decisions that must be made in the real world, in public discussions of war and peace, prosperity and poverty. [6]

Through the prophet Isaiah Yahweh makes the offer of a sign of reassurance to King Ahaz. Ahaz is either so afraid he is not willing to be reassured or he does not think Yahweh can be trusted. Either way it appears to be a failure of faith.

A sign is given anyway. Isaiah points to a woman great with child. The baby, he says, will be a sign of hope for Ahaz. The child’s name will be Immanuel, “God with us.”

It’s important to realize here that Isaiah is not predicting the birth of Jesus. This is a young woman in Isaiah’s day who is pregnant as Isaiah speaks, some 700 years before the birth of Jesus.

Isaiah tells Ahaz that before the child is old enough to choose between good and evil and eat solid food (say around two years old) the military threat will be over. The two kings of war-making will be out of the picture. Kings and presidents do not reign forever - only God does.

This child is a summons to faith for Ahaz. But Ahaz has abandoned faith. He refuses to trust Immanuel, that God will be with him and his people, that deliverance will come not through military might but through the God who keeps promises. Peace will not come through violence, but by learning the ways of God.

Ahaz refused to see the sign of hope and peace before him in the promise of a baby. And the result eventually was exile for his people.

The Sign of the Baby in Matthew

The sign of hope and peace in the promise of a baby also came to a young couple in Nazareth named Mary and Joseph.

Times were as dreadful, if not more so, as they were in Isaiah’s day. So Matthew remembered the story of Isaiah and Ahaz and made the baby connection. The baby of which Isaiah spoke to be named “Immanuel” was God’s sign of hope and peace for Ahaz. The baby of which Matthew speaks to be named “Immanuel” - though not the same baby - is God’s sign of hope and peace for all the world.

Just like Ahaz, Joseph is afraid. And just as Isaiah told King Ahaz, “Do not fear,” the angel said to Joseph, “Do not fear, for the child within Mary is Immanuel, a sign that “God is with us.” And miracle of miracles, in contrast to King Ahaz, Joseph had the faith to trust beyond his fears and the courage to act as God told him.

What Does It Mean to Be Saved From Our Sins?

The angel said to Joseph that the baby born to him and Mary shall be called Jesus, Yeshua, which means “God saves,” for he will save his people from their sins.

We must be careful when we hear scripture say that Jesus will save us from our sins to think it is only a reference to his death on a cross. A biblical understanding of salvation goes beyond our traditional limited understanding of “being saved” by believing in Jesus. Salvation is larger than that.

Biblical salvation regards every aspect of life - personal and public, individual and social. Salvation is a healing wholeness, a deliverance from those powers - political and spiritual - that prevent abundant life, a life of full, joyous, communion with God and one another. Salvation is peace, shalom. It is deliverance from death and enslavement to the law. It is deliverance from guilt and despair. But salvation is also primarily rooted in our daily, lived reality; it’s not just about reservations in the sweet by and by. And it is the work of God.

God brings peace-shalom-salvation in Jesus. In his life and teachings, death and resurrection, Jesus is saving us from ourselves and our sin

How does Jesus save us from our sins?

1. One way that Jesus seeks to save us from our sin is his call and the call throughout scripture not to be ruled by fear but guided by faith.

Many mistakes are made when fear is the context out of which we live.

So Isaiah tells King Ahaz: “Do not fear.” And the angel says to Joseph, “Do not be afraid.”

Why these warnings against fear? How is it possible not to be afraid in this frightening world? Both Isaiah and the angel point to babies as signs of hope and say they bear the name Immanuel. They are signs that “God is with us.” Someone has said that “Babies are God’s way of saying the world must go on.” They can be signs of hope and faith in a fearful world.

The choice between paralyzing fear and faithful trust in God is always before us. To live in faith is to trust our security and our future to the attentiveness of God, realizing that panic and anxiety are unnecessary. He’s got the whole world in his hands, including you and me, brother and sister. Our choice is to take the pilgrimage of faith rooted in the presence of God among us, or to take the way of fear, believing God is too small for the problems of this world.

We can be saved from the mad craziness that comes when fear rules our lives by trusting our lives in faith to the God who holds us all. And shalom, God’s all encompassing peace, can be ours.

Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. For God is with us.

2. To heed the call of Jesus to justice can save us from the sin of injustice. Our greed and consumption of material possessions leads to great injustices all over the world. We seek ways to control what we think we need. Others work for unfair wages so we can buy what we want inexpensively. The call to justice is a call to care for the poor. Learning justice was our second stop on this Advent pilgrimage of peace. Because to live in peace requires justice. And to live justly saves us from the sins of oppression and greed, an oppression and greed that often lead to violence and war.

3. Jesus calls us to nonviolence to save us from the sins of violence - the sins of unjust wars, needless, needless killing, and a cycle of violence that enslaves families, neighborhoods, national governments, and global politics.

When injustice is present, Jesus said, get mad about it and act against it, but do not resort to violence. If only the followers of Jesus in this world took the pledge of nonviolence most wars could never take place, and fewer people would want to make war against those who have learned the ways of nonviolence.

This is one way the cross of Jesus saves us from sin as it teaches us nonviolence and the willingness to suffer for others.

Nonviolence was our first stop on this advent pilgrimage of peace where we learned to pray and resist and join together in community. Such learning may be our salvation and the salvation of the world.

To choose the way of nonviolence is to choose the way of forgiveness.

4. The call of Jesus to forgive those who hurt us saves us from the sins of hatred and anger that often lead to violence. Again, his cross is our salvation. As he was brutally slaughtered on the cross, retaliation and violence was not his response. But rather, the most amazing word of grace our world has perhaps ever heard: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Hate can feel good. And anger can be justified. But hate that builds up and anger that boils over in violence cannot bring peace and salvation.

However, to let go of long-held grudges, to stop nursing wounds inflicting by another, and to forgive - to release someone from the arrows of your vengeful heart is to find salvation and give birth to peace.

Our willingness and ability to forgive others is nurtured within us by God’s forgiving grace in our own lives.

5. God’s forgiveness offered in Christ saves us from the shame of our past. Peace comes only as we learn to live with our past and to be released from the guilt and shame that past may bring. That’s what salvation is. To be made whole. To be healed on the inside from all that tears us apart. And it is the gift of God. We cannot atone for our own sins. The past cannot be undone. All we can do is accept grace and offer what restoration we can.

Jesus did that for others throughout his life. The woman at the well wounded by divorce. Zaccheaus disgraced by injustice. A woman embarrassed by adultery. Prodigals wanting to come home. Vengeance and judgment were not his way. The open arms of grace to heal shame and restore life - that was his way. And it is our salvation. It can be your peace, if you’ll receive it. Receive it like a gift on Christmas morning.

His way of faith saves us from fear.
His way of justice saves us from injustice.
His way of nonviolence saves us from violence.
His way of forgiveness saves us from hatred and shame.

6. And His presence as Immanuel - “God with us” - is the hope that saves us from despair.

God-with-us is our only hope for salvation, wholeness, peace in our lives and inn our world. God with us and in us is our only hope for faith, justice, nonviolence, and forgiveness. We cannot do it alone. We need the guiding power of Immanuel among us to teach us and the presence of crucified and Risen Christ within us to save us from ourselves and our sin.

The presence of the Christ Child we will meet in the manger tomorrow night and on Christmas morn has the healing power to save us and grant us peace. Such good news, Paul told the Romans, we are called to share in word and by the way we orient our lives.

King Ahaz refused “God with us” and proceeded to live and conduct policy without God. The result was exile.

Joseph faced his fear with trust in the God who holds us all and acted in a risking faith. And salvation was born into our world.

What about you?

Will you, like Ahaz, refuse “God with you” and proceed to live your life and make decisions without God? Or, like Joseph, will you trust the signs of hope around you and live with an openness to surprise and faith in “God with you”?

In the Bible hope is connected to the coming kingdom of God, or reign of God. This Advent season we have heard some of the scripture’s most beautiful images of this peaceable kingdom: swords beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. It is the dream of justice and joy, peace and rest. We sing of Hope when we sing the Hallelujah Chorus: “And he shall reign forever and ever.” It is a heavenly and historical Hope where “The kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.” Hope believes in a God who will bring these things to pass.

Who knows? The surprise of Hope may even happen in this place. In babies and children like Matthew and Hana and Mary Grace Po and Hope Blossom Could it be Hope that, deep down, is what brings us here each week? The Hope that if we have our ears and eyes open, every once in a while some word in even the most unpromising sermon will flame out, some scrap of prayer or anthem, some moment of silence, or the sudden glimpse of somebody you love sitting there near you, or some stranger whose face without warning touches your heart - moments that in the depths of our dimness and sadness and lostness we hear the echo of a wild and bidding voice that calls us from deeper still.

I will end with the question that got us started: Where do you look for hope and peace in the world?

I would point you this day to the manger, to the One who came to save us from sin and self, with the Hope that we are known, each one of us, by name, and that out of the distressing darkness and brokenness of our lives God will call us by name. It is the Hope that into the secret grief and pain and bewilderment of each of us Christ will come at last to heal and to save.

This Advent pilgrimage may find you traveling through the darkest night. You may have given in to despair and cynicism. But I have good news for you. God has a Christmas package with your name on it. It says, “Hope is here.” Hope is here. Yes, even for you and me.
__________________

1. “Wendell Berry’s still unsettled in his ways,” The Courier-Journal, September 30, 2007, A20
2. Henri Nouwen, Peacework, Orbis, 2005, 74
3. Ibid., 73
4. Molly Marshall, “Security Without Might,” in Interpreting Isaiah for Preaching and Teaching, ed., by Cecil Staton, Smyth and Helwys, 1991, 67
5. Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 1-39, Westminster John Knox, 1998, 65-66
6. Ibid., 72

Dec. 16, 2007 - Peace and Joy in the Desert

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Advent 3
December 16, 2007
W. Gregory Pope

PEACE AND JOY IN THE DESERT
Isaiah 35:1-10; Luke 1:47-55; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11

I have to tell you, I’ve never cared too much for the phrase, “Everything will be all right.” It has sounded too pollyannaish in the face of cancer and sudden death and divorce and war. I want to believe it to be true, but sometimes it’s just so hard to do.

VISION: Isaiah and Jesus

Isaiah, it seems, is holding up a sign in the middle of Israel’s despair, and the sign reads: “Everything will be all right.” One day, Isaiah says, God is coming, and is among us even now, to put things right and redress all wrongs, and all creation will rejoice and sing.

He says the wilderness will rejoice and so will God’s people. Springs of water will burst forth in the barren wilderness and streams will flow in the dry desert - a reminder to Israel of God’s care for them in the wilderness on their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. Isaiah talks about Israel being “redeemed” and “ransomed,” again recalling their being bought back from slavery, freed from Egyptian bondage. Now he is speaking of their return from Babylonian exile traveling the Holy Way, a pilgrim highway where no one dangerous or threatening will travel. [1]

And Isaiah says as we make this pilgrimage of peace we will sing with joy all the way home. A home where one day all sorrow will scurry into the night. Everlasting joy will be upon us. Because the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. The lame will leap like deer and the voiceless will break into song.

Nobody sings “everything will be all right” like Isaiah.

And Mary singing her Magnificat makes it a fine duet, anticipating the reversal of fate for the poor and lowly in society that will one day come as the kingdom breaks into our world.

We want to believe such a vision of peace is true. But the reality of the world’s suffering and warring madness has a way of suffocating our joy and blinding our vision to the kingdom of God breaking in around us.

It happened to John the Baptist. John found himself in jail under the threat of death, wondering if all this kingdom of God stuff is true. He wants to know if Jesus really is the One ushering in a new day. Jesus sends word back through John’s disciples, pointing to signs along the pilgrim highway that the kingdom of God is breaking in among them: the deaf can hear, the blind can see, the leper is cleansed, and the poor have received good news.

The kingdom work of peacemaking can be daunting. So it is necessary for those of us who engage in such work to have the vision to see and believe what Jesus and Mary and Isaiah are trying to help us see and believe.

It will take more than wishing and praying to make peace a reality in our world. But it certainly will not come unless we imagine and envision it.

Henri Nouwen offers for our imagination this vision of a community of peace. He writes:

"When I think of this new community in our time I think about people from all over the world reaching out to each other in total vulnerability. . . . I see them moving over this world, visiting each other, binding each other’s wounds, confessing their brokenness to each other, and forgiving each other with a simple word, an embrace, a touch, or even a smile. I see them walking alone or together in the most simple clothes caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, comforting the lonely, and waiting quietly with the dying. I see them in apartment buildings, farm houses, schools and universities, hospitals, and office buildings as quiet witnesses of God’s presence. Wherever they are they bring peace . . . [and] they form a new community of hope . . . They need each other to remain faithful to their vocations as peacemakers. Most of all they need each other to form together the living body of Christ in the midst of this warring world." [2]

The work of peacemaking requires a community with a vision as large as that of Isaiah and Jesus, with a heart strong enough to trust that God has come to live among us, and courageous enough to believe that the kingdom of God is breaking into our world. Nouwen helps us see what it might look like. And history helps us see that it can happen.

Think about what is now that at one time was not. The defeat of Nazism and communism and Apartheid. The rise of Civil Rights and the treatments for diseases that once killed millions of children and wiped out large segments of the population. And we have learned before it was too late that Iran, like Iraq, has no nuclear program. The deaf are hearing and the blind are seeing, and the mute are singing while the lame are dancing for joy.

There is much still to be done: significant global action on global warming and our greedy destruction of the only earth we have; the creation of economic systems that are just and equitable for all - markets that are free and fair; and the transformation of global power driven by greed and violence to one built on justice and peace.

PATIENCE: James

Peacemaking requires a community with vision. It also requires the patience to see the vision break into reality.

James provides two examples of people who must live with patience: farmers and prophets.

The farmer as an image of peacemaker takes us back to the last couple of weeks to Isaiah’s visions of swords being turned into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks (Isaiah 2) and all of God’s creatures lying down in peace together (Isaiah 11). That will take awhile. And the patience of a farmer is required.

The farmer plants the seed and waits patiently for the rain and then the harvest. The essence of farming is to plow in hope. For those who must have immediate results, farming is the wrong profession. So is peacemaking. The pursuit of peace requires patience.

The prophet also has to be patient, waiting for fulfillment and often suffering for what they’ve said. The essence of farming is to plow in hope. The essence of the prophetic task is to speak in hope, even if the prophet does not live to see their promises fulfilled. Which is often the case. Prophets who denounce the violence and greed of this world and call for justice and peace do not make it long in this world.

Jesus said of such prophets, like John the Baptist, that they are more than prophets; they are kingdom messengers preparing the way for the rule and reign of the Messiah in the world. John called the King to justice and found himself in jail. And while in jail he grew impatient, waiting for the kingdom to break into reality. His impatience, however, was cut short by Herod’s guillotine.

In recent history one thinks of Martin Luther King. He knew that prophets of peace and justice did not last long in this world. And he knew that it most likely would be true of him. He said, echoing Moses, that he had been to the mountain and seen a vision of the promised land, a land where people would not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character. “I’ve seen the promised land,” he said, “though I may not get there with you. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” The next day his life was snuffed out by an assassin’s bullet.

Peacework requires a strong-hearted community with vision and the courageous patience to wait and even suffer for a vision of justice and peace.
As we patiently wait we continue to till the kingdom ground like a farmer and tell God’s truth like a prophet.

Robert Fulghum offers a third unlikely image of patience: college students. In his latest book, What On Earth Have I Done? Fulghum tells the story of giving two college students a ride. Making conversation he asked them what was happening in their lives.

And they said, “We’re eating a chair.”

It seems their college philosophy teacher gave them an extra-credit assignment to do something unique and memorable, not dangerous but creative and instructive; write it up, explain what was learned, and how it might apply to their philosophy of life. So, they’re eating a chair.

They bought a plain wooden kitchen chair. And using a wood rasp, they’ve been shaving away at the chair, mixing the dust into their granola for breakfast, and sprinkling the dust on their salads at dinner. They consulted a physician to make sure the wood dust was not harmful. And they say it doesn’t taste bad - especially if you mix in a little cinnamon at breakfast and a little lemon pepper at dinner.

They are quite pleased with themselves. They’re sure they’ll astound the professor when they’re able to tell him, “We ate a chair.” “It will blow the dude away,” said one of the students.

They say they’ve learned a few things along the way. Like how amazing long-term goals can be achieved in incremental stages. Things like patience and perseverance. They’ve learned that some things cannot be had except on a little-at-a-time, keep-the-long-view-in-mind, stay-focused basis.

In reflection Fulghum says: “Love and friendship are like that. Marriage and parenthood, too. And peace and justice and social change.” And then he writes: “In the foolishness of my young college friends lies the seed of What-Might-Be, little by little.” [3]

Such is the way of peacemaking. Like a farmer planting the seed of What-Might-Be and watching it grow little by little.

JOY: Mary

Such patience calls for a strong heart of courage rooted in joy. Because as we struggle to see the vision and wait patiently for it to become reality, we must willingly give of ourselves in the work of peacemaking.

Mary said yes to God’s invitation. In the midst of great fear there was an even greater joy as she recognized her role in the history of salvation: “My soul magnifies the Lord,” she sings, “and my Spirit rejoices in God my Savior. The Lord has looked with favor upon me and the Mighty One has done great things for me.”

There is joy in the work of the kingdom. A joy Jesus promises. A joy only Jesus can give. Scripture describes the joy of the kingdom as a joy like that of a mother after childbirth (John 17:21); a joy that no one can take away from us (John 16:22); a joy that is not of this world but a participation in the divine joy (John 15:11).

Many peacemakers, overwhelmed by the great threats of our time, have lost their joy and have become prophets of doom. But joy is a sign that we work in the Spirit of Jesus. Peace and joy are like brother and sister; they belong together. In the Gospels, joy and peace are always found together. The angel who announces the birth of the Prince of Peace, says to the shepherds, “Behold, I bring you good news of great joy to be shared with all people.”

This joy does not necessarily mean happiness. We are often led to believe that joy and sorrow are opposites and that joy excludes pain, suffering, and anguish. But the joy of the Gospel is a deep joy hidden in the midst of struggle. It is the joy of knowing that evil and death have no final power over us, a joy anchored in the words of Jesus who said: “In this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). [4]

One woman found such joy and peace in the midst of the suffering desert of her life.

Tom Schmidt tells the story. Here are his words:

"The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and filled with helpless, lonely people who are waiting to die. On the brightest of days, it seems dark inside, and it smells of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for four years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It’s not the kind of place one gets used to.

"On one particular day, I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few people who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless.

"As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly.

"I was told later that when new nurses arrived, the supervisors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight, they could stand anything in the building.

"I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old, and that she had been here bedridden, blind and nearly deaf, and alone for twenty-nine years. This was Mabel.

"I don’t know why I spoke to her. She looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hall, but I put a flower in her hand, and I said, “Here’s a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.

"She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it. And then she spoke. And to my surprise, her words, though somewhat garbled by her deformity, were obviously produced by a clear mind.

"She said, 'Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else. I’m blind and cannot see it.'

"I said, 'Of course.' And I pushed her in her chair down the hallway to a place I thought I could find some alert patients. I found one and stopped the chair.

"Mabel held out the flower and said, 'Here. This is from Jesus.'

"This is when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being.

"Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her life story. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mom until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For twenty-five years, she got weaker and sicker with constant headaches, backaches, stomachaches, and then the cancer came. Her three roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally, but never talked.

"Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. Her first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible and often I would pause, and she would continue reciting the passage from memory word for word.

"Other days, I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words to the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn, and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns. It was not many weeks that I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder. And I would go to her with pen and paper to write down the things she would say.

"During one hectic week of final exams, I was frustrated because my mind seemed pulled in ten directions at once with all the things I had to think about. And the question occurred to me: What does Mabel have to think about hour after hour, day after day, week after week?

"So I went to her and asked, 'Mabel, what do you think about when you lie there?'

"And she said, 'I think about my Jesus. I think about how good he’s been to me in my life. He’s been awfully good to me. I’m one of those kind of people who is mostly satisfied. I’d just rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.'

"And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:

"Jesus is all the world to me, my life, my joy, my all.
He is my strength from day to day. Without him I would fall.
When I am sad to him I go. No other one can cheer me so.
When I am sad, He makes me glad. He’s my friend." [5]

As I read that story I saw Mabel’s life putting flesh and blood on the words of Isaiah and Mary, Jesus and James.

She was living proof of Jesus’ words that the blind can see and the deaf can hear. Mabel had vision to see what not many other people can see and to hear what not many other people can hear.

And she had a voice like Mary: “He has done great things for me.”

And running beneath her life was a courageous patience, a strong-hearted patient waiting and suffering for the day Isaiah’s vision would be reality, the day when everything will be all right.

So pilgrim, keep going down the highway toward the place where God’s peace reigns. Along the pilgrimage:

Band with others and sing.
Catch the vision and see.
Like a good farmer till the ground of the kingdom.
And like a prophet tell the truth of God’s good news.
And if you have to: Eat a chair.

Oh yes, Isaiah, peace and joy can be found in the desert of our lives. And one day everything will be all right. It just has to be.

______________

1. Gene Tucker, “Isaiah” The New Interpreters Bible, Vol. VI, Abingdon, 2001, 281-282
2. Nouwen, Peacework, Orbis, 2005, 110-111
3. Robert Fulghum, What On Earth Have I Done? St. Martin’s Press, 2007, 29-31
4. Nouwen, 80-81
5. As told by John Ortberg in “How God Works In You,” an unpublished sermon delivered February 29, 2004 at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, Menlo Park, California.

Dec 9, 2007 - Peace Through Justice

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Advent 2
December 9, 2007
W. Gregory Pope
PEACE THROUGH JUSTICE
Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

Turning on the radio or shopping at the mall these days your ears are likely to be filled with the sounds of the holiday season. And most of it sounds nothing like the beauty of this choir. Depending on who you are, Christmas music makes you feel either nostalgic, inspired, sentimental, or downright nauseous. Depending on the song, perhaps some of all four. There is one Christmas tune, however, that if you listen closely to the lyrics it can be appropriately jarring. The Jackson Browne song of which I am speaking begins with a Christmas scene:

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season.

And then he sings of people who will soon gather around

the hearths and tables
Giving thanks for all God’s graces -
and the birth of the rebel Jesus.

The word “rebel” interrupts the peaceful holiday scene. The jarring intrusion, of course, is not accidental, and the tension runs throughout the song. Browne continues reflecting on happy Christians celebrating Christmas:

Well they call him by the prince of peace
And they call him by the savior.

But all is not well, because these very people

fill his churches with their pride and gold

and

they’ve turned the nature that I worshiped in
from a temple to a robber’s den
in the words of the rebel Jesus.

The arrogant pursuit of wealth and the careless plundering of creation, Browne knows, are the kinds of injustice “the rebel Jesus” would yell out against from our nativity scenes if we would only give him a voice.

Browne can’t help being cynical even about holiday charity:

We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations.

Browne allows that, during the Christmas season, we may even

give a little to the poor
if the generosity should seize us.

But our charity only goes skin-deep, because

if anyone of us should interfere
in the business of why they are poor
they get the same as the rebel Jesus.

The song dramatically climaxes with Browne identifying himself as

a heathen and a pagan
on the side of the rebel Jesus. [1]

Jackson Browne sounds a bit like John the Baptist in our text today. The lectionary gives us John the Baptist this time every year to jar us away from the sentimental and wake us to the scandal of the season and the meaning and message of the baby in the manger.

John the Baptist is tired of people playing church. People who think that because they attend church and pray then all is well with them and God. John says No, the messiah is coming with fire in his veins and he’s going to burn away all useless religion and ignite the life of the kingdom of God within us - the kingdom of justice and mercy and peace. He will teach us what the prophets of old have been trying to teach us for centuries - that peace with God, peace with one another, peace among the nations requires justice.

The peace that Jackson and John sing about is a different kind of peace than we imagine the angels singing about.


Joy Jordan-Lake is a former Harvard chaplain who now teaches at Belmont University in Nashville. She has written a book entitled Why Jesus Makes Me Nervous. In a chapter on peace she describes many of us, including herself, as Peace-At-All-Costs kind of people. We don’t want conflict of any kind. In a self-confession she writes: “Part of my yearning for peace is God-driven, and part of it is the pansy ducking for cover. I want the lion to lie down with the lamb 24-7.”[2]

Many of us are like that. We don’t want to upset anyone. It was the Peace-At-All-Costs crowd that Martin Luther King Jr. blasted in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” as being worse than the Klan. Those who impede real peace, the kind of peace that flows down from justice, are not just those ignorant buffoons in bedsheets spewing hatred, but those of us who are well-educated, respected citizens and clergy who keep quiet in the face of evil because it would hurt our business or reputation. [3]

We seek peace through our investment portfolios, gated communities, and controlling what our children watch on TV. This is what Jordan-Lake calls a “plastic peace” that ignores the troubles of others and the injustice in our city and world. [4]

Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminds us that Jesus does not teach “Blessed are the peacelovers” but “Blessed are the peacemakers.” “Makers” is a word with energy and action behind it. More fight than flight.

To quote Lake again: “Peace according to Jesus has to do with the Cross, an act of horrific violence met by aggressive nonviolence, and a power that violence could not overcome. If we see any example of peace in the Cross, then surely it’s not that we’re to sit still, making daisy chains and hoping that little children won’t have their legs blown off by landmines, or their mothers mangled by shells.” Peace has to do with justice and fairness and making right what is wrong. [5]

Rather than passive and polite, God’s children ought to be practicing a dogged refusal to budge from an insistence on peace - a peace rooted in justice.

You may have seen the bumper sticker: “If you want peace, work for justice.” They are twin siblings in the kingdom of God. And I have found them running around this family of faith often.

I will never forget my first nine days as pastor of this church.

On my first official day we fed in our Fellowship Hall Amokolee workers who had come to Louisville from Florida fighting for a just wage to pick tomatoes. They were not mean-spirited, just fighting for justice. And they won.

Eight days later we held a peace vigil out on our front steps marking the second anniversary of the Iraq war. Again nothing mean-spirited, just a simple witness for peace and prayers for the end to a war many of us could not support. The war still rages.

But I was one proud pastor.

The working out of peace through justice is a struggle that takes place in the world of global politics.

This text like so many prophetic texts challenges any claim that religion and theology have nothing to do with politics and international relations.

Decisions made by world leaders and the people who elect them are crucial to peace and justice. And they matter to God.

Isaiah envisions a day when rulers will be shaped by the spirit of the Lord, when peace reigns through justice and equity not power and violence.

Much is being made these days of the faith of presidential candidates. It’s quite a fascinating conversation. We should never expect a president to divorce his or her political life from their faith. They must be careful not to impose their belief system on the country. They must guard everyone’s constitutional right to religious freedom which includes freedom from religion. But the true test of a leader’s faith according to scripture is not the denominational or religious stripe they wear - be it Catholic or Jewish, Methodist or Mormon, Baptist or Buddhist. Nor is the test of faith the doctrines they say they belief. The test of a leader’s faith is whether or not he or she works for peace for all nations and justice for the world’s poor. That’s what I want to know about their faith.

The psalmist guides us to pray for our leaders, that God would grant them wisdom and understanding, that they would stand up and shape policy on behalf of the poor and needy, that peace would be their goal and justice their means.

Political and economic justice are crucial to world peace. And there is much injustice around us.

The richest 1 percent of the world’s population owns almost 50 percent of the total wealth, and the richest 5 percent owns 70 percent of the wealth. You can take the assets of the world’s three richest individuals and you have wealth that exceeds the combined wealth of the world’s 48 poorest countries.

The skyrocketing inequity is even more striking among CEOs. The ratio of the average CEO salary to the average American worker (after taxes) was 12:1 in 1960; in 2003 it reached 301:1. No Bible in the world will support that economic system.

We must demand greater social justice from corporations. For you will often find the roots of terrorism and violence in poverty and injustice.


Author Brian McLaren was having dinner with a man who had spent several years in prison for participating in revolutionary activities against the Apartheid regime in his country. His methods in those days were violent, inspired by Marxist revolutions in other parts of the world. While in prison he became a Christian, and then after his release, a pastor, and eventually, a denominational official. As he rose in the religious world, he distanced himself from politics and economics. But the present world situation and the global economy has changed his mind.
He told McLaren: “The economic prescription by Karl Marx was faulty, but he did diagnose the problem: the exploited and excluded poor won’t abide their marginalization forever. We escaped a bloody revolution in 1994 as we peacefully dismantled Apartheid. But if we can’t dismantle the inequity of our current economic system, we will have an explosion of violence that nobody can imagine. The streets will run red. I feel it when I walk the slums. It’s like a volcano, ready to explode - the anger and hopelessness of the poor.” [6]

The roots of terrorism and violence can often be found in poverty and injustice. People who are starving have nothing to lose by risking violence. Someone has said that “peace begins when the hungry are fed.” The way to peace is fed by the waters of justice. And “justice leads to a transformed relationship between human beings and the rest of creation.” [7]

Isaiah’s vision is so powerful and promising. Predators and prey, lion and lamb shall lie down together in peace. No one, not even the worst enemies will hurt or kill on God’s holy mountain. And a little child shall lead them.

A 19th century American Quaker named Edward Hicks painted today’s Isaiah text over and over again. In all he painted over eighty versions of the Peaceable Kingdom, the animals at peace led by a child. In one painting off to the side of the beasts and little children playing together there is a scene of William Penn and other leaders making a treaty with the native Americans. [8]

If you study many of the paintings, you will notice that over a period of years as Edward Hicks became more and more disappointed with the conflicts of his age, the predators in his paintings look more and more ferocious. Painting by painting the miracle of peace looks harder and harder. [9]

It’s hard to trust this vision when so many adversaries are so deadly. Is such a vision of the peaceable kingdom a realistic hope today? Can we hope for a day when Republicans and Democrats care more about the peace and well-being of the world than they do about the special interests of donors, even when those interests are unjust?

Woody Allen said, “The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won’t get much sleep.”

We know what he means. So much of our world seems blinded to this vision of the peaceable kingdom by greed and power and the craving to control the world. Isaiah’s vision is over 2500 years old. How much longer shall we hope? You can only hope so long before it leads to despair.

In the face of oncoming despair we can do small things: feed the hungry in our city, vote for leaders who care about the poor, light a candle as a witness to peace. Joan Baez said action is the antidote to despair.


We can also pray for peace and the desire of justice to have more power in us. Violence and passivity in the face of injustice is not just the problem of the political world. It’s the problem of my heart and your heart.

There is a lion and a lamb that lives within each of us. In some of us the angry lion is dominant. We lash out at others. We tear at ourselves. There’s an untamed aggression that destroys relationships.

In others of us, the passive lamb is in control. We’re timid and afraid. We’re never willing to roar, even when roaring is called for.

The integration of lion and lamb within us is the work of God’s peace. And such peace is found in a deep friendship with the One scripture calls both Lion of Judah and Lamb of God. He is God’s Messiah, the one we call Jesus, and in his life the lion and the lamb dwell together. He came like a lion with strength and judgement. And he came as a lamb - gentle, caring, forgiving, and suffering even unto death. [10]

Madeline L’Engle, who recently passed away, has written a wonderful children’s book called Dance in the Desert. [11] It’s the story of a young man and woman who long ago traveled through the desert with their child. They traveled with a caravan on their way to Egypt through a desert filled with ferocious animals. Some of their companions were afraid of the beasts, afraid especially that they might harm the child. When night came and they were all sitting around the fire, a great lion appeared at the edge of the camp and everyone trembled. But the child held out his arms and the lion rose up on his hind legs and, of all things, began to dance. And then from the desert came running little mice and two donkeys and three eagles, a snake and great clumsy ostriches, a unicorn, a pelican, and even two dragons. And they all bowed to the child and they all danced together round and round him as he stood at the center and laughed with delight.

You know the name of that Child. Let him stand at the center of your desert. Let all the beasts in you bow down to him. And the Child will lead them.

And who knows? The leaders of the world might just follow. And here and there, now and then, the kingdom will break through. Justice and peace will dance together if only for one song.

Everywhere you go, at the mall and in the car radio - the music is playing. The rebel Jesus Child is waiting for you out on the floor of the world. Are you willing to dance?

___________________

1. Jackson Browne, “The Rebel Jesus.”
2. Joy Jordan-Lake, Why Jesus Makes Me Nervous, Paraclete Press, 2007, 69
3. Ibid., 68
4. Ibid., 71
5. Ibid., 72
6. Brian McLaren, Everything Must Change, Thomas Nelson, 2007, 243

7. Gene Tucker, “Isaiah 1-39,” New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VI, Abingdon, 2001, 142.
8. Ibid., 143
9. Carol Gilligan as cited by Paul Duke, “The Lion and the Lamb,” in Best Sermons 5, ed., by James Cox, HarperCollins, 1992, 151
10. Duke, 152
11. Madeline L’Engle, Dance in the Desert, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969.

Dec 2, 2007 - Peace Through Nonviolence

Advent 1
December 2, 2007
W. Gregory Pope
LIVING IN THE LIGHT OF GOD:
PEACE THROUGH NONVIOLENCE
Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44

What do you believe our world needs more than anything?

Miss America beauty pageant contestants (other than teaching us geography lessons) usually give voice to the generic desire of most of us when she expresses the desire for world peace. Few are those who do not want to sit down with their families in peace, safe in their homes, allowing their children to play freely in the neighborhood, in a world where nations are at peace with one another.

World peace is a worthy desire and necessary aim, but it requires more than wishful dreaming. Martin Luther Kings said, “Many people cry Peace! Peace! but they refuse to do the things that make for peace.” World peace requires that we all learn the ways that make for peace.

Peacemaking today is the work of giving a future to humanity, making it possible to continue our life together on this planet.

If we continue to live without peace, ultimately moving toward the world’s annihilation, nothing else will matter, not even freedom or democracy, for no one will be alive to enjoy it.

We have to find a way to make the word “peace” as important as the word “freedom." (1)

The ways that make for peace are ways that can be learned and lived by those who do not even believe in God. But for those of us who do believe in God, we must learn to live in God’s light and lead the first steps toward peace so that others may follow.

Invitation to Pilgrimage

Isaiah invites us all to take those first steps toward peace by taking a pilgrimage to “the mountain of the Lord’s house,” Jerusalem.

The peace of Jerusalem is the passionate concern of Psalm 122. The name “Jerusalem” is built on the Hebrew word for peace, shalom. Ironically, the city sacred to all three of the world’s monotheistic religions, whose name symbolizes peace, has proven throughout history to be one of the most fought over cities in the world.

This psalm calls us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. As a congregation we are encouraging one another to read the Sunday scriptures during the preceding week. We read the psalm on Wednesday. Dorothy Spurr brought to my attention that this Wednesday as we read Psalm 122, calling us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, Israelis and Palestinians were meeting in Annapolis to begin peace talks. Yes, the psalms can still be prayed today.

We do pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and not because of some crazy end-time scenario, but as the holy land that it is, the beloved center of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And I wonder, as we move through Advent, if a significant part of our pilgrimage of peace would be a spiritual journey back to the center of the religious world as a place of meaning, back to the place where the Prince of Peace walked the earth, the place where on Christmas Eve we will bow our hearts before the manger.

Perhaps we will answer Isaiah’s call to go up to the mountain of the Lord, where God will teach us God’s ways and we will learn to walk more faithfully in God’s light.

In that pilgrimage our prayer will be that we will find the Prince of Peace walking among us in our own neighborhoods, at work, at school, at home, throughout our city and country, beginning in our own hearts.

This Advent season we are taking a pilgrimage of peace where we will seek to learn four crucial elements of peace: non-violence, justice, vision, and hope.

If our desires for peace are going to run deeper than the desires of Miss America hopefuls:

1) we have to agree not to harm one another and make a commitment to non-violence;

2) we have to acknowledge the root causes of violence such as poverty, greed, fear and injustice and make a commitment to justice;

3) we have to see a vision of what peace looks like and keep our eyes fixed on that vision;

4) and we have to root our hope in the way of Jesus, Immanuel, come to save us from our sinful warring madness.

These four elements - non-violence, justice, vision, and hope - will serve as markers of learning along our pilgrimage during these four Sundays of Advent.

So come, let’s heed Isaiah’s call and make this pilgrimage to the mountain of God. But let there be no mistake: “this is no sightseeing trip but a purposeful journey to a holy place”(2) to learn the ways of God and commit ourselves to live in God’s light so that we can live together as God dreamed we would.

The Way of Nonviolence

Today, the first lesson along the pilgrimage is Peace through Nonviolence.

In my son Ryan’s childcare classroom for two-year-olds, there’s a sign that says, “When we are angry we only use words.” With his tendency to throw things, I think they put it up just for him. He just needs to hurry up and learn to read! “When we are angry, we only use words.”

Perhaps that sign should hang in the office of every world leader. Because Isaiah’s vision is one of peace for all peoples. It is the same peace on earth announced by the angels to the shepherds at Jesus’ birth, an announcement we are preparing ourselves to hear on Christmas Eve.

Isaiah’s vision is that one day God will settle things fairly and make things right between peoples and nations and we won’t learn or practice war anymore. But God’s will is that nonviolence and justice rule in the here and now, not just in the sweet by and by.

And that requires our partnership with God. When you read Isaiah carefully you see that he says God will settle things fairly, but we must turn our swords into shovels and our spears into farming equipment. God will teach us but we must act, we must turn the purpose of fighter jets from bomb drops to food drops, and we must transform the barrels of our guns into pipes for fresh water. Nations not God destroy the weapons of war.

We must take part in the healing of our world by taking the money spent on instruments of war that kill and destroy and spend the money instead on instruments of farming and agriculture and health care that feed and give life. Isaiah says the way to peace is to turn instruments of war into tools that feed people.

It may be in the brokenness and evil of our world that sometimes the violence of others must be stopped by force. But rarely is that the true reason for war. Money, oil, control, our idolized way of life - this is what we are after. And it’s all because we are so afraid.

We classify our foes as enemies of peace and freedom. But the poet offers a cutting question when he asks: “Did you finish killing / everybody who was against peace?”(3)

Benjamin Franklin was right: There was never a good war or a bad peace.

Pleas have been made for our government to create a Department of Peace, only to be met with scorn and ridicule. Peace is weak. Strength is in force.

But Jesus said no to violence and pronounced God’s blessing on peacemakers.

We gather on God’s mountain to learn the way of peace.

Henri Nouwen says the way to peace is learned through prayer, resistance, and community (4).

Prayer

On God’s mountain we learn the way of peace as we pray.

Praying can sound so passive. It is often considered the opposite of action, but that is not the case. Prayer is the beginning, the source, the core, and the basis of all peacemaking. Prayer is living in the presence of God with an open heart ready to be shaped in the ways of God and illumined by the light of God.

When in our anger we want to use more than words, when world leaders feed on our fears and we seek revenge, and when Miss America no longer speaks for us in our desire for world peace, prayer can reshape our desire.

When the desires for money, oil, national security and the protection of our way of life are greater than the desire for peace, we pray that God would transform our hearts and change our desires.

To pray is to seek wisdom and guidance in the ways that make for peace. And to pray for peace in the name of the Christ is to seek to do so nonviolently, without retaliation.

Nouwen says: When we want to make peace we first of all have to move away (spiritually speaking) from the dwelling places of those who hate peace. To pray is to leave the house of fear and journey toward the house of love and peace. This entering into a new dwelling place is what prayer is all about. Prayer is a “radical interruption” of those dependencies that lead to violence and war and an entering into an entirely new dwelling place (5). It’s what happens when we go up to the mountain of the Lord’s house.

In a world as dangerous as ours, prayer doesn’t mean much if it is seen only as an attempt to influence God, or as a search for a spiritual fallout shelter or as a source of consolation. In face of the destruction we are capable of, prayer makes sense only when it is an act of stripping oneself of everything, even our own lives, so as to be totally free to belong to God and God alone. (6)

It happens in worship. The psalmist calls us to worship where we learn to desire and pray for peace. In worship through prayer and the reading of scripture we hear of God’s vision for the world and our desire for what God wants is given the opportunity to intensify and grow. We let Christ continue his work of salvation among us. We dress ourselves in Christ putting on the armor of light, which is the armor of peace not violence.

Resistance

Prayer leads us right into the world where we must take act and resist the violence and evil around us. Without returning evil for evil, we engage in what Gandhi and Martin Luther King practiced: nonviolent resistance.

Gandhi brought change to India through peaceful nonviolence over the British occupiers, teaching us along the way that an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

Martin Luther King and his followers brought civil rights for African Americans through nonviolent resistance.

It cost both of them their lives.

Nonviolent peacemakers expose the violence of the violent who only know violence and so the violent silence the peacemakers.

King said that the principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites - acquiescence and violence - while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both. The nonviolent resister agrees with the person who acquiesces that one should not be physically aggressive toward one’s opponent. The nonviolent resister agrees with the person of violence that evil must be resisted. With nonviolent resistance, no individual or group need to submit to any wrong, nor need anyone resort to violence in order to right a wrong.

Community

So let’s join the army and be all we can be, a peace army of nonviolent resisters. Let’s not learn war anymore. Let’s live and walk together in the light of God’s peace. Together in community.

All of our prayers and all of our resistance are rooted in community.

We resist violence as a community.

We see the world as one community.

Peacemakers are those whose hearts are so anchored in God that they do not need to evaluate, criticize or judge others. They can see their neighbors - whether they are Americans, Iraqis, French, African, Asian, or Vietnamese - as fellow human beings, fellows sinners, fellow saints, men and women who need to be listened to, looked at, and cared for with the love of God. And we need to recognize that we belong to the same human family.

Live in the Light of God

Nouwen says there is a “no” of resistance, resisting the forces of death all around us. But the “no” of resistance is only meaningful if we embrace the “yes” of resistance, affirming life. The desert fathers of the fourth century advised their disciples to focus on God’s light instead of paying so much attention to the world’s darkness. (7)

Have you ever noticed how there seems to be so little peace in the hearts of some who are called peacemakers. Peacemakers are sometimes seen as fearful angry people trying to convince others of the urgency of their protest. They have embraced the “no” of resistance but have not found the “yes” of affirming life and pointing others to God’s light.

Part of what Paul was saying to the Romans is that we need to recognize that Christ’s coming has already begun to make a difference in this conflict between light and darkness. Things may be dark but not as dark as they might have been otherwise. The light of Christ is already giving forth significant illumination and we are called to live in that light. (8)

Let us continue the pilgrimage to God’s mountain where God will teach us to live in God’s light. We don’t have to live in valleys of darkness where we hate and kill and act in cruelty. There’s a high mountain of truth thrusting itself into the sun, solid and splendid in the light. We have been summoned to the mountain to come with a teachable heart, to listen with eager ears, and live out what we learn there. (9)

__________________________

1. Henri Nouwen, Peacework, Orbis, 2005, 22.
2. Gene Tucker, “Isaiah 1-39,” New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VI, Abingdon, 2001, 67
3. Wendell Berry, “The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer,” Collected Poems 1957-1982, North Point, 1985, 121
4. Nouwen, Peacework.
5. Ibid., 12, 26, 32.
6. Ibid., 41
7. Ibid., 68-69
8. Carl Holladay, Preaching Through the Christian Year: Year A, Trinity Press, 1992, 9
9. Eugene Peterson, Conversations, NavPress, 2007, 1033


"chbc blogger" pasted to this site the above sermon by Greg Pope. Subsequent comments by "chbc blogger" are not those of Greg Pope.