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.