Peace & the Sword (Trinity 10)

Peace & Sword

10th Sunday after Trinity
Jer 23.23-29; Heb 11.29.12.2; Luke 12.49-56

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” Isaiah 26.3

Was I the only one to notice that last Thursday, the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis, the appointed reading for the day began “The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews in – wait for it – Memphis!” How much of a co-incidence was that? Or was God telling us that Elvis is not really dead?

It’s amazing what people can get out of selectively reading the Bible. Scripture is very slippery at times and in today’s Gospel we have Jesus, the prince of peace, telling his disciples that he did not come to bring peace but division, or as Matthew puts it even more graphically, ‘not peace but the sword’. (Matt 10.34)

Similarly that same Isaiah who has just re-assured us about being kept in perfect peace, rails against the false prophets who cry ‘peace, peace’ when there is none.

And in today’s first reading, Jeremiah condemns those prophets who have comfortable dreams about the future of God’s people when all he sees is fire and destruction.

Perhaps we need to spend a few minutes re-evaluating the Christian teaching about inner peace?

Striving for peace of mind is not a modern obsession, although contemporary adverts play heavily on it to prize open our wallets. It appears to be a concern running through the millennia of human consciousness.

As soon as we developed the ability for self-reflection, we became anxious, or more importantly, we knew we were anxious. Animals appear to demonstrate anxiety, although presumably without reflecting on it.

The baboon pacing up and down in his cage and showing all the signs of worry is unlikely to be pondering universal angst and the pointlessness of existence without a fixed cosmic referent. Indeed that particular issue doesn’t keep many of us awake at night. It is more likely to be our family, our health or the gas bill.

The Bible, in both Old and New Testaments, constantly addresses the tendency of the human spirit to be anxious, to be troubled. And its message is consistent although expressed in different ways.

The changes and chances of living in a frail body, on a delicate planet, in an unpredictable society, are enough to make anyone anxious. And there is no fixed point in this earthly realm which can give us security.

But, as the Apostle Paul puts it, ‘our citizenship is in heaven’. (Phil 3.20) Our point of reference is heaven, which is why today’s epistle urges us to remember that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.”

Isaiah, in our text, expresses it in a different way - ‘whose mind is fixed on thee’ - our point of reference is the eternal and unchanging God. That is our fulcrum, our anchor.

And this is part of the mystery of faith, testified to by the lives of countless millions down through the ages; by the men and women of faith that the letter to the Hebrews catalogues: that such a seemingly ephemeral thing - belief in God - can provide so firm a foundation that it gives us peace of mind.

One of the purposes or liturgy and Bible reading, of mass and the daily offices, of priests and the religious; is to bring us back to that quiet centre; to recall us to the peace of God which passes all understanding.

But of course, nothing is ever as simple as that, and we come back to those apparent contradictions in Scripture which we pondered a few minutes ago.

There’s a dialogue between Lucy & Good Ol’ Charlie Brown which illustrates our dilemma.

Charlie Brown is irritable and restless and Lucy says to him: “I thought you had inner peace.” “I do” replies Charlie, “but I still have outer obnoxiousness”.

There is an inbuilt tension in our human make-up. The strength of that tension will vary with our personality and with the circumstances of our life. So even Jesus says in today’s Gospel “what stress I am under” – not a very good advert for being kept in perfect peace!

But this is because, the degree to which we can be at perfect peace and show it by our outward demeanour, is moderated by another, probably evolutionary force, which disturbs our equilibrium and leaves us dissatisfied with the cheap answers of religion.

It is most likely this creative tension which urges the human spirit to its greatest feats of love, beauty and creativity, as well as its depths of destruction and depravity.

This is the life force which we need constantly to temper by trying to reflect the goodness of the Giver of life.

George Herbert picks up this tension in the title of his poem The Pulley - will we be lifted up to God and peace, or drawn down to earth - to Pandora and chaos. - for there is also a Christian reworking of the Pandora myth in the poem. At risk of turning this sermon into an edition of Poetry Please let me read you The Pulley.

When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by—
"Let us," said he, "pour on him all we can;
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span."

So strength first made a way,
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

"For if I should," said he,
"Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in nature, not the God of nature:
So both should losers be.

"Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.

George Herbert 1593 1632

Those words of Augustine readily spring to mind:

Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee. (Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Chapter 1)

As we pursue God, and try our best to trust in him, we do indeed achieve a good measure of peace of mind. But in order to keep alive the divine spark within us, we will also experience a divine restlessness, even divisions, and, God forbid, at times, the sword.

For we cannot be disciples of Christ without provoking divisions. We cannot bring into being that prophetic vision of a just and compassionate world without facing dissent and fighting evil and injustice.

But, if we don’t want the restlessness, the struggles within and strife without, to overwhelm us, then we must put in place those structures that enable our inner life to come back, again and again to the hope of the Gospel; to be stayed on God.

Let this Bread & Wine be such a recollection for you.

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” Isaiah 26.3

Prophecy & Politics

Preparing the Way

The Prophetic Voice in Politics

“Strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.” Is 35.3

This has been the prayer of many a curate at Sunday evening Benediction, which comes so soon after the last bottles of lunch have been drained. But it also reflects a ‘double theme’ which runs through Isaiah, and indeed all the prophets.

On the one hand, the prophets tell us, if we would but realise it, we are weak and depend on God for strength and encouragement more than we know.

On the other hand, having experienced that strengthening and support from God, we must in turn protect the weak and vulnerable in our society.

In most of the OT there was not yet developed an international dimension to this calling - that is to protect the weak and vulnerable in all the nations - indeed, a cursory reading of the OT prophets might leave you thinking that wholesale slaughter was the way of dealing with differences with neighbouring countries.

But there were hints in the prophets and law of a broader responsibility for universal care. So the refugees, sojourners, migrant workers - these are all singled out for particular care by the people of God.

And the prophets point forward all the time to an age when all the nations will be drawn into the loving purposes of God - a theme that is common to much of the Advent emphasis on the Second Coming of Christ.

This ‘looking forward’ has come to be so identified with prophecy, that in common language, prophecy is often synonymous with foretelling the future.

But it is not primarily that. It is speaking for God; bringing the message of God; reminding God’s people of the promises God has made to them and of the responsibilities he places on them.

In the 1960s and 70s, the charismatic movement produced a whole spate of modern-day prophets, exercising what they saw as the gift of prophecy referred to by St Paul in his list of gifts of the Spirit. There were many prayer cells where futures were foretold for various participants.

I remember my scepticism being fed by one particularly zealous young ‘prophet’ who started with the memorable words apparently spoken on behalf of the omniscient God: “Thus says the Lord: “I have nothing against you… as far as I know.””

Most biblical prophecy is in fact a forceful restatement of God’s principles for life and worship; and a forceful restatement of God’s love and mercy. The looking forward was in order to strengthen people in the eschatological hope of God’s coming. The idea that there would be a resolution when justice would be seen to be done.

On this 3rd Sunday in Advent, when we think of the role of John the Baptist, imprisoned and beheaded not for his religious beliefs, but because he meddled in politics; I want us to think about the church’s prophetic voice in politics.

We have only to look at the present war footing of the Britain and America to be reminded that politics is too important to be left to politicians.

The OT prophets, who play so prominent a part in our Advent preparations, knew no distinction between politics and prophecy.

What is our working definitions of politics? It is to do with authority, social structures, the exercise of power within society. The politics of different groups at different times in history have varied enormously. At present in the West, the two great shaping democratic ideologies have become capitalism and socialism.

Of course popularly, these are both regarded with great suspicion. As one cynic has put it: capitalism is man’s exploitation of man, whereas socialism is the exact opposite.

Now the OT prophets knew no distinction between politics and prophecy, because they operated within a theocracy. God was Head of State. His priests and prophets spoke on behalf of God and received revelations from him in the Divine Privy Council. There was no need of a king, but Israel demanded one, and reluctantly God gave them Saul and that was the beginning of the end of theocracy.

Over the two thousand years following the anointing of Israel’s first king, eventually the church became the new Israel and arguably, Christendom became the new theocracy. But now it was no longer prophets who spoke the voice of God, it was the rulers of church and state - which were often synonymous.

One of the struggles of the last three centuries in the West has been to try and separate religion from politics.

In America, they have constitutionally done it in theory, although not in practice. Whereas in Europe, we have generally done it in practice, while not in theory.

So where does that leave the prophetic voice in politics?

Some of you might raise a mild St Mary’s cheer if I were to answer that question - where does that leave the prophetic voice in politics? - with ‘nowhere!’.

But that has not been the response of the historic churches over the last century. It has been the response of some sects - the JWs, the Mormons, strict Calvinists; but it has not been the response of either mainline Protestants or Catholics.

Sometimes political intervention and a so-called prophetic voice has been disastrous. It has added to the bigotry and misunderstanding that divide nations and encourages mental and sometimes physical violence.

So although theocracy is all but dead, thank God - it is still advocated by some fundamentalists. There are those in Britain and America - restitutionists - who want to bring back a state that enforces OT law. I’ve read their leaflets, for instance, advocating that after a two week warning to ‘change your lifestyle’, gays should be executed. It would certainly ease congestion in central London, but most of us would not recognise this as the prophetic voice in politics.

But sometimes the prophetic voice has been heroic and Christlike in it’s attempts to bring peace and justice: Bonhoeffer, Romero, Mandella, and hopefully, Rowan Williams.

If the church is to speak into our society, including the political structures, in any sense as ‘for God’, then we are left with what the prophets majored on anyway - the broad sweep of Biblical ethics, reinforced by our Lord’s own teaching: summed up in Isaiah

“Cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” (1.16)

or in Micah

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (6.8)

Our Lord echoes these prophetic signposts with his command to love God with the totality of our being, and to love neighbour as self.

And this has little to do with party politics. When we say ‘we don’t like politics in the pulpit’ we usually mean we don’t like politics which are different from ours in the pulpit…

A Christian who is involved in politics - and thank God for the many who are - must in the end decide on certain policies; and these result from political ideologies.

But these political ideologies must never be presented as the prophetic voice of God. The church is on catastrophically shaky ground when it starts making policy statements. This is to try and return to a theocracy, where we presume to know the mind of God on specific issues.
The prophetic voice of the church in politics must always be to call our leaders to pay heed to those underlying truths of human authenticity: goodness, justice, mercy.

And to remember, lest we get above ourselves, that we need God’s help and Christ’s example in ordering our society.

Doesn’t it strike you sometimes, as you look at our world and some of the chaotic forces at work within it; the proliferation of nuclear arms; the development of biological weapons - just how fragile our world order is? That anarchy lurks just below the surface?

We need the humility to look at ourselves and others and to cry with the prophets:

“Strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.” Is 35.3