"On the Path of Peace" (Luke 1:68-79)

Zechariah and Elizabeth were – as the scripture puts it – “getting on in years.” So when an angel came to Zechariah and said he and Elizabeth were going to have a baby... well, would you believe such a thing was possible? After all, if it hadn’t happened by now…

Zechariah couldn’t believe it; the angel said to Zechariah, “Since you didn’t believe me, you will be mute – unable to speak – until the day the baby is born.”

And so for nine months, Zechariah was unable to say a word.

Not speaking does give a person time to think. I once spent 24 hours not speaking as part of a– well, I’m really not supposed to say, but just between you and me, it involved a special organization within scouting called Order of the Arrow. ;)

I know of an eleven year-old named Itzcuauhtli Martinez who went 45 days without speaking. This is the younger brother of Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, the young climate activist I talked about a few weeks ago. Both Itzcuauhtli and Xiuhtezcatl are currently in Paris for the Climate Talks, trying to get their voices heard.

When young Itzcuauhtli stopped speaking for 45 days, he did that because he was frustrated that world leaders weren’t listening when young people talked about climate change. If they didn’t listen to his words, he thought, maybe they’d listen to his silence.

If you were silent for 45 days, what would your first words be when you spoke again? You’d have a lot of time to think about it. And people would pay attention, wouldn’t they? Someone hasn’t spoken for 45 days but is finally going to say something; everyone’s curious: what’s he going to say?

A lot of people speak more, thinking it will help them be heard, but sometimes, the best way to be heard is to speak less.

Zechariah didn’t speak – couldn’t speak – for over nine months. What would his first words be?

The baby was born. Eight days later, according to custom, was the circumcision and naming ceremony. At the end of the ceremony, Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he was finally able to speak.

And the words he spoke were those that were read for us.

“Blessed be the God of Israel, who has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them…”

It was a prophecy delivered in song. It was a profound statement of truth and hope.

“God has shown us the compassion promised to our ancestors… that we might serve him without fear” and be guided “into the way of peace.”

God has shown us compassion… that we might serve him without fear… and be guided into the way of peace.

If ever there was a time when this message needed to be heard, that time is now. Our world is racked by fear. Our world needs to be guided into the way of peace.

In light of the shooting last week in San Bernardino, and other recent mass shootings, as well as news headlines of terrorism around the world, there are some who preach fear as a response. Their message? “Be afraid. Arm yourself. Defend your family. Prepare for the worst. And watch out for those guys.”

Perhaps they are well intentioned. But I know that if I preach fear, and if you allow fear to take control of your life, then we will have no peace.

Zechariah lived in a fearful time. Yet the words he spoke after a nine-month silence were about being set free from fear, and being guided into the way of peace.

I want to be a preacher like Zechariah. Hopefully it won’t take a mandatory, extended period of silence to achieve, but I want to be a preacher who preaches peace. It’s the type of preacher I feel God is calling me to be. I can’t say I’ve always been successful, but preaching with kindness and compassion, helping people live without fear, and finding the way of peace in their lives, has been my goal.

After all, the number one command in the Bible is “do not be afraid.”

When the angel first appeared to Zechariah, Zechariah was terrified; but the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah.”

When the angel appeared to Mary mother of Jesus, the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary.”

After Jesus was born, the angel appeared to shepherds in the field. The shepherds were terrified.  “They were sore afraid” is how the old King James version puts it.

But the first words out of the angel’s mouth were, “Do not be afraid; I bring you good news of great joy for all people.”

That’s what the gospel is about: helping people live without fear, helping people find peace, letting them know of the compassion and love of God for all people.

It is a real perversion of the gospel to use fear as a tactic, to preach fear, to increase anxiety in the hearts of people. It goes completely against everything that the gospel stands for. Preaching fear is the tactic used by terrorists. It is not the way of people who follow Christ, or the way of anybody who desires a peaceful world.

And yet, fear is increasingly used today as a way to spread the gospel. Preachers of fear are everywhere.

In her book Grounded, Diana Butler Bass writes: “Religious fundamentalism and exclusion are nurturing fear across the planet, movements to build boundaries between nations and religions, to reinforce walls that divide, claiming that foreigners and strangers must be contained, exiled, or eliminated.”

We’re constantly being told to be afraid. Be afraid of Muslims, be afraid of immigrants and refugees, be afraid of Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, be afraid of transgender people who are just waiting to molest and abuse you.

The worst thing is that all this rhetoric of fear that we keep hearing has no basis in fact.

Last month, voters in Houston got to vote on the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance. The ordinance would have provided protection for gay, lesbian, and transgender people.

However, a vocal group of Houston pastors preached against the ordinance. They said it would allow male predators into women’s bathrooms. The stoked the fears of the people. Over and over they said this, and made the people of Houston so afraid, that the Ordinance was defeated.

These pastors did this, despite the fact that not once has there ever been a documented case of a transgender person using their gender identity as a means of sexually assaulting another person in a bathroom. It’s never happened.

So what were those pastors basing their rhetoric on? It was all fabrications, rooted in their own irrational fears, and intended to create that same fear in others.

Which is all completely contrary to the message of the gospel.

What those pastors did was bear false witness against their neighbors. What they did was withhold compassion from those who most needed compassion.

Because there have been documented cases – many of them – of transgender people being bullied, assaulted, and even murdered, in bathrooms and elsewhere, because of their gender identity. The transgender people are the ones who need protection, which is why an ordinance like the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance is necessary.

They are the victims, yet those pastors made them out to be the perpetrators. As if being the victim isn’t bad enough, now the victims who need protection are told that they are the ones who everyone else needs protection from.

What those pastors did was fuel the flames of fear. They exchanged truth for lies, and became false prophets of fear. They have failed to guide people in the way of peace.

With pastors like these, it shouldn’t be a surprise that a recent study from the University of Chicago showed that children raised in religious households were less likely than other children to share, less likely to show generosity, and more likely to distrust others and judge others as being worthy of punishment.  It’s true. Religious children are more judgmental and less generous than other children… because too many religious leaders are teaching their people to be less compassionate and more fearful.

Diana Butler Bass writes about the path our nation took after 9/11. At first, the world was suffering with us. Others were compassionate toward America’s loss.

But then, she says, “fear blinded us. We did not understand that we were the wounded traveler, and many, many people were reaching out their hands to help…

“Fear blinded us to the world’s compassion. Fear led to revenge which led to war, which divided the nation, demonized foreigners, and wrecked relationships across the world.”

She then asks, “What path was forever lost” in the weeks after 9/11?

You see this same rhetoric of fear being used in the current political debates. Syrian refugees. Muslims. African-Americans. They all pose a huge danger to America, according to some of the politicians currently running for office.

Donald Trump is a master at this fear-based rhetoric. Jeb Bush, a fellow Republican, was right when he said that Trump is “manipulating people’s angst and fears.”

A lot of people have accepted the rhetoric. But the gospel teaches us to live differently.

Jesus once told a story about a traveler who was beaten, stripped, robbed, and left for dead on the side of the road.

Three other travelers then came by. 

The first to come by was a priest, but he ignored the wounded traveler and passed by on the other side of the road. The second to come by was a Levite, but he also passed by on the other side of the road.

Why did these two pass by? Because they were afraid. They were afraid – what if the victim they saw was dead? Touching him would make them unclean. Or what if he was faking it? What if he was waiting for them to come close, only to jump up and beat and strip and rob them?

Fear kept them from stopping. Fear: the biggest threat to compassion and peace.

The third traveler to come by was a Samaritan. Samaritans were the ones who were most slandered in Jesus’s day. Today, instead of a Samaritan, the story would be about a Muslim. Or a Syrian refugee. Or a transgender person.

And with all the scorn and contempt thrown at Muslims, refugees, and transgender persons, this third traveler could have easily justified walking past the dying man on the side of the road. Certainly, if their situations were reversed, no one would stop and help him. So why should he stop?

Yet this Muslim/refugee/transgender person did stop. He was probably afraid to stop, but he still stopped. He controlled his fear for the sake of compassion. For the sake of peace….

Ingredients for Peace (Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13)

“Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.”

I love this verse.  It’s one of my favorites. Maybe it sounds too “hippie” to you, with all that love and peace and kissing.  I don’t care.  I have an uncle who lived at Haight Ashbury back in the day, so I guess it runs in my blood.

But.. there is more to this verse than some happy lovey-dovey good vibes. A lot more.  So together, let’s engage in some exegesis, and unpack the deep and powerful meaning of this verse, and the psalm in which it is contained.

Since this is the second Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of peace, let’s start with that word, “peace.” In the Hebrew Bible, the word that is often translated as “peace” is shalom. But shalom actually means so much more than “peace.”

Shalom means rest. If two countries stop fighting, we might say there is peace, but if they are building up their defenses “just in case,” there is no shalom. There is no rest. No one rests comfortably, no one is at ease, when a missile is pointed at them, whether or not that missile is in the process of being launched.  That’s not shalom.

If a lion and lamb lie down together, but the lamb has to sleep with one eye open, that’s not shalom. But if that lamb can sleep peacefully, without fear, in the presence of the lion, that’s shalom. Shalom means being at ease, being able to close one’s eyes and rest without fear.

Shalom means wholeness. If a person does not have all they need to be free of fear and anxiety; if instead a person is forced to worry about where tomorrow’s food or even today’s food might come from, then there is no shalom. There is no wholeness. Even if no gun or missile is pointed at them, no one is whole when their plate and their stomach are empty.

Shalom means salvation. Or, as Willard Swartley puts it, salvation comes out of shalom. It’s one of the greatest misunderstandings of Christian faith today, that salvation refers only to what happens after one dies.  Salvation refers to healing and wholeness and wellbeing in this  life. Salvation means living a full life, a fully alive life.

So if rights are denied to a person because of their race, their skin color, their sexual orientation, their gender identity, their age or their income level, then there is no shalom. There is no salvation. There is only oppression and captivity. No one feels saved when they don’t feel safe.

So that’s a glimpse into what shalom means.  Rest. Wholeness. Salvation. It’s so much more than just not fighting.

By the way, for the psalmist, peace seemed elusive. In fact, if you remember when I preached about Sisera and Deborah and Jael a few weeks ago, when we browsed through the whole book of Judges, then you know that peace was always elusive.  Even when there was no fighting, there still wasn’t peace. There still wasn’t shalom. When the nations slept, they did so with one eye open.

Which is why the psalmists and the prophets talked about shalom so often. Lions and lambs lying down together. Swords and spears being turned into plows and pruning hooks. And a new kingdom ruled by one called the Prince of Peace.

It’s the vision they all shared, for the new kingdom, the kingdom of God, the beloved community, to manifest itself on earth, bringing shalom to all.

So that’s shalom. Now let’s explore the other words in this verse: steadfast love. Faithfulness.  Righteousness. These words, and a few others, are often used in the Hebrew Bible together.  They appear together so often that it seems strange to hear one without the other. When one does appear without the other, it’s like having the oreo cookie without the milk, Tonto without the Lone Ranger, the Yin without the Yang, Mario without Luigi, or Dagwood without Blondie.

These words are used together so often because you can’t have one without the other. You can’t have peace without righteousness without love without faithfulness.

Without justice.

Justice isn’t in this verse. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it didn’t fit the poetic structure. It’s strange, though, since justice and righteousness almost always go together. In Hebrew, it’s mishpat and tzedakah. These words almost always appear together, and even without mishpat, justice is implied.

Righteousness and justice. Faithfulness and steadfast love.

The Hebrew word for love is hesed. Like tzedakah, hesed is often paired up with mishpat. Like righteousness, love is often paired up with justice.

What does the Lord require of you? Seek Justice and love kindness. Mishpat and Hesed. What is right and what is compassionate.

These are the ingredients for peace. The ingredients for shalom. Justice, righteousness, steadfast love and faithfulness.

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet. Another translation: Steadfast love and faithfulness will collide. They’ll butt heads! That’s interesting!

But haven’t you ever butted heads with someone, and in the end realized that you both were stronger because of it? That you needed their ideas, as contrary as they may have been to yours?

Directing summer camp last summer, I had a counselor who had some critiques of some of the activities I planned.  I didn’t agree with him, but on the other hand, his critiques got me thinking about things that hadn’t crossed my mind. I didn’t agree with everything he said, but he did have some good points. 

It made me realize that even though my ideas were good, if I combined what was good in his ideas with what I felt was good about my own ideas, the result would be something even better.  It was a better camp because of it, and I invited him back to counsel again this year, except he instead was asked to direct a different week of camp, and I know that the week he directs will be awesome.

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet. Righteousness and peace will kiss each other.  Again, righteousness is tzedakah, and it refers to what is right. What is just. Righteousness and justice.

Here’s something the prophet Isaiah wrote:

“Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.” (Isa 32:16-17)

Doesn’t that just kind of sum it all up? If you have justice and you have righteousness, then you will have shalom.  You will have a calm tranquility. You will be able to sleep peacefully, with both eyes closed.

So if we want peace, we have to work for justice. We have to work to end oppression. We have to love our neighbor

Having the most powerful military on earth does not bring peace.  Peace will only come when we achieve justice. Peace will only come when we show love to our neighbors.

The nations of the world place too much emphasis on the strength of their military.  This was true in biblical times, and it’s true today. When powerful, wealthier nations show little concern for the plight of people in other nations, there will be resentment, there will be jealousy, there will be outrage, and there will not be peace.

You can’t say to a neighboring country, “let’s be at peace,” as long as you continue to gobble up a disproportionate share of the earth’s resources, and your neighbor is being exploited. Eventually the exploited neighbor is going to demand justice… one way or another.

In the same way, you can’t say to people protesting in the streets, “let’s be at peace,” when they have for so long been denied justice.  As long as justice is denied, there will be no peace.

Love. Faithfulness. Justice. Righteousness. These are the keys to peace, the ingredients of shalom.

Last week, I mentioned that the United States has been at war for 13 years straight, and that of the 238 years since our country was founded, we have been at war in 217 of those 238 years. That means that in our nation’s entire history, there have been a total of 21 years in which we have not been involved in a war. And if we expand the definition of peace to include all that the word shalom encompasses, I’d guess that even fewer years, if any, would qualify.

In the past 13 years, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, the war on terror has cost the lives of 7,000 US Military personnel and another 7,000 US contractors. Over 30,000 allied troops have been killed, some 80,000 opposition forces, and 200,000 civilians.

This blows me away. It makes me incredibly sad. Our world is not a peaceful world. Our nation is not a peaceful nation. It feels just like the nonstop, neverending battles of the Old Testament.

And so, like Isaiah, and like the psalmist, we wait for God to come and sort things out, and we wait for peace.

Meanwhile, we study the way of Jesus. We learn to live in love. We learn to recognize the Spirit’s presence, upon us, calling us to love our neighbor and free all who are oppressed.

In this season of Advent, as we focus on the birth of Jesus, we remember all that his birth meant to people of old, and all that it means today: that peace is possible, that the dream of shalom is alive, and that all who follow Christ are called to help make it a reality in our world today.

And it begins in our own lives, in our own homes, workplaces, schoolyards and communities. It begins when we do what is right for others, do what is just, and practice loving one another faithfully.

Then the seeds of peace are planted, and the kingdom of God becomes a little more real.

Peace Through Sharing (Luke 3:7-18)

Note: due to events at church and my preaching schedule, this will be the last sermon posted here for 2009. The next sermon will appear here on Jan. 3, 2010.

In 1995, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) had its General Assembly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While at the Assembly, Ginger and I and a couple of friends decided to walk several blocks to get lunch at a deli that one of our friends had heard about.

The deli was near an industrial area, not far from the river. From the outside, it sure didn’t look like much, so I was surprised when we walked in and saw a large crowd of people, packed around tables in the small eating area.

I was even more surprised when the man behind the counter looked up and growled, “Yeah, what do you want?” The friend who had led us there thought this was great; he tossed some rudeness right back at the worker: “Gimme a sandwich!”

The worker, with a look of total disgust on his face, yelled back: “Well, what the hell do ya want on it?”

Obviously, this was this guy’s “shtick.” It was part of the “show,” and people came to the deli just to be a part of it. They came for the rudeness and the insults—and the food, of course, which I had to admit was pretty good.

I thought of the man behind the deli counter this week when I read this scripture about John the Baptist.

Crowds of people came out to hear John proclaim a “baptism of repentance;” and John begins by insulting them. “You brood of vipers! You family of poisonous snakes! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

I don’t know why John preached like that. It’s not a style of preaching that I think would go over very well today… Then again, there is that crowd in the deli….

Maybe it was part of John’s shtick. John, the preacher who dressed in camel-hair, who ate locusts, and who insulted those who came to listen.

Or, maybe it was more than a shtick. Maybe John sensed that many in the crowd were skeptical of him and his message. Maybe there were present some high-ranking government and religious authorities. At the highest levels, there really wasn’t much difference between religious leaders and government leaders; they all worked together to preserve their own wealth and power by oppressing the vast majority of the population. And besides, the position of high-priest was a government-appointed position. They’re all just peas in a pod.

Maybe some of them came out, because they heard that John was preaching revolution. Maybe they heard that he was stirring up anti-government sentiment, turning the people against the powerful elite. Maybe they came out to find out if what they’d heard was true.

If that’s the case, then perhaps John’s insults were more than just shtick; because he was, in fact, preaching about rebellion and revolution. He was preaching repentance, calling people to switch their allegiance from the kingdom of Rome, the kingdom of the empire, and switch to the kingdom of God. John even invited people to be baptized, as a sign of casting off their old allegiance.

That is what it means to repent. It means to stop living the way you’ve been living, and to start living a whole new way. It means to stop following the way you’ve been following, and to start following a new way, a new path, in your life. This was indeed revolutionary talk.

The ruling elite: all they wanted was to keep the peace; and to their way of thinking, keeping the peace meant nothing more than maintaining the status quo. Keeping the peace meant keeping everyone in their place. Keeping the peace meant allowing no one to rock the boat.

But of course, John was doing just that. He was rocking the boat in a big, big way. Shtick or not, it was clear that he was a possible threat to the peace of the kingdom.

However, Rome had ways of ensuring that the peace of the kingdom was maintained. Peace on earth came through the emperor—and the emperor had ways to make sure that nothing, and no one, would disturb that peace.

By the way, because peace on earth was said to have come through the emperor, the emperor himself—Caesar Augustus—was proclaimed as the “savior” of the world. The calendar was changed so that Caesar’s birthday became the first day of the year, because his birthday was the ultimate “good news.”

Now, John the Baptist was not only a preacher; he was also a prophet. Some might even call him a mystic, because his heart and his mind were one with the heart and mind of God. John felt the presence of God all around him, and could not help but see the world through God’s eyes. And in God’s eyes, John knew, the peace of Rome was no peace at all.

Peace is more than just an absence of conflict. Shalom is more than just the absence of rebellion and resistance. And peace on earth will never become a reality through armed enforcement. Because his heart was one with God, John knew this to be true.

John also knew that the “good news” that came from the emperor was only “good” for the ruling elite, the wealthy and the powerful, and for no one else. All around him, he saw people who were suffering under the kingdom of the emperor. All around him were people who had lost their homes, lost their land, and even lost their freedom, mainly due to the heavy burden placed on them by the empire.

These were people who had been subjugated into submission. The emperor’s good news was not good for them. The emperor was no savior to them. And the “peace on earth” that was enforced by the might of the Roman army was anything but the genuine peace and shalom longed for by God’s people.

As Brian McLaren writes in the book Everything Must Change, “the empire’s ‘good news’ is a framing story of peace through domination, peace through redemptive violence, peace through centralized power and control, peace through elimination of enemies.” The good news proclaimed by John is not the good news of the empire. It’s a whole different type of good news.

You know, I’m starting to think that John’s passionate outbursts are indeed more than just his shtick.

Well, it’s all well and good to criticize the empire, the kingdom of Caesar, but what can a person do? What should a person do? Is it all talk? Should one start one’s own rebellion? Perhaps raise an army?

That is, in fact, what some people tried to do in Sepphoris, a large city not far from the small town of Nazareth. An major uprising there took place around the time of Jesus’ birth, and it lasted for many days. Soldiers from surrounding regions had to be brought in to subdue the rebels. In the end, the rebellion was stopped. The city was nearly destroyed in the process. To ensure that there would be no future uprisings threatening the peace of the empire, some 2,000 of the rebels were crucified along the roads leading in and out of Jerusalem—a very public warning to those who might entertain similar thoughts of rebellion.

So: without outright rebellion not an option, what was a person to do? In answering that question, John was not stupid. He did not ask or instruct anyone to take up arms. Doing so would have been useless and ineffective in more ways than one. It would have been ineffective, because one cannot hope to match the awesome power and might of the empire, not when it came to armed conflict. And, it would have been ineffective because even the greatest army in the world cannot achieve peace through violence. It was true then, and it’s true today. You don’t get peace by making war. You get peace by making peace.

So here’s what John said to do: “Whoever has two coats,” he said, “must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” That’s how you get peace. Peace comes not through hoarding power and wealth, but by sharing. Peace comes not through taking, but by giving.

Some tax collectors were there in the crowd. Apparently they were tired of being the “middlemen” collecting the burdensome taxes (and pocketing their own sizeable share), the taxes that kept the rich, rich, and the poor, poor. “What about us,” they asked. “What should we do?”

John said, “Don’t collect more than you’re required to.”

Some soldiers were also there, men who had not only pledged their allegiance to the empire, but who had dedicated their lives to defending the empire and everything it stood for. “What about us?” they asked. “What should we do?”

John told them to be satisfied with their wages, and to not use their power to extort money from anyone.

John’s message was a message of repentance. Only through repentance—only through a new way of living—could peace be achieved. Repentance isn’t about feeling sorry. Repentance is about changing one’s behavior. And for John—and later, for Jesus—one of the areas most in need of a change in behavior is the area of economic justice.

As long as economic injustice is allowed to exist in the world—as long as a great number of the world’s people find it impossible to escape poverty, no matter how hard they work—there will be no peace.

Think of the areas of the world where conflict exists today. In nearly every case, the conflicts arise due to injustice, oppression, poverty, or a lack of access to resources. And no matter what measures are taken to suppress the conflict, true peace and security will not be realized until everyone has a fair share of the earth’s resources, and until the disparity between the rich and the poor is eliminated. True peace and security will not be realized until those who have two coats are willing to share with those who have none. True peace and security will not be realized until those who have an abundance of food are willing to share with those who are hungry.

The kingdoms of this world have failed in this. They have sought peace and security by hoarding wealth and power. But get ready, John says. A new kingdom, a new order, is coming. And in this new kingdom, the wealthy and the powerful will find that their wealth and power will not protect them. Indeed, the harbinger of that new kingdom is coming. His coming will be good news to the poor, because in his kingdom, economic injustice will be no more.

The Roman kingdom, the kingdom of peace through victorious domination, is about to be replaced by God’s kingdom of peace through sharing, the kingdom of peace through nonviolent justice. It is the kingdom where the meek are blessed, where peacemakers and justice-seekers are blessed.

It is a revolutionary message that John preaches. But the revolution it calls for is not your typical revolution. It is a nonviolent revolution of hope and peace. It is a revolution that you are called to be part of, as you follow the way of Jesus, the real bearer of peace on earth.