Sermons

"Truce for Our Time"

Delivered from the Pulpit of First Congregational Church

of Anchorage by The Reverend Mark E. Long

on December 6, 2009

Lections:  Is. 32.15-20

                 Js. 3.17-18

                 Mt. 5.9; 10.34-39

It won't be too long now before the Prince of Peace arrives on the scene to take all of us away on a "liturgical" magic carpet ride.  The Prince arrives and all will be well from there.  We will surrender to warm and fuzzy feelings - more hopeful than warranted.  There will be talk, cards, and songs about things that we long for more than own.  For a number of days or weeks, we will fool ourselves and woe to the grinch that steps in the path of our way to tell the truth of things.  But we all know deep down, don't we; and we don't have to go as far as Afghanistan or the Sudan to find the proof of it.  All will not be well from here on.

In a few short months, we will "liturgically" remember more of the story of the Prince of Peace.  Our "liturgical" magic carpet ride will skid to an abrupt and unceremonious end.  Why must it, we lament?  Why can't it be Christmas all year long we ask each other in our cards and songs; when the better question is how could it be?  This is not a world that knows very much about how to have peace, whether as one or a nation.

This is a world that knows much about how to pursue truce; it doesn't realize even as much of it as we might hope but this is about the best that we can do.  At least it is about the best that we believe that we can do.  And what we can believe will set the limits on what is possible for us.

Truce is what happens when there has been enough violence that both sides agree enough is enough.  Further violence cannot be tolerated.  They put down their weapons, physical or otherwise, and put an end to the violence.  Much of the time truces are made to be broken; either for a time or all time.  But seldom do truces hold off the violence for long because the underlying feelings that lead to the violence are unchanged.  Still the world, heck, we try.

Maybe if we actually took the Prince of Peace seriously rather than wrapping the Season up in swaddling sentiment we could actually change the world.  We would quit seeking truce and pursue the only assurance that the violence will end - peace.

St. Paul does not say that the pursuit of "truce" is evidence of the "fruit of the Spirit," he says that the proof is in the pursuit of peace.  And I would argue the way we go about the Season ahead and the rest of the calendar is why we don't get the results we want, "peace on earth and goodwill toward men (and women)."  We don't understand what will bring "good tidings" to us - liturgically or otherwise.

Fortunately, we have the Bible to tell us what to bring to the table to get the results we hope for.  Our spiritual ancestors do not leave us out in the dark.  They bring light unto our path.

Don't get caught up in the literalness of it.  Isaiah speaks a dire warning to Israelite women just before our Old Testament passage this morning, but really as a way to warn not just the women that a time for mourning lies ahead for those that will not change their ways and before that their hearts.

Truce for the world is our lot.  The individual helps create the world that exists and the world, in return, shapes or helps create the individual that acts in it.  It is a closed system with a predictable result "until the spirit from on high is poured out on us."  It is then that "the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field . . . a forest" of promise.

We pick up our lesson here.  Justice will dwell in the "fruitful field" because righteousness abides in the people - with the effect or result of righteousness - peace, "quietness and trust forever," our possibility.

Notice that there is not only "quietness," an end to the violence done to the Lord's commandments, but also "trust forever" in the hearts of the people toward the Lord.  It takes "quietness and trust forever" on both sides in order to have peace.  Peace follows righteousness; weapons must not only be laid down, but hearts changed as well.  If we try it any other way the best we can hope for is truce.

This righteousness which is the path to peace for our selves and the world is - big surprise - found within us not outside us.  The Spirit enters the wilderness in which we traffic from within.  Fruitful fields are formed out of the inner reflections on our wilderness experiences.  When the righteous plant seeds that change hearts to seek peace, then truce is no longer the best of what we could have.  Peace is then more than a cloying sentiment or a mocking platitude.

And regardless of what we have settled for before, the arrival of the Prince of Peace and the stories he told and lived tell us that peace really is something that we could have.

"Blessed are the peacemakers," he says, "for they will be called children of God."  Would he encourage "peacemakers" if he didn't believe it was a possibility for humans?  Common sense says that it must be possible.  But how do we go about it?  Matthew tells us elsewhere that it may not be as common sense would tell us.

In one of the more puzzling passages of the New Testament, Matthew has Jesus say, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword."  Huh?  How could the same evangelist write - "Blessed are the peacemakers" and "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?"  A conundrum, it seems, common sense, it doesn't seem so.  But let's take a closer look to see if it makes any sort of sense that can help us follow this peculiar Prince of Peace to our own.

One has to imagine that Matthew got the question put to him somewhere along his travels - how do you have it both ways?  I do not know, of course, for sure what Matthew, or Jesus for that matter, is thinking only that these verses can be harmonized when we understand what sort of pursuit for peace the Prince of Peace finds "blessed."

Family is family; whoever you are, whatever you have done; all is well because you are family.  Family is its own justification for whatever sin of a broad range.  Family stands by family.  Well you may think that, I may think that but apparently not the Prince of Peace.  Family, according to Matthew's Jesus, is whoever does the will of God.  Family is redefined from the particulars of birth to the particulars of mission.  Spiritual birth trumps physical birth; the important birth is the inner one, from above, not the outer one of social happenstance.  Peace between family members may not be possible in some families, says Jesus.

Where some of the family follows the Prince of Peace but others do not then the absence of hearts that move together will threaten, if not, harm family solidarity.  According to Matthew anyway, and Jesus if these are actually his words, where some hearts are unchanged the best we can do is truce.  Which may be why the world is the way it is; and why Christmas is more a hope than a reality.

Peace will not be found where only one side knows the way of the Prince of Peace.  It is true that wilderness experiences may be transformed into fruitful fields that produce forests of promise but the effect of peace will not bring peace for all until all are "peacemakers," which requires that all are willing to follow the Prince of Peace to do the will of God wherever it takes them.

Still though the world may never get beyond truce for our time; it is possible.  And even more so for us peace in our time; it is possible.  It can be Christmas year round for us, but it actually has more to do with what we will "liturgically" remember later of the Prince of Peace than anything on our minds from now till Christmas season.

This is how I see peace in a world where the best we can do seems to be truce. Amen.