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Matthew 5:1-13; Romans 12:1-12.
I am sure that many Christians have been struggling about how we should respond to
the attack on America in recent days. As I
said last week tears and grieving and prayers of loving support should be offered to those
who have lost loved ones and friends. Several
folks in our church knew two young women, who died, and we uphold them in our prayers. Also we offer practical help – over $2000
has been received in the special offering and will be given where there is most need. Church World Service, the mission arm of the
National Council of Churches, was present on Tuesday September 11 at the World Trade
Center offering practical and pastoral assistance.
But what I’d like us to consider this morning is how we as Christians should
respond to this attack. What is the right
thing to do to stand up against such evil? The
natural, immediate reaction is to strike back, to kill in return, an eye for an eye, tooth
for a tooth. The psalms have many such cries
for revenge. But we must recognize these
cries for what they are: cries of deep anger, not calls to action. I saw a sign recently, which said, “An eye
for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Where
so much is at stake on the world stage, our country should not take ill-considered action. For example, Pakistan is a nuclear power and we
should be careful not to destabilize that nation and drive it into the hands of militant
extremists.
“An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure” –
that’s an old proverb, which applies very much to dealing with terrorists. We have been very naïve in America about security
issues, especially at airports. We should
expect much improved security measures everywhere we go.
Putting up with the inconvenience should be a patriotic duty. As Christians we must listen to how Jesus calls his followers
to respond to evil. In the New Testament
images of war and battle are used to describe spiritual battles against evil. Indeed the writers of the NT would all say that
fighting evil is always a spiritual battle. Paul
describes putting on the spiritual armor of the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet
of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit in Ephesians 6:10-17. Images of war against Satan in the Book of
Revelation are used to show the ultimate victory of good over evil. And the one who is victorious is the Lamb of God,
who was slain for the sins of the world. But
the Lamb of God is hardly an image of military might.
The teaching of Jesus, especially in the Sermon on the Mount, in Mathew 5-7, is
consistent in its call for the victory of love over evil.
Evil is a spiritual reality and requires the spiritual resources of God to defeat
it. The role of the church in the situation
we face is firstly to point us to God and the symbols of our faith, especially the Cross. As Christians we need to wear the cross on our
lapels as a reminder of how God deals with evil.
Billy Graham spoke about this at the National Cathedral a week ago. He said, “From the Cross God declares, I Love
you”.
If Jesus himself came preaching in America today his message would be unpopular at
this time: “love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you” (Matt.6:44). Paul reaffirms this teaching in Romans 12:17,20: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil … if
your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for
by doing so, you will heap burning coals on their heads … do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good.” Paul
speaks here from personal experience, because formerly he had been an enemy of Christ,
even ordering the persecution and death of Christians, before he was converted and became
a leading Christian apostle himself.
I believe that Christians should be obedient to these teachings of Christ in their
personal lives and try to live by them, for the teaching of non-violent resistance to evil
is the way of Christ. But the majority of
churches accept that most governments do not operate by these teachings of Jesus. So the Church devised a doctrine called “the
just war doctrine”, which allows defensive war under certain limited conditions. These conditions are as follows: when there has been unjust
aggression; when war has been declared by those with proper constitutional authority,
namely the congress; when the rights and values involved are vital enough to justify
killing; when the intention is to pursue peace and reconciliation; when all peaceful
alternatives are exhausted; when there is a reasonable expectation of success; when the
destruction caused by using force is proportionate to the outcome being sought; and when
civilian populations are not targeted.
The just war theory is meant to keep a defensive response to a minimum, in order to
prevent escalation of the conflict and try to make negotiated peace possible. The present situation of a terrorist attack is not
a traditional war at all, but some of the same principles apply, especially the last two. Destruction caused by the use of force in
response to the attack must be proportionate, and innocent civilian populations are not to
be targeted, even as collateral damage. Terrorists
may kill innocent civilians, but democracies like the USA stand for something better than
that. We stand for justice and the rule of
law, not vengeance and the killing of innocent people.
The Second Vatican Council in 1966 said: “Any act of war aimed
indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities … is a crime against God and man
… Retaliatory action which would indiscriminately take many innocent lives must also
be condemned. This condemnation applies even
to retaliatory use of weapons striking enemy cities after our own have already been
struck.” Those words were written in
1966.
So from a Christian point of view war is always evil. The way Jesus urges upon us is to adopt a
non-violent resistance to evil, which takes great courage, as Ghandi and Martin Luther
King Jr. demonstrated. It is not at all a
passive way – it confronts evil with love. But
some have argued that it does not work in the face of evil fanatics like Hitler or Osama
Bin Laden. These require forceful restraint,
and I agree. But the effort required to
bring terrorists to justice will be long-term, undercover operations, not a traditional
war at all. We must meet covert terror with
covert action. And it will require the utmost
international cooperation. We must settle in
for the long haul. I was impressed by
President’s Bush’s speech to Congress the other night and his plea for patience
and determination for a long struggle.
Both Jesus and Paul urge us to be good to enemies.
And we have discovered the value of being good to our former enemies, since after
WWII we gave generously to Germany and Japan to rebuild their societies. We are also now rebuilding relations with Vietnam
and North Korea. We will need to extend help
to desperately poor countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan and Sudan and Iraq. Extreme poverty is a breeding ground of terrorism,
and that cause needs to be addressed.
I put a quote from the theologian Hans Kung on our church sign a few weeks ago. It read “There will be no peace between
nations until there is peace between religions.”
I am convinced of that and it is incumbent on the many different religious groups
in the USA is to demonstrate unity. It was
good to see President Bush at a Mosque the other day, and Robert Schuller had a Moslem
cleric at the Crystal Cathedral on Sunday. Sadly
Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson laid the blame for the terrorist attacks at the feet of
gays and lesbians and liberals in this country. He
half apologized afterwards – but what a wicked thing to say! As I say there will be no world peace till
religious fanatics stop hating those who disagree with them.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. “Amor vincit omnia”: love conquers all,
says the old Latin proverb. Forgive us our
sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Deliver
us from evil. I believe God will be the one
to get us out of this situation of danger, if we trust in God, not our own military,
economic, nor political power. God has ways
completely unknown to us. Let us trust that
God will do the work which God is best at: saving humankind. That is the promise of the Cross and of the
Rainbow. Amen. |
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