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"Warring madness"
Readings: Isaiah 42:21-25, Romans 12:14-21
Preached at first service in a new pastorate
(the day the Gulf War broke out).
I have had a real struggle wondering what to preach this morning. Nearly finished one sermon, then ripped it up and got cross. I tried again, but still got nowhere. This was the third attempt, so maybe .... third time lucky.
My problem was this. I'd been thinking about what to say in my first sermon in a new pastorate for months. Then a few days ago war broke out and I felt I had to say something about that. So you try and try to say it all and once you've put it down you realise it's not what you wanted to say in the first place! If all that sounds a bit confused- then so am I!
This Gulf business has thrown us all into a quandary. I can't speak for you but to be honest I don't know what to make of it. You read this, you read that, there's so much being said and it's there - happening - and you feel so powerless to do anything about it. (I wish I had a magic wand to wave to end it all - but I don't).
I feel so awful for those with family out there, not only our own troops, but for the families living in Kuwait and Iraq who probably didn't want a war anymore than we did. All that talk as we came into a new decade - about peace in the world - Glasnost - dismantling the Berlin Wall - the end of apartheid - all seems to have gone down the plug hole overnight.
My text can be found in Isaiah 42:24b - 25a "We would not live as He wanted us to live, or obey the teachings He gave us. So He made us feel the force of His anger and suffer the violence of war". These were words addressed to the nation at a time of captivity in Babylon, the people crushed and without hope. The prophet tries to bring them to see that although what had happened was their own doing, despite their terrible circumstances, God had not abandoned them, but restoration would eventually come.
Isaiah tells us We don't always live God's way.
"We would not live as He wanted us to live, or obey the teachings He gave us."
The world would be a very different place if people lived the way Jesus suggested we should and embraced the teachings he brought to us. If only we could see other's lives as precious as God counts them. If only we could realise how stupid, blind and insensitive we are. But we don't live the way God wants us to live.
It's true of nations and it's true of us as people. We are none of us really good people. "Only one", said Jesus " is good.. and that is God alone" and in saying so He said something to us about His own identity. That He was God - in our midst - showing us what life could be like if we were people who really knew God as Father. If all people lived Christ's way there would be no war.
So we come to the second part of the text.
Isaiah tells that because we don't live God's way,
We are people who know His anger.
The great Revivalist Jonathan Edwards has a famous sermon called "Sinners in the Hand of an angry God". It's real fire and brimstone stuff that sparked off a great revival in New England in 1741. The theme of this remarkable sermon was that because we are all people who don't live God's way, we should expect to be the objects of His anger and wrath, and that it was only the restraining love of God that stopped us from being destroyed.
Would you blame God for being mad at us? Look at the mess we are making of the world. He made it beautiful and we are wrecking it by our greed. He made us the pinnacle of creation and we let our brothers and sisters in other nations starve. We kill. We wage war. The more you think about it, it makes you angry. Maybe the best thing for the world would be if we were all blasted into oblivion.
God isn't a man. Or a woman. Not human. When we think of God's anger the temptation is to make God in our own image. To picture God as some kind of angry old man shaking his fist at the world. Or worse still as a tyrant whose will we must obey or be damned.
Probably no man in the history of Christianity had such a dramatic experience of God as St Paul on the Damascus road. The one who had been the great persecutor became it's greatest spokesperson. In our passage from Romans we find these words, "Never take revenge my friends, instead let God do it" (Romans 12:19).
In the New Testament the anger of God is not seen as anger in the sense that if we don't do what He says then He'll blow His top. His wrath, His revenge, His anger is seen as something impersonal, that comes as a result of not living His ways. It should not be viewed as indicating an emotion or an attitude of God.
It is rather the case that, when we sin against God, we cut ourselves off from His love. When we live in opposition to God, all the force of our sins, the threat of death and the accusations of his laws, are hanging over us. So Isaiah speaks of "the force of God's anger" being over those who disobey Him. Such is a description of mans condition before God, not the emotions of God towards people.
For God is love. A love which calls us in, to come out of our sin. So Paul writes to the Romans not to take revenge against those who harmed them but to allow them to experience the feeling that God was against them, to feel his anger. This would change their minds and bring them to know His love.
This moves us on to the third part of the text. When we don't live God's way - when -because of our disobedience we place ourselves in a position to feel His anger - then it can lead us to the violence of war.
Right now this text is fulfilled for us:
We "suffer the violence of war" (verse 25)
Violent it is. Hit first. Hit hardest. Do the most damage. Get them before they get you. Sheer, naked, brutality. The longer the crisis continues the more brutal it will become. that has been the way in every war that has ever been fought. We're not designed for war. It dehumanises us. It brutalises us.
War is something that we have got ourselves into. I know the official reason is that we are acting on behalf of the United Nations on behalf of Kuwait. The propaganda machine is trying to paint the whole thing as a just war against an evil tyrant, but things are never that simplistic. There are reasons why Iraq has invaded Kuwait. There is a whole lot more to the story than we will ever be told.
The Middle East has always been an area of terrible disputes, argued about by the whole world. You only have to open the pages of your Old Testament to see that! The seeds of the current crisis were sown thousands of years ago, and whatever the outcome the current crisis won't solve the real problems.
The real problems are the thoughts, the ideologies, the beliefs that have led to this crisis. Such things can not be solved by armed conflict.
In saying that I am in no way minimising the terrible deeds and atrocities that are said to have taken place in Kuwait at the hands of Iraq. Neither am I suggesting that we should condemn the actions of those governments who have seen this as the only option. That is surely a matter for our individual consciences.
There are Christians who believe the use of armed force is justified as a lesser of two evils. There are others who believe the only resistance we should offer is non-violent resistance and that war is unjustifiable. You must seek God's guidance to reach your own conclusions.
For myself, I would wish to say this. That I know what I am. I know I am a sinner who cannot even come near to living up to God's standards. I do make mistakes and I will get things wrong. Yet, I believe in Christ. That He came to be my saviour, and when I come to the cross - there I can find forgiveness, I can find healing, I can find strength - not because of anything good in me, but because Christ died for my sins and was raised to give me the power to live through His Holy Spirit.
In Jesus Christ I see the only hope for lasting peace. He said there would be wars and rumours of wars until the end of the age, until the time would come when every knee would bow and every tongue confess His Lordship. He told His disciples not to be suprised at such things, but hold on to their faith in him.
Isaiah said much the same to the nation of Israel in exile. Though they were going through a terrible time, God had not abandoned them. They were to keep their faith in His greater purposes.
The gospels tell us of a Christ who was an Israelite, born into a Middle Eastern crisis at a time of uncertainty and warring madness. They show us how He refused to take sides but spoke of a New Way that went beyond nationality, beyond religion even, a way that couldn't be found by adherence to any creed but received as a gift from His Spirit through faith in his risen power.
Let us pray for peace. Let us pray for peace. Let us pray for peace.
As we do so let us be aware that though one war may come to an end - that is not the battle over. That as Christian people we have a battle to fight. "Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit" says the Lord.
Let us do what we can to support those who are being hurt by the current crisis, especially those with personal involvement. Theirs is a burden to heavy to bear alone. Just as the nation of Israel felt crushed and abandoned in exile so there are many who feel their world has come to an end. They need to know that God hasn't abandoned them. That He remains in the business of turning crucifixions into resurrections.
As we come to the communion table this morning we shall break bread... a symbol not only of Christ's body but at a time like this of the fragmented, shattered hopes of the world. And we shall take the cup, the symbol of His blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins. In true repentance let us seek to be renewed by God's power and transformed by His saving Grace.
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