"Light to the Eyes"
Psalm 19
Rev. Laura J. Collins
World Communion Sunday, October 6, 2002
Last week school children were evacuated from West Africa in the midst of guerilla fighting.
This week the congress debated what is needed before our President can send our troops into Iraq.
Then a sniper began a murderous streak through Montgomery County.
And today, we celebrate World Communion Sunday.
How do we claim oneness in Christ in a world so divided?
How do we follow the Prince of Peace in a world so filled with violence?
It is easy to mouth the words of unity and peace here today. We look around and take in the beautiful rainbow of God's creation. We see faces from North and South America. From Africa and Asia. We see the spectrum of shades from white to brown to black on the gorgeous faces around this room. We appreciate the clothing, the languages, the music, the food of each culture represented here.
We want to say to the world: see how we love one another! There is a better way! There is a nobler way! There is a way of justice and a road to peace.
But words are easy and sentiment is cheap.
The truth is, even as we gather around this sanctuary today, even as we share in the one body and one cup of Christ, even here peace does not come easily. Even here, unity is not always achieved.
Our words of unity, our cries for peace, point toward our hope more than our reality.
If we, who through the love of God, long to be in relationship with each other, but still experience misunderstanding, distance, difficulty, division, how can we speak easy words of peace to the world beyond?
These have been my thoughts these past weeks as I watch in dismay my beloved country prepare once again to send young adults on the warpath. As I've listened to the arguments for pre-emptive action in Iraq I have yet to hear an answer to "Why now? Why so urgent? Why without more concensus abroad? Why?"
We need be neither pacifists nor naive about Hussein to question the current course of action.
The question becomes for me, as a Christian, as a citizen, beyond the words for peace, beyond the hope for an outcome that does not involve more innocent deaths, what am I called to do? Peace, like love, is a word that only works when it is put into action. And perhaps I hesitate to call for peace too loudly because I fear what that will mean for me.
My friend, Roy Howard, the pastor at St. Mark's Presbyterian in North Bethesda, has been holding theological discussions on the issues of war and peace in Iraq and the larger region recently. In an interview he was asked how Christians might act with integrity in the current situation. He responded:
Christians must be as serious about making peace as those who are serious about making war. ... this means serving our country by the willingness to sacrifice our lives in the pursuit of peaceful alternatives, equal to those who are willing to sacrifice their lives in war ...
This is a difficult statement for me, because while I believe it is true, I have no clear sense of how I might live it. Am I willing to sacrifice anything, much less my life, in pursuit of peace? And how can I preach peace with my lips if I am not willing to live it with my life?
This is the dilemma I bring before you this World Communion Sunday: my confession, if you will. I would like to stand before you and preach a rousing sermon, urging you to make your stand for peace, to speak the truth to power in love, to call on the powers of our nation and our world to let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
I would like to speak of the cross of Christ we all are called to carry -- which carried Jesus to certain death that he might stand non-violently for peace and grace and justice and love.
I would like to remind you of Martin Luther King, Jr. whose own non-violent life was lost in the cause of righteousness and of his followers who suffered sore feet from bus boycotts and bruised bodies from bully sticks.
I would like to speak of you to Gandhi whose recognition that complicity in economic injustice leads to war, which led him to abandon the economic system and to spin his own yarn, to make his own salt.
I would like to speak to you of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, jailed and executed for his attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler, after agonizing for months over the role of a Christian in the face of a terrorist.
And I would like to say, "Here, then, is what World Communion Sunday really means. Here is our call ..."
But I need your help. I need this community to pray with me and for each other that we may hear and follow the call of our Savior God.
I need for you to come with me around this table today and look around the faces in this room and to ask deeply, willingly, longingly, honestly, what is our call? How can we be peacemakers? What is our equivalent of the sore feet in Birmingham? What is our equivalent of Gandhi's spinning his own yarn that we might extricate ourselves from unjust economies?
In the 19th Psalm, we heard the poet exult in the majesty of creation and then quickly segue into the joy of living by God's law. We heard the law read from Exodus as we made our confession this morning. "Thou shalt not kill. ... Thou shalt not covet ..." The Psalmist proclaims: God's law revives the soul, rejoices the heart, is sweeter than honey, gives light to the eyes!
As we seek the paths of peace in our world today, let us seek that light for our eyes. As a community with ties around the world, we have a unique opportunity to focus together on the joy of God's gracious call to peace.
Let us covenant together to pray with all our hearts and all our minds and all our strength and all our soul, to hear the commandments of our God. Let us come with hope and humility to this feast of God today, with the words of the Psalmist keeping us centered: "May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer."
Let us pray:
O God, Lead us from death to life,
from falsehood to truth.
Lead us from despair to hope,
from fear to trust.
Lead us from hate to love,
from war to peace.
Let Peace fill our hearts,
our world, our universe. Amen.
(Universal Prayer for Peace)
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