Today's Sermon

 

"A Legacy of Peace: Not So Minor Prophet 3"

 

A Legacy of Peace: Not So Minor Prophet 3

            Last week, we commemorated All Saints’ Day, writing the names of those who have died, along with a mark they left on us.  We placed them on the communion table and lit candles symbolizing the everlasting light. The next morning, I gathered up the slips of paper and sat in my study and read through them.  Though it was a public ritual, I don’t think anyone signed up to have theirs read aloud, so I won’t do that.  I will give you a sense of the tenor: 

So much thanksgiving
So many people who taught us valuable lessons either through word or example
People who recognized us for who we were maybe even before we did
Those who lived right or tried…and you often recognized when people tried if when they
            fell short
There were difficult things shared, things that shouldn’t have happened
            I’m sorry for those things
If I had to summarize what I read in a single sentence, it would say:
            “We’ve been sent some really good people…Also some others.”
Some of the handwriting looked familiar, some not, some younger, some older
Some shared only names, others memories, some in veiled language

            Sitting there reading, those thin pieces of ordinary paper felt substantial.  We live lives of substance, complexity, perseverance, incredibly capacity to overcome, including the empowering ability to forgive.  We live lives full of grace and hardship.  Waves of different emotions greeted me.  As those came and went, one question remained: What will my son write of me some day?

            I don’t think much of legacy for legacy’s sake; I do think of future legacy of a measure of how I am in the present, what I stand for, the level of integrity I keep, to what I give my energy.  We are all, for the most part, trying to sort out how to leave a good legacy, live a good life which includes making a good life available to others.  Oh sure, there are those who have no capacity to think of anyone beyond themselves, but they are few enough that the rest of us should be able to contain them. 

            As we sort through how to live well, we run into a fundamental tension – that between me or we and all of us.  These are two if not competing goods, then realities we negotiate all the time – me or my family or my people or my religion or my country (you fill in the blank) and the universal we—all people, all peoples, all creation, the sense of oneness that is at the root, by the way, of almost all spiritual experiences.  We seem to be living in a moment when too many people have concluded the only way to be well is to deny their basic human responsibility for others. 

            Could it be that there is space for both me or my and we and ours?  Even those of us most committed to our essential oneness recognize the gift of our particularities, the way of life I would like, the beliefs I hold dear, the specific aspects of my culture or religion or groups I’m a part of that give me identity, direction, and belonging, the very land I know and love. I actually believe we all need to find our tribe.  At the same time, even the most tribal among us surely see how our fate is really intertwined.  Victory over another is only ever partial and temporary.  The grand mistake peoples make over and over again is to think I am truly served by dominating you or them.    

            You see the tension between the smaller “we” and the greater “we” across traditions and sacred texts.  It shows up in today’s reading from, part of our series on the prophet Micah. Incidentally, we had to skip one installment, which include many people’s favorite Micah verse:  “What does the Lord require of me, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God” (6:8).  I wrote up a short reflection in the enews a couple weeks ago, but you know that verse.  Hear today’s, a glimpse of God’s dream for how a love for our particularity and an appreciation for our universality can work together for a peaceable world. 

Micah 4:1-7

1 In days to come
    the mountain of the Lord’s temple
shall be established as the highest of the mountains
    and shall be raised up above the hills.
Peoples shall stream to it,
2     and many nations shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob,
that the Lord may teach us the ways
    and that we may walk in the Lord’s paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
    and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
3 The Lord shall judge between many peoples
    and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;

This is a prophetic vision of a time when the temple will be restored, the center of religious life for the people—and in that time, religious life encompassed a lot more than in our modern compartmentalized existence. The capitals of both kingdoms, Israel and Judah, were under assault; Micah’s dream is of a time when not only would that be no more, but other nations would stream to this “highest mountain” of the temple.  It might look like one side has won, but Micah says the time of conquering will be over:

they shall beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
    neither shall they learn war any more;
4 but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
    and no one shall make them afraid,
    for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

Notice, the nations come together, but they do not lose their identity. They lose their enmity, and they abandon their commitment to domination education.  They shall not learn war anymore.  They shall turn their weapons into farming tools.  What do we invest in?  What do we study?  Micah’s dream is for every people to have safety in the land, everyone gets to sit under their own vines and fig trees and “no one shall make them afraid” which George Washington famously quoted, lines that sing in the musical Hamilton. The prophet goes on: 

5 For all the peoples walk,
    each in the name of its god,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
    forever and ever.

The prevailing belief was that each people had their own patron God.  Here, the prophetic call is not to convert everyone, but for the people to stand with integrity in the way of their own.  I believe the Christian movement has often gotten this one wrong, in part because a line attributed to Jesus that was likely inauthentic, a latter addition (Matthew 28:19), and a line of Paul’s that is largely misunderstood (Philippians 2:4).  Micah’s God isn’t worried about converting the others so much as restoring those who are vulnerable and those who have been forced from their homes:

6 On that day, says the Lord,
    I will assemble the lame
and gather those who have been driven away
    and those whom I have afflicted.
7 The lame I will make the remnant,
    and those who were cast off, a strong nation,
and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion
    now and forevermore.

Victory is not victory over; it’s victory with, a just peace among neighbors.

            Part of claiming we are all one is allowing peoples to be many.  In fact, our recognition of our oneness is what allows it.  Can we join in the prophetic dream which hopes for one’s own are well without assuming it must come at the expense of the other, without entering a zero sum game, which is only fun for the winner?  The prophet dares us to see the world differently, maybe even to believe we can only be well when all are allowed to be well.  The two are related.  The prophet’s particular dream is rooted in a universal hope.

            What makes this universal hope possible, interestingly enough, is the wisdom from within the particular tradition.  If sometimes we make the mistake of wanting to assert our way over others, another mistake people make is assuming coming together means abandoning our particular traditions.  That’s where the wisdom is.  Micah is steeped in his tradition.  Jesus was.

It is precisely our tradition that teaches us how to step into our commitment to universal wellbeing.  We have just finished a four-week series on the fourfold spiritual path according to Matthew Fox.  The fourth and final step is putting one’s creative powers to use for the sake of compassion.  What if we understood compassion, not dogmatic conformity, as the measure for the Christian life?  We have heard a lot over this past year or so about compassion being a weakness, but it is the strongest of religious values.  Compassion is about being one with others who are suffering, not taking advantage of them while they are down and conveniently blaming them for their fortune – the two go hand in hand. 

            What is the best way to compassion?  It’s fostering a belief in our essential oneness.  According to an article in Scientific American, those who have a stronger belief in our oneness are more likely to have, “a universal concern for the welfare of other people, as well as greater compassion for other people. A belief in oneness was also associated with feeling connected to others through a recognition of our common humanity, common problems, and common imperfections.”[1]This is nothing but Jesus’ most basic teaching: love your neighbor as yourself, not as much as(e.g. Mk. 12:31).  Moreover, and this is really interesting, “there was no relationship between a belief in oneness and the degree to which people endorsed self-focused values…This means that people can have a belief in oneness and still have a great deal of self-care, healthy boundaries, and self-direction in life.”[2]Believing in our oneness does not mean losing yourself.  It means finding it.

             There are a lot of pitchforks out there right now, attacking various peoples as the problem. I’m not talking about ideology – ideology is fair game for contest, but not peoples.  How is this way going for us?  Is it working?  For whom? For how long?  Pitchforks aren’t meant to be weapons.  They’re farm equipment; maybe we should return the pitchfork to its calling.  

            One day, on some distant day of remembrance, they’ll be writing our names down.  They’ll be naming what marks we’ve left upon them and upon the world. God-willing, they will be gracious with our imperfections and our challenges.  What will they say we did with the tools at our disposal?  Did we forge swords or plowshares, legacies of hatred and chosen ignorance or a legacy of prophetic wisdom and peace? 

            Only time will tell.

            Amen.

[1]https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/beautiful-minds/what-would-happen-if-everyone-truly-believed-everything-is-one/

[2]Ibid.