The cost of discipleship

Mark 8.31-38; Romans 12.9-21

Rev Dr Barbara A Anderson

This sermon was preached in Pasadena Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, California, on March 16 2003. Four days later, the war against Iraq began.

In a few minutes, the Kirk Choir will sing the "Agnus Dei" from "War Requiem" by Benjamin Britten, written in 1962 for the rededication of Coventry Cathedral in England. The cathedral was destroyed by German bombs in 1940, during the second world war. The burned-out shell of the original cathedral remains, melded creatively into the new one. A cross made of nails from the old cathedral hangs in the new, and an enormous altar contains the words, "Father, Forgive."

In his Requiem, Britten blended the words of the ancient mass with words from English poet Wilfred Owen, who was killed one week short of the armistice ending the first world war. Owen knew his words were too late for his generation, but hoped they might be a warning to the next.

In a time such as we face today, it is necessary and right for people of conscience in every faith to speak. The stakes are too great for us to keep silent. Let us be clear that Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Let us be clear, as well, that we do not want him to pull us unwittingly into actions that will cause additional evil of incomparable dimensions. In this context, we hear the words of Elie Wiesel, a Jewish survivor of the German death camps, who reminds us that "silence is the friend of the perpetrator". We hear also Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German preacher and theologian - who called for the church to stand against idolatrous nationalism, and who, after every other means he could see at his disposal failed, sacrificed his life in a plot to assassinate Hitler - reminding us that "the church has been guilty of silence while evil was taking place".

In this season of Lent when we focus on the meaning of Jesus' death on a cross, we remember that Bonhoeffer has also said (with slight adaptation for current language), "How is a disciple to know which is his or her cross? We receive it upon entering the discipleship of the suffering Lord, and come to recognize it in the community of Jesus." Today, it is necessary and right that the church speak, and that we discern together, as the community of Jesus, what cross God is calling us to bear. It is necessary and right that we bring our faith, our scripture, and our tradition to bear upon the current crisis.

Our Saviour has not left us bereft at such a time. The apostle Paul writes in Romans 12.9-21:

"Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers."

"Bless those who persecute you," continues Paul; "bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.' No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Our Saviour does not leave us bereft at such a time as this. Many centuries ago, Thomas Aquinas said, "For a war to be just, three conditions are necessary - public authority, just cause, right motive." Just war theory is a work in progress. Over the years, the criteria for a just war have been expanded to include the following:

1. All other means to a peaceful and just solution must have been exhausted.
2. The cause must be just and on the side of the preservation of the human community against evil and injustice.
3. Such a war must be carried out with the attitude of restraint or proportionality to the goal of peace and justice that is sought.
4. War must be declared by a legitimate authority. (In recent years some have wanted that authority to be the UN.)
5. War should provide selective immunity for certain parts of the population, especially non-combatants.

And finally, just war theory never includes the right to a pre-emptive strike.

In making use of these criteria, it is important to note that just war theory requires that all the criteria must be satisfied in order for war to be considered an appropriate step. Even as we pray for our men and women in uniform, it is evident that the majority of these criteria have not been met.

We are on the brink of a war that very few people want, yet the majority feel powerless to stop, a war that will most likely have devastating consequences beyond our comprehension for decades to come.

We have had the good fortune never to have lived in bombed-out cities and villages. We have not, for 125 years, had to recover from the total ruin left by war on our own land, the raping of our daughters and sisters, the devastation of our crops, the destruction of our economy. It is easy for us to sanitize the impact of war.

We have been fortunate enough never to have been awakened by air-raid sirens, have not lived with the fear of whether our own house will be destroyed or our loved ones killed by a faceless terror dropped from the sky.

We weep with one another at the death of our family members, but most of us have never had to see tens of thousands of orphans and widows weeping and numb at the death of their fathers and husbands and hopeless about how they will survive.

We found 9/11 horrifying, yet the reality of war is even more so. We are, fortunately and unfortunately, insulated from the effects of warfare and terror with which much of the world lives daily.

Nevertheless, there are those among us who remember the agony of sending loved ones off to fight in the second world war, the Korean War, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. There are those who remember the telegrams and the knock at the door to announce the death of a son or brother, not in an automobile accident on the freeway, but on a distant battlefield. There are those among us who lived in England during the second world war or in Africa and the Middle East, in Central and South America during various wars and who know first-hand the terror and anger, the fear and grief that we can never fully know who watch war only on our television screens. There are those among us who remember the battlefields and bombing runs, the comrades lost and the smell of death, who wondered if they would see their sweethearts again, or their children grow up. Each one has seen the impact of war in a way many of us and our President have not. Not one of these with whom I have spoken is eager for us to go to war.

I am not a pacifist. I believe the world should never acquiesce in evil. Just wars are necessary for a greater good, but a pre-emptive strike against Iraq can never fit those criteria.

There is incontrovertible evidence that Saddam Hussein is an evil man. He has committed heinous crimes against the people of his own country and he says terrible things about ours. But to believe that starting a war with Iraq at this time is the way to undercut terrorism in the world is to allow ourselves to be blinded by evil and to perpetuate and escalate the cycle of violence and terror that we say we want to end.

Other possibilities exist if we think outside the box of war.

We could, as a nation, find the courage to address the oppression Israel perpetrates upon the Palestinian people, taking the air out of most of the hatred for the United States in the Middle East, and decreasing the threat of terrorism proportionately.

Instead of trying to give $38 billion to Turkey to purchase a staging ground for our invasion, we could use that money to honour our promises to Afghanistan for rebuilding its infrastructure and meeting its human need and thus be seen as a trustworthy nation.

Instead of putting our beloved men and women at risk, wreaking havoc on families here and in Iraq as we sow seeds of hate that will be the inevitable price of this war, we could sow seeds that would bring forth life.

War is not the only option before us, even at this late date. As my mother, a Republican poll worker in Ohio, said only yesterday, each death of a soldier or civilian on either side causes ripples of grief and changes lives forever beyond our imagining. She remembers previous wars and does not want us to start another one. To begin war pre-emptively would be a grave error, a dreadful act the ramifications of which would stretch across continents for decades and bring terror greater than 9/11 into the heartland of our country and the lives of people around the world.

Although we may disagree with one another on how best to reach our common goal of peace - even the President and his own pastor disagree - we do believe that as Christians, we are to be in serious dialogue and prayer with one another that we might recognize the cross we are to bear, the words we are to speak, the actions we are to take. Our discernment is not easy, but we do remember that if Jesus' teachings had been popular with those in power, he would not have died on a cross. "If any want to become my followers," he says to us, "let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."

We pray many times each day for our armed forces and for the people of Iraq. We pray for leaders and negotiators. That we may avoid the devastation of war, is I am sure, the prayer of each of us. It is the prayer of the soldiers and families who await the command to begin battle, of those innocent children and adults, those civilians and soldiers who will hear the bombs overhead. Therefore, I close with these words, "I no longer pray for peace", by the Presbyterian poet, Ann Weems, written 10 days ago on Ash Wednesday.

(Ann Weems
Ash Wednesday, March 5 2003)