May 2, 2010

Psalm 46:1-11; Isaiah 2:1-5

We are continuing our sermon series on “following Jesus in a culture of fear and violence”.

During this series we are looking at how we came to the understanding that Jesus wants us to love our enemies and to return good for evil. And if he does – what does that mean for us?

Again – if you have things you want me to address in this series please let me know.

Last Sunday, in the first sermon in this series, I started by looking at peace in the OT. I said that God’s healing strategy in the OT was to extend mercy, love, and forgiveness to people in order to heal the brokenness and to restore right relationships.

I then gave numerous examples from the OT to show how God was carrying out this healing strategy.

I also said God’s vision for how the world is meant to be is best defined by the OT word for peace – “shalom”. Shalom refers to wholeness, reconciliation, justice, well-being, compassion and salvation.

Shalom is primarily a relational term. It means right relationships with God, with other people, and with all of creation.

When any of these relationships are broken or where injustice, hatred, and fear persist there is no shalom.

So, last Sunday we saw that God’s vision for peace in the OT is very big and that God has made a long-term commitment to heal and restore all of creation through patient, sacrificial love – not brute force.

Now, I can imagine what some of you are thinking. You are thinking this all sounds good but what about all of the violence in the OT?

What about all those passages in the OT where God commands Israel to kill every adult, child, and animal, and to destroy every home and all the belongings?

• How can this God who loves shalom also command war?
• How can Jesus – who was kind and gentle and loved his enemies – be the Son of a God who seemed so violent?
• How can we worship God the warrior and the Prince of Peace at the same time?

For centuries Christians have struggled with these questions and there aren’t easy answers.

In the second century, Marcion, a Gnostic tossed out all of the OT and much of the NT because he said the God of the OT and Jesus in the NT were just too different. Marcion only accepted Paul’s writings. But the church rejected his approach.

Others have said God’s mind must have changed. God told the nation of Israel to do one thing but now, through Jesus, God is telling us to do something different.

Still others have suggested that the OT is God’s will for our corporate public life and the NT is God’s will for one’s personal life. So Christian’s should be nonviolent in their personal life, but they can also feel it is God’s will to kill in a war that their nation is involved in.

Now, as Mennonites we have generally rejected all of those approaches as not being very helpful or biblical.

So how do we look at violence and war in the OT?

1. What we, in the Mennonite church, usually say is that the NT fulfills the OT. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus himself said that he came to fulfill the OT. In other words, Jesus is the clearest and fullest revelation of God that we have.

So, what this means is that the OT has to always be interpreted in light of Christ’s life and teachings found in the NT. This doesn’t mean the OT is invalid – it just means we have to read it carefully in light of Jesus’ life.

So, a big part of how we deal with violence and war in the OT is to read the OT in light of the NT.

• The OT taught an “eye for an eye” but Jesus taught us not to retaliate at all and to resist evil by doing good.
• The OT taught that enemies could be hated but Jesus taught that we are to love our enemies.
• The OT taught that murder is wrong but Jesus taught us that even calling people names is like murder.
• The OT taught that adultery is wrong but Jesus taught that lusting after someone is like adultery.
• In the OT stoning someone for certain sins was acceptable but Jesus does away with those practices too.

So, what we see in the bible itself is a movement from “unlimited retaliation” – to “limited retaliation” in an “eye for an eye” – to in Jesus we have “unlimited mercy and forgiveness.”

What this means is some practices in the OT are simply not normative for us today because of what Jesus taught.

1. Now, a second way we deal with war in the OT is to see “God as the one who fights the battles.”

From a human point of view the wars of the OT were fought from weakness, not strength.

From Israel’s beginning – up until she got a king – Israel fought what is called a “holy war”. In that day, every nation and people group had “holy wars”. But for the other nations – “holy war” meant the people were fighting for their gods. They were fighting in their god’s name and were doing it for their god.

For Israel, “holy war” meant God did the fighting while the people did nothing.

During Israel’s early history these wars were seen as “miracles” because they were won without Israel using weapons or having a professional army.

God always got the credit for the victory. In the OT there are no “war heroes” or “war monuments” to commemorate victories. God got all the credit.

Israel’s understanding of “holy war” grew out of her deliverance from Egypt.

In the book of Exodus we learn that after Pharaoh let the children of Israel go – he changed his mind and chased after them.

He finally cornered them by the Red Sea with all the best military equipment of the time – chariots and horses.

The Israelites are scared to death because they have no way to defend themselves. So they begin to grumble to God.

In Exodus 14:12 they say to God – “is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

Then, through Moses, God says – “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you only have to stand still and watch.”

Israel, to her surprise, did stand still and watch as God delivered her through the Red Sea. And when it was all over, Israel sang praises to God.

In Exodus 15:2 it says they sang – “The Lord is my strength and my might, and God has become my salvation, this is my God and I will praise him.”

The Exodus story is the best example or model of “holy war” in the OT. Through God’s deliverance Israel learned that they were to rely on God alone – not weapons, not an army, and not on kings.

Even Joshua, who led Israel into the Promised Land, reminds the people at the end of his life to rely on God when he tells them in Joshua 24:12-13 – “you did not do it with your sword or bow. God gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build.”

For Israel, weapons were not necessary to win. The only thing necessary was to trust God to deliver them.

In Deuteronomy 20 we have a few guidelines on how Israel was to fight in a holy war. Here are some things they were to do:

1. First, when they see an army larger than their own – they are not to panic or be afraid because war is not a human enterprise. God will deliver them.
2. Next, Israel was not to have a standing army.
3. And, when there was a war people could go home or not fight if  -
   • They were afraid.
   • If they had just built a new home.
   • Or if they had just gotten married.

For Israel, the size of the army was never an issue. Victory came through trusting in God – not by military might. There was no “peace through strength” thinking.

One example of “holy war” in the OT is the story of Gideon fighting against the Midianites. (Judges 6)

Initially Gideon didn’t want to go to war because he said his clan was the weakest. However, Gideon is finally persuaded to go but God tells him that he has too may many men in his army.

So, Gideon reduces his army from 32,000 down to 300 before God tells him he is now ready.

And then, when Gideon is sent into battle with his 300 men their only weapons consisted of “pitchers, torches, and trumpets.”

Israel’s holy wars were only won through faith in God.

• We see the same thing in Jericho. Jericho was defeated when Israel marched around the city with trumpets. (Joshua 6)
• Or in Second Chronicles King Jehosephat defeats a huge army of Amonites and Midianites – simply by singing.

These few examples illustrate that Israel was always inferior in numbers, social organization, and weaponry. They had to rely on God’s miracle to save them.

Many people today want to base going to war on the OT. Yet, can you imagine in our wars today with Iraq or Afghanistan what would have happened if President Bush had announced –

“God has promised us victory in these wars on the condition that the U.S. does away with all our conventional weapons and nuclear weapons and that our troop levels are reduced to 300 – and they will only be equipped with horns, pitchers, and torches.”

People would think he had lost his mind. And yet, if we want to base war on the OT today I want to suggest that we also have to rely on God the same way Israel did.

Another key feature of the “holy war” tradition was called the “ban”. The practice of the “ban” forbid Israel from taking any “spoils” from a war.

This meant killing all the soldiers in the defeated army plus the women and children – and even the animals. It also meant burning all the possessions of the enemy that could be burned.

All of these things were devoted as an offering to God.

Now the practice of the “ban” seems terribly cruel to us and makes no sense.

But in that day – the purpose of the “ban” was to safeguard Israel from waging war for the sake of financial gain. We all know today that most wars are fought for financial gain and Israel was never to do that.

One time when Israel didn’t practice the “ban” they lost their next battle because they had kept some of the “spoils of war” for themselves. In the defeat of Jericho – Achan had kept some things and his sin led to Israel’s defeat until they repented.

Once again we see that for Israel, victory in battle had nothing to do with the size of its army or its weapons. It only had to do with trusting in God to fight their battles for them.

Up until Israel had kings this is the way Israel’s wars operated. Israel was to have no standing army. No weapons. And they were forbidden to make military alliances or treaties with other nations.

So while the stories of violence in the OT make me very uncomfortable – in that context, Israel understood that God was fighting their battles for them and victory had nothing to do with having better weapons or more soldiers.

Later on, when Israel got kings, the holy wars stopped and Israel had standing armies and fought in battles just like other nations but that is never what God desired for them.

So, once again I want to suggest that if we are going to base our practice of war today on the OT – then we need to be willing to follow the practices of the “holy war” tradition and trust only in God to save us.

1. The other way to deal with war in the OT is to align ourselves, as Jesus did, with all the voices for peace in the OT.

There is no question that there are voices for war in the OT. But there are also many voices for peace in the OT that often get overlooked.

I want to highlight a few stories of nonviolence in the OT and also show how Israel’s prophets kept alive the ideals of shalom and compassion for the weak and oppressed.

First, just a few stories when conflicts were resolved nonviolently.

1. In Genesis 13:8-14 we have the story of Abraham and Lot.

As you know, Abraham and Sarah were promised land in the covenant. When they arrived in Palestine Abraham’s herdsmen and Lot’s herdsmen quarreled about the land because it we too crowded.

Abraham could have had his choice of the land but he says to Lot – “let’s not quarrel” and he allows Lot to choose first.

The conflict ends nonviolently when Abraham moves on and lets Lot have the land he has chosen. For Abraham, land was always a gift from God and he did not want to fight over it.

1. In Genesis 26 we have another story of nonviolence.

Isaac is living in the land of the Philistines. He became very wealthy and people envied him. There was a famine and people needed water.

Isaac would dig a well and the Philistines would come and take it. He would dig another well and the Philistines would take it.

Isaac could have legally challenged the Philistines for the wells because the land belonged to his father. He also could have used force, but he didn’t.

Instead of using violence he chose to resolve the conflict in a peaceful way by moving on. Some might call this conflict avoidance but in the end Isaac found a way to live in peace with the Philistines.

1. There is also this powerful story about the prophet Elisha in Second Kings 6.

The Syrians are at war with Israel. Elisha asks God to strike the Syrian army blind. God does and then Elisha tells them that they are in the wrong place and that he would take them to the right place.

Elisha leads them to Samaria and into the hands of the king of Israel. Israel’s king wants to kill them but Elisha says no – feed them and send them home.

So Israel’s king prepared a great feast for them and sent them home. And then the story ends with – “the Syrians no longer came raiding into the land of Israel.”

Elisha chose nonviolence here when violence was convenient and an available option.

These and many other stories show that conflict was often resolved peacefully in the OT.

1. And then we also know that many of the prophets spoke out clearly against war and violence.

The prophets Micah and Isaiah both saw a time coming when – “nations will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”

This vision of peace is special because it pictures people from all nations streaming to the temple to learn about God’s ways.

And what they are learning about God’s ways will cause them to change their weapons of war into farm tools.

The drastic change, as seen by the prophets, comes about because people are turning to God.

The prophets never glorified war or called for war. Even when war seemed to be glorified there were voices for peace saying something different.

Even king David – Israel’s greatest king – could not build the temple because of his violence.

God said to David in First Chronicles 22:8 – “you have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house in my name because you have shed much blood on earth in my sight.”

David’s military campaigns disqualified him for building the temple of God.

The prophets continually called Israel back to rely on God for their strength and security. They always lifted up this vision of shalom when peace will be the norm.

In the OT there were voices calling for war but Jesus identified with the prophets and those voices calling for peace. In Jesus, God is at work to bring an end to the cycle of violence.

These OT visions still speak to us today and tell us that such a society is not only worth striving toward but also falls within the overall purpose of God in the world.

We are still invited today to dream the dream of Isaiah and Micah. The vision of Micah and Isaiah is really a call for the elimination of weapons and the abolition of war.

I know this morning that this vision often seems far away and impossible to reach. In fact, many people think we shouldn’t even try.

But the scriptures and Jesus call us to live a disarmed, forgiving, and nonviolent life now. This vision is certainly risky and seems impractical. And for trying to live it – we will be called fools!

Isaiah says that if we want to live this vision now it will mean a conversion on our part. Not only a conversion of heart, but a conversion of weapons of war to instruments of peace – and a conversion of research and development for war to research and development for peace.

It will also require economic justice and land reform so that more people will have access to land and a means of production.

It will also mean that people will need to be instructed in the ways of God’s peace and rule. People will need to be taught how to settle disputes and nations will need to learn how to resolve conflicts peacefully.

For most of church history – our energies have focused – not on abolishing war but on how to go to war justly.

I often wonder – why is it that we who accept the bible as God’s authoritative word for life do not cherish and believe Isaiah and Micah’s vision of shalom?

Jesus clearly identified with Isaiah’ vision, lived it, and invited all people to repent (change your mind about how the world works) – and join the reign of God – this reign of shalom that is here among us in Jesus.

Gandhi once said – “the only people on earth who do not see Jesus and his teaching as nonviolent are Christians.”

Let’s change that by following Isaiah’s dream and living in the power of the Spirit as Christian peacemakers.

God’s word to us today and everyday is – “Be still and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” “I will fight your battles for you.”

Amen.