Isaiah 59:1-3,6-9

The United Methodist Church gathers local churches into larger groups called Annual Conferences. There are 70 of these in the United States and many in other countries. All of those groups send delegates every four years to a large meeting called the General Conference. And General Conference is meeting for 11 days in Pittsburgh right now to debate the budget for the next four years, some nominations, and to deal with 1600 petitions that would change the direction of the church or add a new direction to the church in some area.

 All that I know about the petitions is that 70 of them are about homosexuality and that is expected to be the topic that dominates the meetings. But as you see in the newsletter today, I believe that the meetings this time should focus on peace. There are moments when the church should speak to the nation. If we are engaged in a war that God does not support, then it is our patriotic duty, and our moral imperative, and our compassionate desire to say that to the nation. Instead, we are about to announce that the biggest national issue is whether ten percent of the nation can marry and we are sorry to report that we don’t agree on it and will decide how to divide the denomination as a result.

 So I have changed the scripture from which I was going to preach today. I believe that this is a season when Christians should look at the Bible passages on peace and challenge our government to be about the business of peace. This will not be a political sermon. We do need political leadership to try to lead us out of Iraq, but we need first to have a passion for peace as Christian people. My prayer is that through the Scriptures today, we will each have new sensitivity to the issues of war and new passion to offer the promises of peace.

I want to lead us today through a Biblical survey on Peace. And I found the most beautiful image in Scripture to share from Luke 13. Herod had called Jesus unpatriotic since he would not support the national leaders in their struggle with Rome. And Jesus calls Herod ‘that fox.’ I never noticed that before. But then you see two verses later that Jesus has pity on Jerusalem in the face of Herod’s leadership. She is like a mother hen, who desires to gather her brood protectively under her wings.

It is no coincidence that Jesus compares himself to a hen and calls Herod a fox. The threat is obvious. The children of God are vulnerable to the powers of the world. If there are still foxes in the world, I wish that Jesus was more than a mother hen. My verse 34 would read, ‘ah Jerusalem, I would have stood before the fox as a bear and tore it from limb to limb.’ But the image of mother hen suggests caring by God and knowledge that we need security, but it will not come through military strength or technological wonders. Indeed, a humbling reality from this past few months is that the magical wonders of computers and night vision goggles and smart bombs has not even been able to keep US soldiers alive, let alone secure the peace. Our only security is to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8)

Violence visits the planet almost as soon as creation. And just like the torture of Iraqi prisoners that have sickened us in the last two days, the first violence was no less understandable. One brother murders the other. As I revisited the story this week, I wondered what Adam and Eve felt. How can you start to hate one of your children? Is there ever a just reason? But then I was amazed to reread the response of God. God places a mark on Cain to warn everyone not to kill him in return. Cain has taken a life, but he is not to be punished in equal measure. And this is an early understanding of God limiting the power of humans in vengeance. Vengeance is mentioned in the Bible 50 times and most of those verses tell us that humans are not to be the judges. Humans are to stop evil, preach salvation, bring about life and creativity, but we do not often join God in the business of judgment. [Rom 12:19] 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."

That has never been the way of humans. Whether it is prisons or war, we desire to have a role in punishment. And so after a period of violence, God establishes a people through the Exodus. And what I want you to notice in the Exodus is that the deliverance is by God’s hand, not the brilliance of Moses, Aaron, or Miriam. The Red Sea parts and then comes back together to swallow the army of Pharaoh. Friends, I am certain the Saddam Hussein was an awful individual so I don’t mourn his new status. But the United States is in an imperial and dangerous mood and our armies are just as vulnerable to the supernatural works of God as were the armies of Pharaoh. If you believe in miracles, then you it is more than miracles of healing or even resurrection. It is also the miracle of the Red Sea and that was a miracle that involved judgment.

Even when God used the people of Israel to execute judgment, there was an emphasis on God’s role. The battle went well in Exodus 17:9 while Moses held up his hands to heaven and they had to prop them up with stones as he became weary so they could win.

The battle of Jericho was won by marching around the walls seven times and waiting for God to collapse them. I am not a pacifist because I see places like this in Scripture where people are called on to participate in making a change in government or restricting evil. But the human role is limited and the power of good from war is far less than we hope. We have just spent 200 billion dollars on this war. And we would have done more good to take $25 billion for military needs and $125 billion to be spent on schools and hospitals, education for women and relief from hunger in the Islamic world. War cannot deliver as much as this government hoped.

Bishop Matthews lead this Annual Conference 9 years ago for a year. He was 81 years old at the time and his wife is the daughter of E. Stanley Jones, the famous missionary in India. Mrs. Matthews was just honored by the General Conference on her 90^th birthday. She was a graduate of the first all girls school in India which her father created and was a pioneering institution because it challenged the prevailing view of women in India in those years. This is the kind of change that people or governments can do that will have so much good impact for generations after.

By the time of Isaiah, the people of God had collapsed again in violence. David was a violent king, even though he was a leader after God’s heart in many ways. His successors also were optimistic about the powers of war and they are eventually taken captive to Persia.

And that is where we see the Scripture for today. Isaiah 40 – 60 are the next great attempt by God to shape a people who will live distinctively different in the world. In chapter 59, Isaiah again reminds people that violence separates us from the protective power of God. God’s hand is not too short to save. But the blood of violence is a barrier between us and the saving hand of God. Americans typically don’t want too much government regulation. You can elected promising to run against the rules in Washington. But what we are willing to accept is almost any bill that the government charges us for war.

Those 20 chapters in Isaiah are a call to return to a passion for peace. In verse 8, Isaiah mourns a people who do not know the way of peace.

The vision for peace is next picked up in the work of Jesus in the gospels. In Mark, Jesus is carefully portrayed as a king, coming to preach in verse 14 the good news of the kingdom of God. His message is carefully different from Herod who ruins a dinner with the head of John the Baptist while Jesus in the next chapter uses a dinner to feed 5,000.

We accept Jesus dying for us, singing he could have called 10,000 angels. But the death of Jesus is more than a miracle for salvation, it is also a response to evil. It is not that God will never bring the 70 dictators of this planet to judgment. It is that judgment is in God’s hands rather than ours. Instead, we openly empower the poor, empower women, proclaim justice for minorities and preach salvation through Jesus Christ. And when the powers and principalities do not understand and abuse or punish us, we lived like Jesus lived. We go to Jesus as to the mother hen. We do not get 10,000 angels. 1 Corinthians 2
⁸None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

And what is it all for? It is all about embracing God’s vision that the world again will see justice kiss peace as it says in the scriptures. We live the way we live because we believe that he who promised is faithful. We are marching with history to a day that God has determined. As it says in the Revelation of John, [Rev 21:1] Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

[Rev 21:2] And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

[Rev 21:3] And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;

[Rev 21:4] he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."