Sermons

“Preaching Peace When There Is No Peace”

Isaiah 40:1-11; Jeremiah 6:13-16a – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – December 7, 2014

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we might stand at the crossroads and choose the way of peace. We pray it in the name of the One coming into the world, Amen.

And so somehow it’s already the second Sunday of Advent, and we are supposed to celebrate peace today. And the week has been long and complicated, and it feels almost absurd to speak about peace. Who can believe in peace anyway? With the world the way it is, how does it even make sense to bring it up? How can the conversation be anything other than silly daydreaming? Or worse, we might fall into the trap of the false prophets crying, “Peace, peace!” when there is no peace.

Except that if we look at the Bible carefully, we will see that all the many times the scriptures speak about peace, it’s not because peace is present, but precisely because it is not. “For who hopes for what is seen?” asks the Apostle Paul. We preach peace because talking about it is part of bringing peace into being. Our words, like God’s, have creative power.

My sermon is going to be largely personal testimony this morning, simply because I don’t know how else to get at all this. I hope that what I share will be just the beginning of a conversation, rather than the last word. I want to hear your stories of seeking peace; I want to know how your heart is breaking, what is testing the limits of your hope. No one of us has the whole picture, so we need to work as partners to put the pieces together into something we can begin to understand.

I think the best way to describe what I’ve been experiencing over the past couple of weeks is to say that it feels like I’ve been living double lives. On the one hand, there is the approaching excitement of Christmas and all that means. There is so much going on around here right now that keeping track of the details requires a fair portion of my brain. Just planning the menu for the various things I want to bring food to required detailed notes. The Fair Trade Holiday Market, and the Advent Festival, and the Christmas Choir Dinner or the Christmas Dinner and Choir Extravaganza or the Extravagant Choir Christmas Dinner or whatever you want to call it, plus our new Longest Night service, the Christmas Eve service, the Card Tree, and El Nido and MCRD – I decided earlier this week that we really should have written up an annotated guide for new people, because there’s too much to cover in our announcement time. But while it may be a lot to stay on top of and a lot of baking, these are wonderful, happy things. They are celebrations.

On the other hand, every time I open the newspaper or turn to my computer, my heart is wrenched by the news. The global news is enough to test the limits of one’s hope: bombings and abductions in Nigeria, more settlements and proposed anti-democratic legislation in Israel, continued conflict in Ukraine and Chechnya, increasingly irreversible environmental damage all over, and the ongoing horrific violence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and now Turkey.

But these past two weeks, the heartache has come even closer to home. Our country has erupted in rage and confusion, as not one, but two grand juries have declined to send to trial cases of black men being killed at the hands of police officers. After the lack of indictment in the Michael Brown case, some of the conversation got caught up on the details of what he was doing that may have provoked Darren Wilson to shoot him. But then, a week later, Officer Daniel Pantaleo was also not indicted in the death of Eric Garner, despite clear video evidence of exactly what happened. Meanwhile on November 22^nd, a 12-year-old black boy in Cleveland, Tamir Rice, was shot in a park within moments of the police officer’s arrival, because he had a toy gun in his hand. It has become clear that it’s not simply the individuals that are broken here, but the whole system.

Let me be clear: I appreciate that every police officer is also somebody’s child. That is all the more reason we have to face up to what is really going on here. Even good-hearted, well-adjusted, faithful police officers can be affected by a corrupted system. It is time for serious, honest conversations about why it is that black men and women are perceived as threatening and criminal so much more often than others. It is time to examine the laws that create a culture of impunity for those working in such high-stress, high stakes positions. It is time to listen to the cries of our friends and neighbors and co-workers who are rightfully fearful for the safety of their sons and daughters. It is time to sit with them and weep, like Rachel weeping for her children because they are no more. That is the other Advent I’ve been living these past two weeks. Eric Garner’s last words were “I can’t breathe.” There have been moments, these past two weeks, as I’ve read the words of friends about their conversations with their young black sons, when I couldn’t catch my breath either.

The prophet Jeremiah castigated the other prophets of his day for crying “Peace, peace!” when there was no peace. He excoriated them for treating “the wound of my people carelessly.” Sometimes preaching peace means listening as people tell the stories of their pain and fear. Sometimes preaching peace means disrupting the status quo to draw attention to the people who are being harmed by the ways things work.

I had the privilege of attending a panel and forum addressing these issues last night at Christian Fellowship Congregational Church, a predominantly black United Church of Christ congregation in Emerald Hills. On the panel were a few different young people, leaders within various organizations like the NAACP youth council and Project READY. They were terribly poised as they explained how they provide training for fellow teenagers about how to avoid becoming a victim of police violence. They talked about being respectful and calm and not talking back or running. It was clear they take this very seriously, aware of its life or death consequences. Let me say that again, another way: there are young leaders in our community whose volunteer service partially consists of teaching their fellow young people how to avoid being hurt or killed by officers sworn to protect and serve the community. What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong with us that we have allowed things to get to such a point? Rachel is weeping, indeed!

There has been much discussion among preachers on the internet these past two weeks about how we address these issues from the pulpit. Believe me, we are all more than well aware of the dangers of “getting political” when we preach. We know that a message people can’t hear is no better than no message at all. And we know that speaking about racism and racist systems and white supremacy and white privilege is a surefire way to tick many people off. Isaiah knows. Why else would he feel the need to reassure the “herald of good tidings” to lift her voice without fear? If you’re going to call the mountains being made low and the valleys being exalted good news, you’re probably not the current king of the hill. The kind of evening out that Isaiah is calling for is not received as good news by everyone. And yet, we cannot be silent. I cannot be silent. My heart is aching; I am truly living an Advent season of weeping for children who are no more, while longing for the coming of the Prince of Peace.

Our country is at a crossroads, much like the one Jeremiah described. There are many paths before us, but not all of them are the paths of justice and peace. Not all of them will lead to rest for our souls. The good way doesn’t look the same for each of us. There was a moment at the community forum last night when the frustration level started to rise, because it felt like we were all over the place, with no clear agreement about what needs to happen. And then a wise woman reminded us that multi-faceted problems have multi-faceted solutions. The things I do may be different from the things you do, which may differ again from the things another person in a different place in life will do. Challenges as large as this must be approached from many different vantage points. But one of the best ways to get started is by listening.

It may be that most of what I’ve been talking about this morning has been largely lost on you because you don’t feel any connection to the issues at hand. I would challenge you to try to care anyway, simply because this pain is affecting fellow children of God. And once you put a toe in this water, and start listening to people’s stories, and start developing relationships with people who are directly affected, you start connecting differently. I’m not just heart-achy this morning for nameless black children, or for the faraway families of Michael Brown or Tamir Rice. I’m scared and worried for my seminary classmate Amy’s son Benjamin, and my friend Deirdre’s son whom she calls “Sir” on Facebook, and my local colleague J. Lee Hill’s two boys who were at that forum last night. Beautiful children who are much beloved, and yet who will have to grow up in a world where they are not safe.

How would you respond if these were your children? There has been much tsk-tsking about the riots and traffic disruptions that followed the grand jury announcements in recent days. Why can’t you respond calmly, protestors are asked. Really? Because that’s what people do when their children are threatened? This sort of scolding sounds to me like the prophets of “Peace, peace” when there is no peace that Jeremiah warned us about. Let us make every effort to avoid joining them, and seek to understand the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., when he taught us that “rioting is the language of the unheard.” And let us choose to listen instead of condemn, so those voices can be heard before there is a next time.

This sermon was supposed to be about peace. And perhaps it is. Peace is a long-term process. Where else can we start except the beginning? We are at the crossroads, and we have before us the choice of which path we will take. Will we take the wounds of God’s people seriously, listening to their stories of pain and abandonment, or will we insist that everything is fine and the system is working the way it should? The second way may feel more peaceful in the moment, but it is a false peace, based on structures of inequality and oppression. The first way is much harder, more exhausting, and yes, less peaceful by many measures. But peace with justice is the only path that leads toward God. It is the only path that will truly give us rest.

Let us choose the paths that lead to a future where our children don’t have to teach one another how to avoid getting hurt. Let us choose the paths that lead to conversation and understanding, rather than polarization and hatred. Let us choose the paths that lead to all our children getting to be all that God has made them to be, growing up in a world where all adults can be trusted to look out for them, rather than to see them as threats.

It turns out Isaiah was right. When the path to peace is so un-peaceful, when the good news we have to share is so challenging, we do need encouragement to lift up our voices without fear. When the peace we seek requires that we expose our fragile hearts to so much pain and suffering, it becomes clear that the peace of God exists on a level much deeper than the comfort of a quiet room lit by a Christmas tree. As we stand at the crossroads this year, the Advent preparation we need isn’t about baking and rehearsing, though those are also good things. Let us also engage in prayer and compassionate listening, in opening our hearts to others’ pain and committing our lives to the paths of true peace. Let us do everything we can to truly cultivate our desire for the coming of the Prince of Peace. Alleluia and Amen.