BRING PEACE TO A WARRING WORLD, PART II by j.Snodgrass
March 20, 2008
PRESENTATION – BRING PEACE TO A WARRING WORLD, PART II
By j. Snodgrass
James 1:19-27
You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into…the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act– they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God…is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Unstained, undefiled by the world. It reminds me of a sleep-away-camp skit I saw once saw. A little girl held a clean, white sheet of paper. And someone stomped onto the stage, grabbed her piece of paper away and crumpled it. She picked it up and held it. Someone else walked across, took the sheet of paper, threw it to the ground and stomped on it. She smoothed it out and held it again, but it looked so different from what we’d seen at first. Finally, a third person stomped across the stage, grabbed the paper and ripped it, throwing both pieces to the ground. This time the girl did not pick it up. She just looked at us. A fourth person walked on, picked up the two pieces, smoothed them out, held the pieces together and handed it back to the girl.
Anybody ever wake up with a sheet of paper like that? Anybody ever look in the mirror and say ‘Jesus called me the light of the world, and today I’m gonna let it shine’? Anybody ever bring a sheet of paper like that onto the subway at rush-hour? When I was growing up, we moved around a lot. And I remember the first day of school in New Jersey, first day of school in Ohio, first day of school in Western New York…me and my clean sheet of paper. And then a few days later in the principal’s office, waiting for my parents to show up, because I’d been fighting again. But look what they did, I always tried to say. Look what they did to my clean sheet of paper.
Presumably Jesus started out with a clean sheet of paper ‚Äì maybe even cleaner than the rest of us. But in Mark’s Gospel he’s often unwelcome, and sometimes insulted and openly conspired against. Entering the Synagogue in Mark chapter three he almost loses his temper…
NRS Mark 3:1-5
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. [The pharisees] watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him [of breaking the laws of Moses]. And he said to the man [with] the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he [asked the Pharisees], “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” [The man] stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
Here he was, trying to do some good in the world, and these dudes are trying to bust him on this technicality, working on the Sabbath. Even doing the Lord’s work on the Sabbath. And he could have walked away, or maybe he could have taken them down ‚Äì he did travel with a posse of twelve big dudes – but instead he breaks the law right in front of the pharisees…by healing someone.
Basically, there was the easy way…and then there was the Jesus way. Never the same thing. I can’t help wondering how he’d be remembered if he’d have gone before Pontius Pilate and said ‚ÄúTruly I say unto you…lemme outa’ here and you’ll never see my face again, I’ll be on a beach in Margarita-ville.‚Äù Pilate didn’t care. He probably would’ve said ‚ÄúYoe, you’d better take my limo, the one with the tinted windows, ’cause there’s people looking for you.‚Äù Wow… No, Jesus never did things the easy way.
He worked hard…and he PRAYED hard, like we heard last week in Luke 22:44, how he prayed and the sweat rolled down his face ‚Äúlike great drops of blood falling down on the ground.‚Äù And maybe one of the things he prayed for was for other people to be born into a better world than the one he found. This world of war, occupation, un-met need, crime… A world where people could shine their light, hold up their clean sheet of paper without fear of how it would be crumpled and torn and thrown back at them. ‚ÄúDon’t hide your light,‚Äù he said ‚Äúor else what good is it? What good is even the greatest faith if you never go out and show it?‚Äù
James 2:14-18
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.
One of the ways in which Jesus showed his faith was through activism ‚Äì non-violent demonstration. On the very first Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Imagine this country-boy, riding into the big city on a colt… Actually, according to Matthew 21:5, he rode in on a colt and a donkey at the same time…but I don’t know, Matthew may have written that real late at night… Anyway, what’s important to remember is that if he’d wanted, he could have rode in on a chariot, or a thunder-cloud. He could have told the people to bring swords, but instead…palm-leaves… And instead of shouting in anger they were singing with joy.
Jesus showed peace by enacting it, by letting people know he had abilities beyond a normal man, but using those abilities to bring people together, even back from beyond the grave. These are things that some of us…are unable to do. But in our own ways, like Jesus we can model peace, show others and ourselves what the world would be like if just one more person practiced forgiveness. All of us are called to make the world a safer place for others to hold up their clean sheet of paper, without fear of what might happen to it.
Jesus couldn’t have it both ways, couldn’t always take the hard road AND survive for two thousand years to be with us now. As the expression goes, ‚Äúno good deed goes un-punished.‚Äù Jesus knew he had to leave, had to demonstrate his peace a final time on the cross. And so in John 14:27 he says to his disciples, ‚ÄúPeace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.‚Äù
Somewhere inside, I still carry that kid, the fighter I once was and still sometimes his anger comes to the surface. What can I do? I try to set a good example for him.
Ephesians 4:29-32
Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God…has forgiven you.