Litany for Peace

Call to Worship/Welcome (Pam) . Welcome. Our service today is organized around the injustice, suffering and death, and then our hopes for peace, resurrection, and life. We’ll begin with a reading (acknowledge Carl Meyers of Goshen who shared a litany on Mennolink which he had compiled. His litany was read at Bethany Christian High School in Goshen. The litany which we will begin with today incorporates a great deal of his litany. The litany will be followed by a short silence, and then a song on tape (thanks to Lynda Nyce). We will than have another reading, which will speak of our hopes for peace and justice, and will follow this with a song. You are then free to leave or stay in silent prayer.

Voice 1: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Luke 4:18-19

Voice 2: In Chiapas, Mexico, Mayan Indians are being massacred by death squads armed by the Mexican government with US-supplied weapons. They are being killed because they have chosen to rise up in protest rather than die the slow death of starvation, as their land and their rights are taken from them by wealthy landowners and US corporations. Foreigners expelled from Mexico on Monday said they were ousted because they witnessed a large-scale military operation. One of those expelled said: "We could see how the police and the army entered the town…..attacking the Indians, and all of the foreigners were beaten and arrested to avoid our being witnesses to them burning the native’s houses."

Jesus is being crucified in the people of Chiapas.

Voice 3: In February of this year, as many as 80 Albanians in Kosovo were killed by Serbian police forces. More than half of the victims were women and children. Houses in almost a dozen villages were bombed and destroyed, and since hundreds of families are still hiding in the woods outside of their villages, too terrified to return to their homes. As of March 23 there have been reports of starvation among these people, since aid organizations have been prevented from reaching them. Visitors to the area have heard reports of random arrests and beatings of Albanians on the streets by policemen.

Jesus is being crucified in the people of Kosovo.

Voice 1: In Iraq, 4,500 children under the age of five die every month of starvation, malnutrition, and lack of medical supplies. They are dying as a result of economic sanctions placed on Iraq by the United Nations, under pressure from the United States. A visitor to Iraq was recently told by a woman there: "We are ground down, exhausted, by years of death. Since the Gulf War 600,000 children have died of malnutrition and a lack of medicine. We live with death". Somehow these years of deprivation and isolation have eroded such minor questions as to whether one might die next week because of a bomb from the air, or in ten years time from another cause. The question was whether after death there is life, and whether there is a God who hears us. It is as if the embargo had sometimes seemed to shut out even God."

Jesus is being crucified in the people of Iraq.

Voice 2: In El Salvador, over 60,000 people died between 1980 and 1989. They were killed by a military government that received huge amounts of military aid from the United States. The violence was directed specifically at priests, union organizers, and those who struggled for justice for the poor. Today, business magazines advertise the fantastic opportunities present in El Salvador, where sweatshop labor costs as little as ten cents per hour.

Jesus is being crucified in the people of El Salvador.

Voice 3: Abu Jawad, a 70 year old Palestinian man , told Christian Peacemaker team workers in Hebron that on Thursday, March 26, he noticed armed settlers with leashed dogs surveying his land. When he went to find out what they were doing, they told him they had an order from the mayor, then unleashed the dogs on him. He threw stones at the dogs. The settlers first took a stance as if to shoot him, then left with their dogs. Abu Jawad went to Hebron to lodge a complaint. While he was gone, soldiers with a bulldozer came and dug a deep trench at the entrance to the only access road leading up the hill towards his home. In the process they broke the irrigation pipe under the road that is crucial for getting water to his grape vines south of the road. They also cut the electrical wires that send electricity to the Harsina settlement, leaving the live wires exposed on the ground. When Abu Jawad?s wife, aged 60, and daughter came out to see what was happening, soldiers, including women, shoved them into the water-filled ditch on the north side of the road and threatened to shoot them.

Jesus is being crucified in the people of Hebron.

Voice 1: In Indonesia, over a million people have been killed in the past thirty years by General Suharto's military regime, using guns, tanks, helicopters, and other military aid from the United States. In Indonesia today, thousands of men, women, and children work for starvation wages making shoes for corporations like Nike and Reebok. Hundreds of students at several universities demonstrated this week against rising food prices, with some protesters also calling for economic and political reforms, including the ouster of President Suharto. Earlier this week, clashes between police and demonstrators reportedly left 13 people injured.

Jesus is being crucified in the people of Indonesia.

Voice 2: In the United States, a higher percentage of the population is in prison than in any other industrialized nation. According to a forthcoming report from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, there were 58 people on death row across the country last year for crimes committed when they were juveniles, and nine others have actually been executed since 1985. Infant mortality rates in the inner cities are worse than most of the Third World. Hundreds of thousands are homeless and hungry in the richest nation in the world.

Jesus is being crucified in the poor, in the forgotten, in the neglected and abused children of this country.

Voice 3: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets." Luke 6:20-26

Voice 1: "A church that suffers no persecution but enjoys the privileges and support of the things of the earth - beware! - is not the true church of Jesus Christ." Said Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, assassinated by the El Salvadoran military on March 24, 1980.

Voice 2: "We must comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable."
--Dorothy Day

Voice 3: "We may have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic actions and words of the bad people, but also for the appalling silence and apathy of the good people."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Voice 1: "Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."(Psalm 82:3)

Voice 3: "Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice…..to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house……" (Isaiah 58: 6-8)

Voice 2: "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord' and do not do what I tell you?"
(Luke 6:46)

Voice 3: "There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war – at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake."
--Father Daniel Berrigan

Voice 1: Today, we pray for peace while most of us----and most other Americans----pay our taxes…..and thus pay for war. Deep within, we find ourselves reaching for a way to say "yes" to peace with our tax dollars.

Voice 2: These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Everyone of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Voice 3: "Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Voice 1: "While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
--Eugene Victor Debs

Voice 2: These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Everyone of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Voice 3: "I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits…..

Voice 1: ……I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, other-centered people can build up.

Voice 2: "…. I still believe that one day humankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land…

Voice 3: "……we still have a choice today: nonviolent co-existence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action.

Voice 1: "…..Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter – but beautiful – struggle for a new world… The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history… We shall hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Voice 2: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19)

Contemplative Silence (1 minute) introduced by Pam: "We will now take a moment of silence to reflect on Christ crucified."

Song----Wood Hath Hope (on tape)

Voice 3: We long for peace. We are thankful for the stirrings of peace and the promise of peace in our world.

Voice 1: This past week, the world celebrated the stirrings of life in the death and suffering of Jesus.

Voice 2: We celebrate and hope for resurrection.

Voice 3: All around us, the spring grass, flowers, and buds remind us that life comes from death.

Voice 1: We celebrate and hope for the spring of hope.

Voice 2: Within the past week, a peace accord was reached by the major parties in Northern Ireland.

Voice 3: The agreement will be voted on by the public on May 22.

Voice 1: We celebrate and hope for justice and peace in Northern Ireland]

Voice 2: Visitors to Kosovo last month noted not only the possibility of more violence which "hangs in the air", but also the fact that the overwhelming majority of people advocate a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Voice 3: Peter Lippman, a visitor there, wrote: "we witnessed the growing expression of non-violent resistance to the repression.

Voice 1: Members of the Serbian opposition have spoken out against their government’s human rights abuses, being willing to suffer persecution for their words.

Voice 2: On April 9, a rabbinical student living in Jerusalem, joined a Christian Peacemaker Team workers at the site of a family home which had been demolished. The student had not previously known about the extent of tree uprootings and home demolitions in the West Bank. He reported that such actions are mostly absent from the Israeli media and consciousness. He was particularly incensed about the destruction of olive and fruit trees belonging to Palestinian farmers, because, Jewish law specifically forbids destroying trees.

Voice 1: As we meet here today, people are speaking out against large US military budgets and against the sanctions in Iraq. A group in Columbus began a tax-day protest today at 11:30 a.m. at the Federal Building in Columbus. They are protesting the sanctions against Iraq, and the fact that 20% of the defense budget is going to the Gulf. They will then travel to Senator Glenn’s office where they plan to leave information.

Voice 3: We celebrate and hope for those who are willing to speak out against the injustice of their governments, and we pray for a nonviolent path to justice in Kosovo, in Israel, in Iraq, and in all the world.

Voice 1: We are promised in Isaiah: "My people will abide in peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places." (Isaiah 32: 18)

Voice 2: " God shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

Voice 3: We hope for the resurrection of our world.

All voices: Amen

Song # 411 --- "I bind my heart this tide"