What do pacifists say to their neighbors in the face of war?

We hear ominous words almost daily from the leaders of our nation. Troops and supplies are amassing on the borders of Iraq, and reports now come that some US special troops are already inside that nation. Disregarding the millions who have taken to the streets to raise their voice against war, our president and other leaders seem committed to proceed with their plans for an imminent attack on Iraq. In the event of war, Newsweek reports the intentions of the US to rain some 3000 precision-guided bombs and missiles on Iraq in the first 48 hours of attack. Some fear this will result in a third world war, and a conflagration unlike anything we have yet seen.

It was suggested that I address the topic of peace and nonviolence in this sermon. Let me hasten to say the purpose of this sermon is not to document the horrors of war, or to denounce our government for its militarism, but to review our own convictions as people who claim to be pacifists. In particular it is to ask how to talk with those who have not been taught that Jesus and scripture call us to nonresistant love as an alternative to violence.

I recognize that not all of us are pacifists or have been taught with pacifist understandings. I speak primarily this morning to those who are committed to pacifism or are part of this tradition.

Some time ago I eves-dropped in a Sunday School class of adults, mostly people raised as Mennonites, as they discussed the impending war and what our attitude should be at a time like this. Some seemed very perplexed. They have roots in nonresistance, but they have also listened to the president describe the dangers represented by Sadaam Hussein. Is there indeed credible evidence that Iraq possesses and may use weapons of mass destruction? Might this be a time when Mennonite Christians should throw their support behind our president? Some one reported that James Dobson believes Christians should support this military effort. This person stated Dobson believes the Sermon on the Mount is for personal relationships and does not apply to the participation of Christians in the military activities of the nation.

I thought to myself, have those of us with a long tradition of understanding the Scriptures to teach that war is contrary to God's will and that we are called to love our enemies, have we now allowed the ethics of a famed Christian radio speaker to shape our convictions? Finding it difficult to remain silent I mused aloud to the class, "It must be a huge dilemma for Christians who are to live by personal relationships based on the Sermon on the Mount to participate in activities designed to kill and destroy."

This class was not alone in its quandary. I read similar ambivalence in letters to the church papers. I hear honest questions from those whose convictions about war and peace have become flabby because there has been no serious challenge to our peace convictions since the 1960's.

Is pacifism for everyone or only for those who were raised pacifist?

• The dominant and historic view among most Christian leaders is that wars can be justified by several criteria, and when these criteria are met, war is acceptable even if reprehensible. This is commonly called the "just war" point of view and is primarily held by scholars and theologians who seek to find a rationale for the incongruities of war.
• Among the masses of Christians there is often a view that the government is ordained by God and whatever it does is God's will and should not be resisted. Often this is based on a misreading of Romans 13.
• Some Christians would simply say if you just believe what the Bible says and have Jesus in your heart, it is not necessary to struggle with the ethical dilemma of war. This calls for a sharp distinction between faith and works, between salvation and discipleship.

What do pacifists believe and how do we talk about it to others who do not believe like we do? Let's listen to the scripture texts again that provide the foundation for the faith of those of who are pacifist Christians.

First, let's hear the classic texts used by our forbears as the basis for our non-participation in the military.
Exodus 20:13
Matthew 5:38-48
Romans 12:14-21

These are the familiar words that over the ages pacifists have used when challenged about their nonresistant faith. These are the foundational texts that caused the forefathers and foremothers of many of us to migrate to this country, beginning in 1683, where they found a safe haven for living out their nonresistance faith in the colony of William Penn. It is these scriptures and others that led thousands of Mennonites to leave North Germany and modern day Poland to migrate to Russia in the late 18th century where they were promised by Catherine the Great that they would never need to participate in military service in that nation. At great cost these spiritual forbears followed their convictions, literally traversing the earth in search of a home where they could be faithful to their conscience and commitment to Christ. Might there be a danger that a faith so precious will now be trivialized as mere cultural baggage from the past?

But the scriptural teachings that formed a tradition of pacifism are not limited to these classic texts. Inspite of the violence so prominent in the Old Testament, we have found the words of the prophets instructive in holding high God's ideals from the beginning of time. Listen to Micah 4:1-4.

From Paul's writings we hear that the call to love is part of a larger plan of God, that all people every where will be reconciled to God and to one another, and that our mission in the world is none other than that of being agents of reconciliation. Instead of contributing to the world's brokenness, God's people are commissioned to bring healing and hope to humankind. Hear this call from II Corinthians 5:17-20.

When we go about this ministry of reconciliation in the world, we are only following in the footsteps of Jesus, who gave us an example of how we shall live. I Peter 2: 21-24

The scriptures conclude with the grand finale where God wraps up human history with the creation of a new heavens and new earth. In this vision of the future we see a world where death and destruction, including warfare, will be no more. Mourning and crying will cease. Everything will be made new according to God's original intention. Revelation 21:1-5

So this is what God has been up to from the beginning of human history. Sin played havoc with God's intentions. War is but one of the many ways humankind has turned from the ideals of God. But pacifists are part of a tradition of faith that believes that Christians do not relegate the Sermon on the Mount to some future Kingdom. Nor do we wait until the return of Jesus to experience and live out the ideals of God for humankind. We are here and now to be a foretaste of what God wishes people everywhere to enjoy. We live now as those who are a small sample of what heaven will be like. Can we go really to war and still be that foretaste of the fullness of God's kingdom?

Of course not all Christians agree with this understanding of Scripture. How then shall we speak with those who do not perceive God's plan to include a rejection of violence and warfare? There is a risk in a simple list of dos and don'ts, even the risk of being legalistic. But even with this risk, let me try.

Do

1. We must listen before speaking.
Maybe this is self-evident, but it is important to remember that we need to be sure we have heard correctly before we make speeches about what we believe. We will be better heard if we first listen, listen long if need be. Hasty words may be more an attempt to cover our insecurities and less an expression of our convictions. The modern day equivalent to "turning the other cheek" I suggest is to listen to those who disagree with us. What we say by our attitude through careful and honest listening will do more than passionate words of truth. Remember Jesus' example of silence before his critics? When he spoke it was few words, carefully chosen. So in our conversations about war and peace, let's listen well before speaking.

2. We witness to God's love and forgiveness, and the "foolishness" of the cross.
When we speak about nonviolence, we need to point to the source and example for our behavior. If God so loves the world, if the death and resurrection of Jesus were all about God's love and mercy for the world, who am I to not love in the same manner? I like the way Keith Harder put it in a sermon at the Franconia Conference Assembly last November:

And so I am compelled to say with new conviction: I am a pacifist because I am called to love as God loves; love that is demonstrated most clearly in the life and teachings of Jesus. I am called to extend to others the same mercy that has been extended to me. I am called to forgive as I have been forgiven.

When we speak about peace we give a witness to our faith, rather than judge others for their faith or lack of it. Our task is not to judge or even to change others. Rather we are called to bear witness to God's love in Christ and that includes our enemies.

In my witness to God's love in Christ I have no illusions that this will be easily understood. Paul described the message of Christ crucified as a "stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles" (I Cor. 1:23). This kind of love and lifestyle is not appreciated in a world of power and rationality. But our faith is in a Savior who died for us. We see the cross, not merely as a piece of jewelry, but as an example of a sacrificial way of life. Our witness to the cross does not always make sense to those who measure success by usual American standards. So we make quilts for the presidents of the USA and Iraq, a foolish gesture that seems to have no power to change the climate of the world. Or our Mennonite leaders take oil lamps to Iraq to share with Christians there as a sign of God's light that vanquishes the darkness of human strife. Daryl Byler, director of the MCC Peace Office in Washington DC, begins a forty day fast for peace and each day sends a pastoral letter to President Bush with a brief scriptural word and a pledge to pray for him. In these small gestures, foolish by usual standards, we express our prayerful confidence in the power of God's love beyond human might and the destruction of war. This is the foolishness of those who live a life of cross-bearing like Jesus. Can we resist judging and trying to change others and simply give witness to Jesus and the alternative way he taught and modeled?

3. We offer an alternate view of history and imagine an alternative future for humankind.
Most of us have been educated into a distorted view of history that makes war and human achievement its primary topic. What if we had a history that focused on the efforts at peacemaking in nearly every generation of human history? Mennonite historian James Juhnke and others are working on a project to rectify these distortions of history and to high light the valiant efforts at peacemaking that many people have made. They are also seeking to describe how history might have been written differently if people at crucial points had chosen alternative paths to war and destruction. But too often people lacked the knowledge, the will, or imagination to try alternatives.

Can we imagine an alternative to the future other than war? Do we become so absorbed in the rhetoric of our political leaders that we can't see other possibilities? Our quilt was an imaginative way of thinking of two world leaders with human needs with the prayerful imagination that they might find an alternative to resolve their differences short of war. What if we invested more time in finding peaceful ways to resolve conflicts than into winning wars? No one wins in a war. All are losers.

A good place to begin is with the local conflicts we have in our own families and communities. Can we be imaginative about constructive ways to resolve these conflicts?

I am grateful for the program in conflict transformation at Eastern Mennonite University and the institute they offer for several weeks each summer to literally train people from both sides of international conflicts in alternatives to violence. This is what the prophets of the Old Testament were doing - imaging an alternative future. Yes, it was usually rejected. But if we give up on the vision, we have allowed the problems to define us rather than God's call in Christ to alternative ways to live. Might these positive approaches and visions be part of our conversation with those to whom we speak about the ways of peace and love?

4. We share stories of people who live an alternative way of nonviolence.
Let me share two stories this morning that model an alternative way.

In the Goshen, IN community where I lived for 14 years prior to moving to this area in 1995, we experienced tensions between the Hispanics who moved to town and the predominant Anglo population. The problem erupted into open conflict in our local high school on the average of twice a day. Clearly something had to be done.

The school board hired a Mennonite man by the name of Mark Chupp to explore a resolution to the problem. Three days after being hired, Mark took 18 students to the local country fairgrounds to work at the issue. As the day unfolded, an amazing thing happened. The confederates (a white supremacy group of students) asked for time to caucus in the corner of the room. Finally the ringleader of the group stood to his feet and announced, "I'm done with this", and throw his white rag, the symbol of white supremacy to the floor, and challenged the other confederates to do the same. The Hispanics were flabbergasted by this conciliatory gesture and reached out to shake hands with their former enemies.

A few days later in a school assembly the Hispanics and confederates apologized for their behavior of the past two years and called on other students to drop their prejudices and relate in trust and good will. "I was overcome by emotion," Chupp said. "It was an amazing thing to watch." Here was a person who took the life and teachings of Jesus seriously and was able to discover an imaginative and constructive alternative to violence.

A second story comes from our own community. Conrad and Theresa Moore, before moving to Akron, PA, were members of the Word of Joy Fellowship in the Collegeville area. They had a son Gerald who was arrested and put into prison with a life sentence for murder. After the trial, the chief witness in the case came forward and said she had lied in identifying Gerald Moore as the murderer. But before Gerald could have a new trial and be released, he was himself a victim of murder while in prison.

In June, 1996, Conrad and Theresa Moore went to Philadelphia for the sentencing of the man who murdered their son in prison. At a certain point in the sentencing hearing, the judge invited Conrad and Theresa to speak. By this time of the day the judge appeared tired, apparently expecting to hear another angry tirade by the parents of a victim of murder. Instead she heard Theresa Moore say:

You want to know the impact of Gerald's death? Our only son is dead. His children no longer have a father. You can't have more impact than that. I will miss my son every day for the rest of my life. But I have forgiven David (the one charged with her son's death). I don't want Gerald's killer to spend his life in jail. The death penalty isn't going to bring my son back. It would give me no satisfaction whatsoever to know he will be in jail the rest of his life.

I'm a Christian; I believe in God…..every day I think about how God is forgiving me. It hurt God when they hurt his son. But he was showing us that it is all about forgiveness. And if I, Gerald's mother can forgive David, than the court should be able to be lenient.

By now the judge was leaning forward, her mouth ajar. There was dead silence in the courtroom.

Then Conrad gave a statement expressing his forgiveness to Gerald's murderer, and suggesting David has only to ask God for forgiveness as well.

At this point the judge spoke and said, "I have never seen anything like this. I have never seen grace and mercy exemplified like this."

5. We model a life where words and deeds match.
Let's remember that what we say has little meaning if we don't have the corroborating evidence of our lives. Recently I attended the farewell for a pastor and one of the most profound things said was that the pastor was the same on the golf course as he was at church. Our talk about peace and alternatives to violence need to be demonstrated in behaviors. What we say to our neighbors must be matched by actions that fit our words in the normal stresses and tensions of life. Beginning at home and to the neighbors is foundational to our witness for peace and God's reconciling love around the world.

I don't have a lot of time to dwell on the don'ts this morning. But allow me to make some brief comments that I trust will be helpful.

Don't

1. Don't assume others are not interested or open to the way of peace.
Inspite of the national surveys of support for the war, there are many who long for some other way. Never has our witness been more needed. Never has there been more openness to this message. Instead of apologizing for our stance as pacifists, be prepared for many who will respect if not agree with an appeal for an alternative to violence.

2. Don't put people on the defensive.
There is a place for being bold and prophetic. But the preferred and more Christ-like approach needs to be openness to people that listens and respects their point of view. If we don't show respect for a point of view we don't agree with, we never earn the right to be heard with our point of view. Respect is basic to communication, especially on sensitive topics like war and peace.

3. Don't expect quick results.
Do you remember Jesus' results after three years with the disciples? Mostly we plant seeds and they take time, sometimes years to germinate and spout. And some never grow. We are in the ministry of peacemaking, not for quick successes, but for the long-term, even into eternity. God is patient with humankind, not willing that any should perish. Can we be that patient and keep loving and working for peace even when there are no results?

4. Don't expect perfect results.
If we are honest about the inconsistencies in our own lives, we may be more gracious with others as they seek to walk the way of peace and do so imperfectly. None of us get it fully right all the time. Praise God even for imperfect results. Remember Shindler's List, the movie about an officer in the Nazi army? With all his shortcomings Oscar Shindler saved hundreds of Jews by employing them in a munitions factory that never made any weapons that could be used to destroy human life. He was a womanizer and deceitful, but in his own way he was committed to saving lives rather than destroying them.

5. Don't let fear control you.
Fear is the opposite of love. Paul gives us an important word in II Timothy 1:7, "For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice (or fear), but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline." It is normal to become anxious in new circumstances, but when we function out of fear we allow circumstances and people to control us rather than the spirit of the God's love and power. Fear binds us and limits us. Love releases us and empowers us for new options. Too much of the world is controlled by fear.

Conclusion

I have not given you a script for how to speak with those who are committed to violent or military ways of dealing with conflicts. Perhaps I have left you with more questions than answers this morning. I hope this sermon is only another step in the conversations we have in Sunday School, in our families, in our neighborhoods, and elsewhere in our discernment for how to be Christians in a world of violence and strife. I want to conclude with two stories this morning.

The first is from the Old Testament. Inspite of what we often say, the Old Testament is full of alternative approaches to violence. This story was used in a sermon last fall on the series about Elijah and Elisha. The story comes from II Kings 6. The king of Aram was continually being defeated by the Israelite armies. He learned that this was because Elisha was an informant, passing on information about the king's plans, so the Israelites were always ready and defended themselves against the attempts by the king of Aram to defeat them. In desperation he took his army at night and surrounded the city where Elisha was living with the intention to capture Elisha. In the morning when they awoke, Elisha's servant saw the vast army of the Armeans and was afraid. But Elisha cautioned him, "Don't be afraid." He prayed and the eyes of his servant were opened to see a massive number of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

As the Arameans came closer to Elisha he prayed to the Lord to strike them all blind. In their blindness Elisha and his servant led the enemy army to their capital city of Samaria. When they were well inside the city, the Lord opened the eyes of the Aramean soldiers. Here they were inside an Israelite city, with the gates shut, no way to escape. In his eagerness to do away with his enemies, the King of Israel asked if he could kill the Arameans. No, said Elisha, feed them, give them water, and let them go. And that day they had a great feast, Israelites and Arameans together. And we have this wonderful conclusion to the story. "And the Arameans no longer came raiding into the land of Israel." What an imaginative and unusual solution to violence, and the interruption of a cycle of violence between Israel and the Arameans. Just imagine the new cycle of violence that might have been started if the King of Israel had killed his enemies when they were his captives? And imagine the cycle of violence we may experience if our nation with its superior weaponry destroys Iraq, its president and the people and properties of that nation?

The second story is from our own Anabaptist history. In 16th century Europe everyone was baptized as an infant and made a member of the Catholic Church. To resist baptism or to be baptized again as an adult was a criminal act. In 1569 the Dutch authorities learned that a man named Dirk Willems had been rebaptized as a follower of Jesus and was allowing secret meetings in his home for preaching and baptizing other persons in the name of Jesus. So the authorities began to search for Dirk Willems.

One day an official spotted Dirk Willems and began to pursue him. To avoid arrest Dirk Willems began to run, and since it was winter time he ran across the ice on a pond in his efforts to escape. The official continued in pursuit of Dirk Willems but as he attempted to cross the pond the ice broke and he fell into the icy water. Glancing back Dirk Willems noticed what had happened to his pursuer. He paused for a moment and then returned back over the ice to assist his purser to safety. For this act of kindness the pursuer was minded to allow Dirk to go free, but another official standing near by insisted that he be arrested. And so his good deed was rewarded with arrest and imprisonment. Eventually he was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was then executed by being tied to a wooden stake and burned. He left behind two children who were now fatherless. What caused Dirk Willems to turn back and help his pursuer and thus result in his torturous death? I expect it was the simple love and forgiveness of Jesus. Sometimes like Jesus, we too may need to give our lives in love for our enemies.

May the Lord give us courage, wisdom and love in this time when we are threatened with a new outset of war. May we have the grace to witness to God's love in Christ, and exhibit the kind of respect for others that invites them to also follow in the way of Jesus. Amen.