Friday, November 10, 2017

'In Search of a Better World': Reflections for Remembrance Day 2017 (12 November 2017)

In Search of a Better World
Reflections for Remembrance Day 2017

12 November 2017

Saint Faiths Anglican Church

Matthew 5.38-48
                                    5.38 [Jesus said,] You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a toot for a tooth.   39 But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.  But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40 and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41 and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.  42 Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
                  43 You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?  Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?  Do not even the Gentiles do the same?  48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

 In Search of a Better World

Reflections for Remembrance Day 2017

12 November 2017

Saint Faiths Anglican Church
Vancouver BC

Matthew 5.38-48
                                    5.38 [Jesus said,] You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a toot for a tooth.’   39 But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.  But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40 and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41 and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.  42 Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
                  43 You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?  Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?  Do not even the Gentiles do the same?  48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

         There are few readings from the New Testament that confront me more with my inadequacies as a disciple of Jesus than today’s gospel.  I wrestle with what Jesus means when he says, ‘do not resist an evildoer.’  I have made decisions as a priest that have restricted what funds we give and to whom we give them.  I struggle to be ‘perfect’, a word that Jesus uses to mean ‘fulfil your true identity as a child of God’ rather than ‘be flawless’.  What I offer this morning is a series of reflections on Christian discipleship.

         During the past two weeks I have had two experiences which have caused me to ponder what it means to be a disciple of Jesus in a time of conflict, whether internal or external, civil or military.     The first experience was listening to a portion of the 2017 Massey Lectures given by Payam Akhavan, a former UN war crimes prosecutor and human rights scholar.  His lectures are entitled ‘In Search of a Better World’, a nod, I think, to the motto of the Order of Canada (‘Seeking a Better Country’).  Not only has he been a witness to the atrocities that human beings are capable of perpetrating against their sisters and brothers, he himself is a member of the Baha’i community, the object of continuous persecution in Iran and elsewhere. 

         What struck me in the brief portion that I heard on CBC’s Ideas was his firm belief in the unwillingness of liberal democracies such as our own to accept the necessity of intervening with military force when faced with human rights abuses.  As a Baha’i Mr Akhavan comes from a religious tradition which officially expects its adherents to shun partisan politics, yet affirms the unity of God, the unity of religious tradition and the unity of the human race.  What I heard Mr Akhavan say reminded me of something Frederick Buechner once wrote:  a pacifist’s belief in non-violence should not prevent her or him from picking up a baseball bat to defend a child who is under threat.

         I am not a pacifist but I respect those who are.  It takes courage to resist the almost universal human justification for force and coercion rather than witness and persuasion.  But like Payam Akhavan and Frederick Buechner I believe that there are times when opposition to evil requires the use of force, whether the force of law or of arms.  I acknowledge and honour the sacrifices made by my grandfather, my uncles and my father who served in the armed forces of their respective countries.  I know how two of my uncles came to the end of their lives as casualties of World War II long after the war was officially over.  There are qualities of character I learned as ‘an Air Force brat’ that I continue to value and to exercise.

         The other experience came after I had posted some thoughts following the attack on the Baptist congregation in Texas that left the assailant and twenty-six other people dead.  Among the thoughts that I posted was a hope that God would have compassion on the assailant as well as the victims of the attack.

         A young person I know well spoke to me a day or so later.  He expressed his inability to have such a hope.  This young man’s mood was one that I think a fair number of people share throughout Canada and the United States.  We are accustomed to having compassion for the victim and less accustomed, perhaps even unwilling, to have compassion on the perpetrator.  Perhaps this difficulty arises from the mistaken view that compassion implies some sort of approval with one for whom we have compassion.

         I don’t think that this is what compassion means.  The word comes from the Latin meaning ‘to suffer with’ or ‘to share in another’s emotional state’.  It’s easier for us to suffer with the victims and families of tragedy, even if, for most of us, the scale of the suffering exceeds anything we have ever personally experienced.  But it is very difficult to suffer with someone who causes such hurt and trauma.  We search for reasons behind such a person’s actions, often, I think, hoping that we will discover that this person is ‘inhuman’ or insufficiently human in one aspect of her or his personality or another.

         But compassion with the perpetrator, with the ‘other’, is precisely what we need to cultivate in these times.  In a recent article in The Guardian, Jonathan Freedland writes that we will never understand people’s motivation to vote for Brexit or for Trump if we don’t seek to understand their anger and how it led them to vote against their own best interests.  Without compassion we may find ourselves tempted to be judgemental, condescending and prone to complain, shame and blame.
        
         The compassion of which I am speaking does not mean condoning or approving.  It is the act of taking the risk to understand the motivations of another person or group of people whose actions are at such variance from my own or our own.  Such compassion may actually lead us to discern courses of action that lead to healing, reconciliation and genuine progress.

         But on this Remembrance Day weekend let me ask that we renew our commitment to a compassion for those who are not only ‘different’ from ourselves but who may actively oppose the values and way of life we hold dear and for which our loved ones made so many sacrifices.  It is easier for a world leader to threaten others with military force than it is for the same leader to seek, with compassion, to understand her or his perceived ‘enemies’.  It is easier to speak of a ‘clash of civilizations’ than to come to grips with the historic causes for many of the world’s contemporary conflicts.

         As disciples of Jesus we have an obligation to urge our leaders to nurture such compassion within themselves and within the body politic.  As fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, sons and daughters, we have an obligation to exercise such compassion for the sake of those whom we hold dear.  As citizens who remember the sacrifice of all who confronted evil with their body, mind, strength and heart, we have an obligation to foster such compassion so that their sacrifice will be remembered as a step towards the fulfilment of Micah’s vision:  “[the peoples] shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; 4 but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.”  [Micah 4.3b-4]

         And then, perhaps only then, we will begin to be perfect as our God in heaven is perfect, to be as compassionate as the God who causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on both the righteous and the unrighteous.

         

No comments: