Saying Yes to Know
The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Saying Yes to Know
John 16:12-15
Paul had it right when he said in his letter to the Corinthians,
“for now we see in the mirror dimly.”
(1 Corinthians 13:12).
There are so many things we don’t understand.
so many things we just don’t get.
Why do people starve in one nation,
while in another nation obesity is a serious health concern?
Why do children in one country die of diseases
another country eradicated more than 50 years earlier?
Why is there suffering?
Why is there war?
We see through a glass dimly.
We may think we understand,
but the reality is that more often than not,
we simply don’t understand.
One of the few things I know with absolute certainty,
no misunderstanding and no doubt,
is how much I don’t know,
how many things I don’t understand.
And yet we bristle at this.
We don’t like uncertainty.
We want answers.
We don’t like living in a world filled with
shades of gray, nuances.
We want clarity,
we want things settled in black and white.
And we want this in all parts of our lives:
at work, at home, and even in our faith lives.
The irony of wanting certainty in our faith lives
is that very essence of faith is accepting something
without concrete certainty,
to believe in something we cannot prove
the way we can prove the angle of an isosceles triangle.
Still, when we read the Bible,
we look for answers;
we don’t like it when things are left murky.
And the last thing we want is for someone to say to us,
we’ll just have to wait for answers,
that in his opinion we’re not ready for them,
that for now we’ll just have to keep
looking through a dim, indistinct glass,
until the Spirit decides to reveal answers
and lead us to understanding.
But that’s just what Jesus tells his disciples, and us:
whether we like it or not,
we see through the glass dimly,
and will continue to see through the glass dimly.
We won’t have all the answers
and we are not going to get all the answers
with the snap of a finger.
We could not “bear” them, is what Jesus says,
and by that he means
that we simply wouldn’t understand.
Understanding comes with time, energy,
wisdom, … work,
and Jesus knows we are impatient,
and so easily distracted.
What Jesus wants us to do is look to the Spirit to guide us,
to help us as we seek to grow in understanding.
If all we want are black and white answers,
then we don’t need the Spirit’s help.
Lots of folks are certain they have the answers,
all the answers they need.
What Jesus wants from us,
what the Spirit can help us with
is seeking understanding,
for without understanding,
we’ll never find answers.
Memorial Day provides us with a powerful lesson
in how we struggle to understand.
As we remember and honor those who gave their lives
in service to us and our nation
in wars past and present,
there are questions that we Christians
probably don’t wrestle with sufficiently,
but ought to:
Questions focusing on how we as Christians
should think about war.
What should we think about war?
Should we as Christians participate in war?
Should we as Christians support war?
Condone war?
Accept war?
Should we as Christians be against war?
All wars?
Some wars? Which ones?
When we as a nation find ourselves on the path to war,
how ought we to respond as Christians?
We are all patriotic Americans,
and every one of us wants to be supportive of our country.
But even before we fly the Stars and Stripes,
we carry the Cross of Christ.
Even before we recite the Pledge of Allegiance,
we affirm our belief in the Triune God.
Let’s look for guidance, let’s explore,
let’s say yes to knowing more.
Of course, we’ll start with our Lord, our Teacher,
and what we find is that Jesus teaches peace,
that’s clear:
“Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.”
(Matthew 5:9)
Jesus doesn’t say blessed are those who
long for peace.
Jesus praises those who make peace,
seek peace,
work for peace.
And Jesus doesn’t stop there.
He says, “You have heard that it was said,
He says, “You have heard that it was said,
‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’,
but I say to you,
do not resist the evildoer.
But if anyone strikes you on the cheek,
turn the other also.”
(Matt. 5:38)
And he keeps going:
“You have heard that it was said,
‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
But I say to you, Love your enemies…”
(Matthew 5:43ff)
We read these passages,
but we still have more questions than answers.
Is Jesus telling us we shouldn’t serve in the Armed Forces?
Is Jesus telling us that we can serve,
but not in a combat role or in any capacity
that might lead to the death or injury of another person?
Is Jesus telling us that we cannot be part of any war effort?
We have wrestled with these questions for 2000 years,
looking for answers, and finding them so elusive.
I’ve wrestled with these questions myself all my life,
but in an especially personal way back in the Vietnam era.
As my 18th birthday approached in 1972,
the draft was still in place,
and I knew I would get a lottery number for the draft
that might require me to serve.
I wondered what to do.
The war by then was enormously unpopular,
as each year young men were drafted
and sent off to fight.
I was the last group subject to the draft,
and by then every kind of deferment
had been eliminated.
Those who got low numbers in the lottery
were certain to be drafted,
and just as certain to be sent off to combat.
Would I serve?
Could I serve?
Should I serve?
As an American, a patriot, the answer was clear,
but I was trying to determine
what Jesus was teaching me,
what road to take as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Eventually, a high draft number made the situation moot
but still I agonized for months about what to do.
Reading the Bible served only to confuse and confound me:
Yes, there was Jesus’ teaching,
teaching that seemed so clear.
But the Old Testament often reads like the history of
a great military campaign
with the Lord God as commander-in-chief.
The pages of the oldest books seemed blood-soaked,
at God’s instigation.
And yet, even as God was telling the Israelites,
to kill everyone in the land God gave to them,
God also inscribed on a tablet of rock,
“you shall not kill”.
Even as God was telling the Israelites,
“wipe out every person in every town,”
God was also saying,
“When you draw near a town to fight against it,
offer it terms of peace.”
Turning to the New Testament
we find that Paul reinforces Jesus’ teaching,
“If your enemies are hungry, feed them;
if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.”
(Romans 12:20, based on Proverbs 25:21)
We’re back, it seems,
to working for peace in non-violent ways.
But then Paul turns to a military metaphor
to encourage us in our faith lives:
to encourage us in our faith lives:
“Take up the whole armor of God...
put on the breastplate of righteousness, ...
take the shield of faith,
the helmet of salvation,
and the sword of the Spirit.”
(Eph. 6:13ff)
The “sword of the Spirit”??
Hadn’t Jesus taught us
“all who take the sword will perish by the sword”?
(Matthew 26:52)
(Matthew 26:52)
Yet, even as Jesus preached peace,
he never condemned the military.
Indeed, when a Roman soldier approached Jesus,
he didn’t tell the man to quit serving the army
that occupied the Jewish nation,
the army that would soon arrest him,
beat him,
and crucify him.
No, he held the man up as a wonderful example of faith.
John the Baptist had done much the same thing
as he baptized those who came to the bank of the Jordan.
Among those who approached him were two soldiers
who asked him what they should do to find repentance.
John did not reply, “renounce your profession.”
No, he said, “do not extort money from anyone
by threats or false accusation,
and be satisfied with your wages.”
In other words, “carry on in your profession,
but do so honestly and with integrity.”
(Luke 3:14ff)
It was Augustine who tried to help clear the clouded glass a bit
a few hundred years after the resurrection of our Lord
by developing what we now call the “Just War” theory.
What he proposed was that there might be circumstances
so compelling that even disciples of Jesus Christ,
disciples otherwise called to lives of peace-making,
reconciliation, and mercy,
may go to war.
But of course, what is one person’s “Just War”
is another person’s “Unjust War.”
And most who are quick to quote Augustine’s theory of Just War,
stop reading before they get to what are Augustine’s
most compelling words:
“it is a higher glory still to stay war itself with a word,
than to slay men with the sword,
and to procure or maintain peace by peace,
and not by war......”
Augustine himself was most likely reinforcing what Sun Tzu,
the Chinese master of warfare and strategy,
had written more than 500 years before the birth of our Lord
in his book “The Art of War”,
a book that is still used in our military academies.
He wrote that the greatest general is the one
who achieves his objective without warfare.
We do see through a glass dimly.
What we know is that war has been a part of our human history,
a sad part of our human history.
More than a million Americans have died in wars
since the Revolution,
and we rightly honor their sacrifice.
But we as disciples of Jesus Christ are called to work for peace,
we are called to pray for our enemies;
we are called to look for ways that create peace --
without warfare,
for that is God’s hope for us:
that there will be a day when we all live in peace.
God says not once, but twice, that he looks for the day
when swords will be beaten into plowshares,
and spears into pruning hooks.
God looks to the day,
“when the wolf will lie down with the lamb,
the leopard with the kid,
the calf with the lion…”
You and I as disciples of Jesus Christ
are called to work for that day,
to work actively to bring that day forward.
How? What should we do?
That’s where we need the help of the Spirit
to guide us.
That’s where we need to acknowledge
that we don’t know how to get there,
that we cannot get there without God’s help
through the Holy Spirit.
Can we truly bear the thought
that we are to turn the other cheek?
that we are to turn the other cheek?
As we fight two wars, can we truly bear the thought
that we are to love our enemy?
that we are to love our enemy?
That we are to feed him, quench his thirst?
Jesus is right: we are not ready.
We don’t understand.
But if we say yes to the Spirit,
yes to the Spirit’s guidance,
yes to knowing,
yes to knowing,
the Spirit will lead us to where God wants us to be,
where Jesus teaches us to be,
and we’ll get there,
get there to that place and time
“when the earth will be full
of the knowledge of the Lord.”
(Isaiah 11:9)
And there will be peace.
AMEN
posted by Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson @ 11:00 AM
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