Out in Joy, Back in Peace

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

May 29, 2016

Out in Joy, Back in Peace

Isaiah 56:6-8

And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,

to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,

and to be his servants,
all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it,

and hold fast my covenant—

these I will bring to my holy mountain,

and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices

will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer

for all peoples.

Thus says the Lord God,

who gathers the outcasts of Israel,
I will gather others to them

besides those already gathered.

****************************************************

The uniform is starched, pressed,

creases sharp.

The young man looks intently into the camera,

trying to effect Hollywood cool,

Hollywood glamour;

cigarette smoke wafting upward,

he is part Humphrey Bogart,

part Tyrone Power,

the black and white photo

a moody blend of light and shadow.

The year was 1947,

and the man was my father,

barely 18,

newly enlisted in the Navy.

It was two years after VE day,

two years after VJ day.

and the world was trying to rebuild,

trying to recover from

more than five years of war,

so much destruction,

so much devastation,

more than 60 million dead…

60 million…dead.

The world was trying to learn

how to live in peace.

The phrases “Cold War”

and “Iron Curtain”

would both come into

our vocabulary that year

as the United States and the Soviet Union,

found themselves no longer allies,

found themselves in competition for power,

dominance in the world.

But neither wanted war.

No one wanted to see the horror of

Hiroshima or Nagasaki,

even as both countries worked furiously

to assemble an arsenal of nuclear,

as well as conventional weapons.

The baby-faced young man in that picture

never saw war in his two years of service.

He sailed the seas,

swabbed decks,

and then one day his service was over

and he returned to his civilian life,

where he would go on to learn a trade,

get married,

have a family,

enjoy success,

live out his years in peace,

and then finally rest from his labors.

This is a weekend dedicated to remembering,

remembering those who served,

and especially those who died while serving.

It’s been 75 years since Pearl Harbor,

71 years since VE and VJ days.

Those who fought in World War II

are all but gone now;

Men and women who live only in our memories.

There have been other wars since, of course:

Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan.

Men and women in uniform died in those wars

and they too are remembered.

We remember with parades.

We remember with dignified ceremonies

at cemeteries.

We remember with wreathes and flowers.

We remember with stories at picnics.

And as we remember,

we hear the words of our Lord who said,

“No one has great love than this,

to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

(John 15:13)

But even as we remember

those who gave their lives,

honoring them for their service,

their sacrifice,

we as children of God,

as disciples of Jesus Christ,

are called to remember

that war is not what God wants for us.

We are called to remember

that the life our Lord calls us to

is one of peace,

one of reconciliation,

one that calls us to

an almost impossible standard:

feed our enemy

and quench his thirst;

love our enemy.

We are called to remember

the hope God has for us,

the future God has planned for us

which God told us of

through the prophet Isaiah:

In days to come

the mountain of the Lord’s house

shall be established as

the highest of the mountains,

and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.

Many peoples shall come and say,

“Come, let us go up to

the mountain of the Lord,

to the house of the God of Jacob;

that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,

and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He 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.

(Isaiah 2:1-4)

We are called to remember

that God’s future for us

is one in which we finally learn

to live in peace,

we no longer go to war,

we no longer even learn war;

we turn our weapons into tools,

tools not to kill or destroy,

but to build, to feed.

We come here to this place,

this church, this sanctuary, to remember,

remember God’s Word

remember through God’s words –

Words of peace,

words of love,

words that turn us away from judgment

divisiveness,

words that turn us from fear of the stranger,

the alien, the different, the enemy.

As God has spoken through the prophet:

For as the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return there

until they have watered the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

so shall my word be

that goes out from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

For you shall go out in joy,

and be led back in peace;

We are called to remember

what our text teaches us

that God’s house is to be

a house of prayer for all people,

all peoples,

a place of peace,

a place where peace blossoms through God’s word,

and then spreads out

through you and me to all the world.

Seventy five years ago the nation of Japan

launched a brutal attack

on a place called Pearl Harbor,

cold-blooded, calculated, ruthless,

an attack on a Sabbath morning.

We branded that nation our enemy as a result,

and we went to war against that nation,

against that nation’s peoples.

For almost 4 years we fought them

and they fought us,

furiously,

each determined to vanquish the other.

And then one morning one of our airplanes

one of our largest bombers,

flying high above the city of Hiroshima

dropped a bomb

the likes of which the world had never seen.

And 100,000 lives vanished.

How remarkable then

that the leader of our nation

and the leader of their nation

could together lead a ceremony of remembrance

in that rebuilt city,

as they did this past week,

a ceremony that remembered not only

the Japanese men, women, and children who died,

but those of other nationalities,

including Americans

held there as prisoners of war.

Speaking of those who died,

the leader of our nation said,

“Their souls speak to us.

They ask us to look inward,

to take stock of who we are

and what we might become….”

All those who have died in war

speak to us with that same message,

asking us to look inward,

to see what we might become

what we might become

that we might create a future

in which no one will ever again die in war.

Who are we?

We are disciples of Jesus Christ,

which means we are to become

men and women of peace,

men and women who hear the Word

of hope and love

and take that word out joyfully

and bring it back in peace.

When we take stock of ourselves

we see clearly that we have the ability to kill,

destroy,

maim,

burn,

turn God’s entire creation into ash and cinder.

                 

But we also have the ability to love,

to forgive,

to welcome,

to embrace,

to share.

We are a people who once saw

the British as our enemy;

who once saw the Germans as our enemy;

who once saw the Japanese as our enemy;

And now we live in peace with them,

looking on them all as friends.

We even live in relative peace

with the people of Russia,

people many of us were taught to fear and hate

when we were growing up.

There will likely come a time

when those we call our enemies today

will too become our friends.

It starts here in this

God’s house of prayer,

a house of prayer

and welcome

and peace

for all people,

all people,

all people,

All the people coming in

and going out in joy,

coming in and going out

in peace.

And “the mountains and the hills before you

shall burst into song,

and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;

instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord a memorial,

for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

AMEN