Paths to Peace?

Date: December 12, 2010
Scripture Lesson: Isaiah 35:1-10
Sermon: Paths to Peace?
Pastor: Rev. Kim Wells

The conquest of Mexico by the Spanish began in earnest on Good Friday 1519. An appropriate day, considering the carnage. In just over 10 years, the mission was completed. Theologian Virgil Elizondo, a native of the United States, offers this description of the fulfillment of that mission, pursued in honor of God and for the evangelization of the Christian church. Elizondo tells us:

The time is 1531. The place is the city of Mexico – site of what had been the most developed, advanced, and well-organized civilization of pre-Columbian America, a city now reduced to ashes, its canals filled with corpses, its streets filled with people moving around as if they were the living dead. It was the epicenter of the great cultural earthquake that had destroyed the entire edifice of native civilizations. The previously highly disciplined people were now wandering around aimlessly, with no life, purpose, or direction The warriors had been killed or reduced to humiliating servitude; their women had been violated; their beautiful cities had been burned; and their gods were being destroyed. Their old ways were being discredited, and the new ways did not make sense to them. Nothing of meaning or value was left; there was no reason to live. And on top of all this, the Europeans had brought new diseases that devastated the remaining population, making the stench of death the constant companion of everyday existence. [Guadalupe: Mother of the New Creation, Virgil Elizondo, pp. 25-26]

And this was all done in the name of God, the God of the Christian people of Spain, who had come to evangelize the native peoples, offering them the love of Christ and eternal life in heaven. They were trying to prevent these poor heathen from rotting in hell. Such were their noble intentions. The means, they believed, were justified by the ends.

This was the context for the encounter between the poor, indigenous peasant, Juan Diego and the mother of God, the Virgin of Guadalupe. On a hill, sacred to the Indians as the holy place of their most holy goddess, a poor, dispossessed peasant, Juan Diego has several encounters with a female divine presence, whom he recognizes as the mother of God, the God of the Indians as well as the Christians. She shows compassion and respect for Juan Diego, unlike the human representatives of the church, who want to convert the peasants, but not treat them with respect and certainly not include them in any leadership capacity in the church. Guadalupe, however, entrusts Juan Diego with the mission of going to the local bishop and convincing him to build a church on the sacred hill. Not surprisingly, the bishop’s staff, and the bishop himself, have little time, patience, or respect for Juan Diego. But Juan Diego persists. Finally, the bishop tells him to come back with a sign, and then he will listen. So Juan Diego goes back to the holy hill, encounters the Virgin once again, and tells her that he needs a sign. The hill is barren save for desert scrub. As a sign, the Virgin produces a hillside of flowers, which Juan Diego picks and takes in his cloak to the bishop. The bishop can’t believe the profusion of flowers, and can’t imagine where Juan Diego has found them. Juan Diego explains, and then as the flowers are removed from his cloak, the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe appears on the cloak. When you go to the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City you can see this cloak, in the church that was built where the Virgin requested it to be built.

The encounter between Juan Diego and the Virgin became a bridge of reconciliation between the Spanish and the Mexicans. There was the integration of the feminine and the masculine which had characterized native Mexican religion. There was the respect and dignity shown to a peasant. There was the honor given to a dark skinned person that challenged racial prejudice. There was the comfort and consolation that Guadalupe came to offer. There was the affirmation of life and beauty in the gift of flowers. The Virgin could have given Juan Diego a sword as a sign for the bishop. But instead, the case is made with flowers. The rendition of the encounter between Juan Diego and Guadalupe is the absolute antithesis of the encounter between the Catholic Spaniards and the native Mexicans. And, yet, the Virgin of Guadalupe became not only the patron saint of the Catholic church in Mexico, but she is respected throughout Latin America, as well as Europe and Asia and Africa. And she has become a significant figure not only for Catholics but for people of all religions and no religion. A dark skinned female figure appearing on the cloak of a worthless peasant. Almost 500 years later, she is one of the most recognized religious figures in human history. And today, December 12, is her saint day which is observed literally around the world.

The two vignettes – about the Mexican conquest and the encounter between Juan Diego and the Virgin of Guadalupe – these two vignettes typify two enduring strands of the Christian tradition. There is the strand of domination and conquest, supposedly to further the mission of the church and for the salvation of more people. And there is the strand of non-violent compassion for the poor and dispossessed. And we see these two very different themes borne out not only in Christian tradition, but in other religions as well, even up to the present.

While the Dalai Lama is promoting anti-violence even in resolution of the differences between Tibet and China, there are other Buddhists who are taking up arms against the Chinese. There are those within Judaism who are promoting peaceful coexistence with Palestine and the cessation of hostility by Israel against the Palestinians, while others promote continued violent conquest of the territory. In Islam, there are are those who are advocating for non-violence and peaceful coexistence with other religions and cultures, while a powerful minority pursue armed conquest and domination.

In Christianity throughout the ages, there have been voices for armed conquest and empire, as well as voices for anti-violence, compassion, and peaceful coexistence. There are those who have justified war, relying on Augustine’s just war theory, as a necessary tool for defense and protection. We know these perspectives. World War II was justified to stop Hitler and to save the Jews. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki prevented the potential for even more suffering and death. While other voices advocated for pacifism and conscientious objection. Jeff’s father was a conscientious objector in World War II, and worked as part of an ambulance corps in Europe helping wounded soldiers.

So we are very familiar with these two impulses in religion – one that justifies the use of violence, and one that promotes compassion as we see in the story of Guadalupe, as well as in the more recent witness of Mohandas Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and the Dalai Lama.

These two diverging impulses in religion can be seen in the scripture lesson that we heard from Isaiah this morning. We are given beautiful images: with wilderness glad, the desert blossoming, joy and singing, weak hands made strong, feeble knees fortified, the removal of fear, the healing of blindness and deafness, the waters bringing life to the dry barren wilderness. It sounds like Guadalupe providing all of the flowers for Juan Diego! Then, in the middle of this glorious vision of Isaiah, we are told, “Here is your God. God will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense.” There it is: the two strands. Comfort and violence.

And this tension persists in Christianity. We justify violence in some circumstances while promoting compassion and peace. The church may tell a woman, stay with the husband who abuses you because divorce is a sin and people can change. We punish the murderer with the death penalty. You may spank your child for hitting another child, because we don’t hit. Help and protect people around the world, even if it means killing them and devastating their country in what we consider justified violence for a greater good. We deal with these two competing and diverging impulses in Christianity constantly.

In this season, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, let’s take a moment to examine the role of Jesus in the relationship to what is perceived as justified violence, and compassion and anti-violence. In some ways, we can see remnants of these two threads in the life of Jesus. He is considered to be of the line of David, as in slew Goliath, a warrior king responsible for the killing of thousands for the cause of God. And Jesus is known as the Prince of Peace. So what do we see when we look at the teachings of Jesus that have come down to us through our scriptures? We see the teachings of not only non-violence, but anti-violence. Turn the other cheek. Pray for your enemy. Do good to those who persecute you. Do not kill. Do not take an eye for an eye. Those who live by the sword die by the sword. These teachings are very much anti-violent. In addition, we do not see Jesus participate in or support violence, even what was considered justified violence. For instance in one story, Jesus defends a woman about to be stoned for adultery when he would have been completely justified by the law in picking up a rock and throwing it at her. We do not have any stories of Jesus directly perpetrating violence. In fact, what we have is the direct opposite. He does not even defend himself verbally in the stories of his accusation and trial. He is the complete pacifist. The totally innocent victim. He gives no cause for being associated in any way with what could be seen as religiously justified violence, even in self defense.

That is the unique revelation of Jesus. We are told that God promises to do a new thing in the life of the faith community. In Jesus, the new thing is the absolute abdication of violence. In Jesus, a life of compassion, generosity, and forgiveness which ends in a completely unjustified death, we see the initiative to break the cycle of justified violence. Throughout human history, religions have justified the use of violence to respond to chaos, disorder, and imbalance. Religion has sanctioned violence to create a new equilibrium, order, and peace. But then, the need for more violence eventually emerges, and the cycle continues. In the crucifixion of Jesus, a completely unjustified act, we see the initiative to break that cycle.

In the earliest days of Christianity, people did not preach Jesus Christ resurrected, but Jesus Christ crucified. Because his completely unwarranted, unjustified death was seen as breaking the cycle of religiously justified violence. This was the new thing God was doing. This was the new revelation. No more vengeance, retribution, or divinely justified punishment. But as time went on, the faithful reverted to the old concepts and overlaid them on the crucifixion experience, once more making the crucifixion justified violence. Seeing it as God providing Jesus to die for our sins, Jesus being the scapegoat for human sin, Jesus being the sacrifice to appease God. And we are right back to the traditional concepts used in Judaism and Christianity as well as other religions to justify violence: The very thing that Jesus was trying to transform, convert, and overcome through a completely unjustified death. There was no defense. No satisfactory explanation. No accounting for this killing of a person who was completely good, loving, generous, and compassionate. It was an indefensible death. Christ crucified. A new thing. Not the old pattern. A witness to break the cycle. But people could not stand the threat to the status quo. And eventually integrated the crucifixion back into the religious tradition of justified violence. And the stress between the conflicting views of violence in the Christian tradition continues.

We have seen it recently played out in international relations. President Obama went to visit the troops in Afghanistan. In a visit to a base, he told the troops, “As President of the United States, I have no greater responsibility than keeping the American people secure. I could not meet that responsibility, we could not protect the American people, we could not enjoy the blessings of our liberty without the extraordinary service that each and every one of you performs each and every day.” [“Commander in Chief visits 10th CAB Soldiers at Bagram Airfield,” Dec. 10, 2010, Staff Sgt. Todd Pouliot, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, http://www.army.mil/-news/2010/12/10/49238-commander-in-chief-visits-10th-cab-soldiers-at-bagram-airfield/%5D This statement implies violence is necessary to protect blessings, divinely bestowed gifts. Obama’s words of support and encouragement definitely draw upon the tradition of religiously and morally defensible violence. And Obama comes from a Christian context – personal and social.

Then we have the controversy over the recently awarded Nobel Peace Prize. The award recognized Liu Xiaobo of China. In a statement to the Chinese court in December 2009 before receiving a prison sentence of 11 years for his subversive activity, Xiaobo declared:

I have no enemies and no hatred. Hatred can rot away at a person’s intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation’s progress toward freedom and democracy. That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as I look upon our nation’s development and social change, to counter the regime’s hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love.” [St. Petersburg Times, 12/11/10, p. 3A]

The US president, who comes from a Christian context makes statements that could never have come from the lips of Jesus, while the Chinese citizen, from a communist country, an anti-Christian context, makes a statement that could very well have come from the mouth of Jesus.

To add to the irony, China boycotted the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony and would not allow the jailed Liu Xiaobo or anyone from his family to attend. China urged other nations to shun the ceremony as well. The US completely supports the Nobel Peace Prize process and supported the ceremony. But Iraq and Afghanistan, where we are supposedly morally justified in our military efforts, refused to attend the ceremony. Makes you wonder just what is our violence is accomplishing.

The divergent themes of religiously justified violence and compassion and anti-violence continue to coexist in a precarious relationship. The tensions and the inconsistencies are becoming ever more evident. And this is a piece of what is undermining the perceived legitimacy and authority of Christianity in the world today.

In Mexico, the Catholic church annihilated indigenous people, while claiming to have come to bring the country to Christ and save the people from hell by offering them the Christian God of love. While the heathen Indian responds with the Virgin of Guadalupe, the mother of God, defending the poor, the downtrodden, the Indians, the women, etc. in a way absolutely consistent with the ministry of Jesus.

There was and is irony and inconsistency all over the place in our religious expression and theology. But the message of Jesus is not ironic or inconsistent or complicated or convoluted. His life was about love and peace. Pure and simple. And you cannot live peace, create peace, pursue peace, or impose peace through violent means. Eventually, violence begets more violence. And the reason for this season is to celebrate the birth of the one we believe had the divine mission of breaking that very cycle. The birth of Jesus is the birth of peace. May we, too, birth that peace. Amen.

In addition to Elizondo’s book about the Virgin of Guadalupe, the book Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads by Gil Bailie was used in the preparation of this sermon though not directly quoted.

A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.