I’ve been thinking about peacekeeping lately.
I looked it up. Right now the United Nations has eleven peacekeeping missions.
That’s more than I thought.
There are missions in Kosovo, Western Sahara, India and Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Sudan, South Sudan, Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, and Israel-Palestine.
That’s a lot of peacekeeping.
But how much peace?
Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.
Peacekeeping often means some kind of military force. It means firearms.
And there is this idea that the solution to violence is…
…the threat of more violence.
There’s a phrase you may have heard:
“An armed society is a polite society.”
It’s interesting how the apparent meaning of a sentence changes when you know the context. Here is the quote in context from the science fiction novel Beyond This Horizon by Robert Heinlein:
“Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. That’s a personal evaluation only. But gunfighting has a strong biological use. We do not have enough things to kill off the weak and the stupid these days. But to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with his wits or with his hands, preferably both. It’s a good thing.”
This novel is about a dystopian future where genetic modification has divided humanity, and the speaker considers himself superior and sees the benefit of gun violence to cleanse humanity by exterminating the weak.
That doesn’t sound polite to me.
And I don’t think violence, or the threat of violence, is a real peace.
So if we can’t bring peace through force, how can we bring peace?
Our Gospel reading today is called the Magnificat, which is just a reference to the opening words “My soul magnifies the Lord,”
But what does Mary call out as strength? What does she say of the Mighty One?
He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.
– Luke 1:51-53, NRSVue
Scattered the proud.
How would it be if those who see themselves as better than others did not band together to reinforce their prejudices of race, religion, and culture?
Imagine a world where no group could even imagine adding the word “supremecist.”
Brought down the powerful from their thrones.
In the time the Gospel of Luke was written – about a century after Jesus, give-or-take a couple of decades – the rich and powerful were usually kings. But today we have many who are rich and powerful without a formal governmental role.
Imagine a world where individual people do not have greater power than others
because of what they own.
Lifted up the lowly.
We usually think of the lowly as those who are financially poor, but it can also refer to those who have little power or respect. There is a lot of overlap, because not having power or respect can influence how much material one has, and not having much material wealth can influence one’s power and respect.
What if all those of low status were lifted up: poor, hungry, unhoused, unloved, demonized, discriminated against, feared? What kind of world would that be?
Filled the hungry with good things.
What if no one – no adult, no child – had to go hungry on any day.
What if no one was tempted to desperate measures to just survive?
Sent the rich away empty,
I don’t think the intent here is that the rich should go hungry, but that those who are wealthy should have far lower priority for charity than those who have nothing. Imagine if one of our billionaires sent one of their employees to repeatedly visit our Little Free Pantry to take all the items. That’s not why we put that there.
Is there a name for this?
I think it might be justice.
And from such justice can come peace: not a cessation of violence under threat of more violence, but a peace that comes when no one is in need. In Ames Iowa in 1985, the fifteenth General Synod of the United Church of Christ voted to affirm a resolution that was a proclamation of Just Peace.
That proclamation
Affirms the United Church of Christ to be a Just Peace Church and defines Just Peace as the interrelation of friendship, justice, and common security from violence. Places the United Church of Christ General Synod in opposition to the institution of war.
— Pronouncement on affirming the United Church of Christ as a Just Peace Church, UCC General Synod 15, 1985.
It goes on to say
This pronouncement is based on insights from all three of the historic approaches of Christians to issues of war and peace—pacifism, just war, and crusade—but attempts to move beyond these traditions to an understanding rooted in the vision of shalom, linking peace, and justice.
Can such a thing wipe out conflict altogether? I suspect not.
Greed and envy are stubborn issues, and difficult to root out.
But if we look at Just Peace as a direction more than a destination, we can work toward a world where it is to less advantage to hoard wealth and power, and less frequent that people desperate for the necessities of life will turn to violence to obtain them.
We can work toward a world where accidents of birth neither privilege nor disenfranchise people from participating equally in society.
This morning I would like us to not just think about such a peace, not just imagine it or yearn for it, but expect it.
Expect that it will come the same way we expect the light to come on when we flip the switch, or expect that the days will grow longer now that we are past the solstice.
If we expect peace, we can rely on peace coming, rather than peace keeping.
And if we rely on peace coming, we can work toward that which we expect and rely on.
A Just Peace is possible. A Just Peace will come when we work for it.
So this week, amid all of the busy-ness of the season, I challenge us all to expect a Just Peace where the proud are scattered, the powerful brought down and the lowly lifted up, and the hungry fed.
This year, and the next, expect peace.
Amen.
- Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
- Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.
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