Belfast Peace Art |
Sunday December 20, 2015 - Fourth Sunday in Advent
Isaiah 9:1-7
1 But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In
the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of
Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the
land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
2 The people who walked in darkness
have seen a
great light;
those
who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.
3 You have multiplied the nation, you have
increased its joy;
they
rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest,
as people exult
when dividing plunder.
4 For the yoke of their burden,
and the bar
across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken
as on the day of Midian.
5 For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the
garments rolled in blood
shall be burned
as fuel for the fire.
6 For a child has been born for us,
a son given to
us;
authority
rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace.
7 His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall
be endless peace
for
the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish
and uphold it
with
justice and with righteousness
from this time
onward and forevermore.
The
zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Sermon: “The
Advent of Peace: A Whole World”
It
was a chilly July, colder for the tension in the room at the time. On that winter afternoon, in that confusing
way of the Southern Hemisphere, we gathered in a large meeting space, sitting
in a circle on the floor. “We” were what
is called a “cross-community project,” a gathering of Protestant and Catholic
teenagers from Belfast (and a couple of random Americans thrown in for good
measure). And that “floor” we found
ourselves on…well that was built on South African soil, in a little Christian
camp in the bush outside of Pietermaritzburg.
I
was one of the leaders of this little peace project, and we’d met for 10 months
to build community because, though these kids were all from Belfast, they
hadn’t met someone from the other side – Protestant (that is, British) or
Catholic (Irish). They were divided by
ironically named “peace walls,” divided by different schools and neighborhoods,
divided even by football team allegiance. But mostly, they were divided by history. We’re not born fearing or hating, we must
be taught it. These kids were taught
well, mostly through that harshest of teachers: violence.
But
we’d worked hard. These kids had been so
courageous, even touring each other’s neighborhoods, learning the sites of
sectarian violence, hearing the stories.
They’d even begun to trust each other a little. So that winter July day, on that South
African soil, we gave each kid a little lump of clay: “Tell us something about
your identity with this clay,” we asked.
The
first couple thoughts shared were benign and relaxed. Then the third kid went. He clasped his clay into a rough lump. “This is a stone,” he said. “A stone like what was lobbed at peaceful
Catholic protestors by the Prod police -- no offense yousuns -- on Bloody
Sunday.” It might as well have been a
real stone, because that little lump of clay caused chaos.
Kids
began drawing their battle lines once more, asserting their versions of what
happened in Derry (or Londonderry, depending on who you ask) on January 30,
1972. Of course, none of these teenagers
were born then. But they’d been raised
on their own version of that history.
Some said the Catholics protesters were violent first; others said the
British police were. Bloody Sunday was
undeniably one of the most terrible and influential events in the Troubles of
Northern Ireland.
The
Saville
Inquiry was established in 1998 to reinvestigate the incident. Following a 12-year inquiry, Saville's report
was made public in 2010 and concluded that the killings of those Catholic
protesters were both "unjustified" and "unjustifiable.” It found that all of those shot were unarmed,
that none were posing a serious threat, that no bombs were thrown, and that
soldiers "knowingly put forward false accounts" to justify their
firing.
But
on that summer day in 2005, there was still fresh anger because of how the
history of that event had been twisted.
I’d like to say that we leaders were calm and collected and in
control. Well, we weren’t. We asked the kids to all leave the room,
sitting apart from each other, and we met as leaders. “Will this destroy all
we’ve worked to create?” we asked.
“Should we stop the angry conversation now before it gets worse?” A consensus grew among us, something I can
only attribute to the Spirit of God: “We have to trust this process.”
So
we brought them back in, and let it happen.
We let kids get angry. We let
them shout. We let them tell their
stories (even if they weren’t actually their
stories). And then something
beautiful happened, on the other side of all that anger and aggression.
Those
Catholic and Protestant teens became united by a shared anger at being told
half-histories. They became angry that
they had been taught to hate and fear. And that righteous anger brought them
together. These kids discovered
peace together. Young people are much
better at this than we set-in-our-ways adults.
Perhaps
that’s why it’s so important that God didn’t come to the world as an
adult. God came to be one of us – came
as prophesied by Isaiah to break the yokes that burden the world, to break the
rod of oppression and to use the clothing of war as fuel for the everlasting
fires of peace.
For a child has
been born for us, a son given to us;
authority rests
upon his shoulders; and he is named
Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority
shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne
of David and his kingdom.
A
child born for us – the Prince of Peace – because that is the only way this
world will know wholeness. Young people
show us the way, if we’ll trust them. Perhaps so much of our conflicted ways,
so much of our cyclical violence in the world is because of how we force our
children to adopt our biased histories, instead of letting them guide us
through conflict to peace on the other side.
What would the
world look like if children were trusted that much? What would the world look like if we trusted
the Christ Child that much? It might look very
different than the world we were raised in, and it might look very different
than our world today. And, if we’re
honest with ourselves, that scares us, because as terrible as conflict is, we
have grown as comfortable with it as those peace walls have grown comfortable
as Northern Irish tourist destinations.
As
we finish this Advent journey towards peace and wholeness we began together 4
weeks ago, I think it’s time we ask an important question, especially regarding
our relationships with other nations and peoples of this world. What would a child do? More specifically, what would the Christ Child do?
Would
that child guide us to continue the cycles that never seem to end of
you-attacked-first-and-so-now-it’s-our-turn?
Or would that child guide us to ask why are picking up stones in the
first place, and if there isn’t something better we could do with our
hands? Would that child guide us to see
if perhaps we have something in common after all?
“But there will
be no gloom for those who are in anguish,” Isaiah promises.
Isn’t
that what every child wants? Shouldn’t
that be our goal, not just for us and ours, but for each child on this
planet?
God
is coming, friends. Not as a mighty
warrior, not as a persuasive politician, and certainly not as a wordy
preacher. God is coming – as a child. And this is the best news of all! Amen.