Introduction

Easter 3 Year C 2007

April 22, 2007

Love in a Time of Violence

I didn’t know what to say today. I found it hard to focus my sermon on our lectionary readings until I decided that I needed to start with the shootings at Virginia Tech. This has been a tough week for us and for our nation. Most of us are grieving the lives lost at Virginia Tech. We are in state of shock, or disbelief, or anger, or sadness, a mixture of emotions. We have also had news of much violence and loss of life in Iraq this week and even of a Taliban execution by a boy of about twelve. Our news and lives have been steeped in violence during this past week.

Edward F. Markquart , a Lutheran pastor in Seattle, wrote this week; “Violence is contrary to the kingdom of God. Violence is the opposite of the living Spirit of Jesus who comes to bring life and give it more abundantly. The purpose of God is to heal… to heal individuals who are sick but also to heal cultures which are sick.”

We are living in violent times. Even if our own lives are quite peaceful, we can hear and see much violence every day; in the news, on TV, in the video games that many of our children play, and in our movies. We know that for some children in the world, violence is an everyday experience; children captured by the Lord’s resistance army in Uganda, children in war zones, children caught in the Palestinian and Israeli conflict, children of Northern Ireland. The list goes on and on.

When I worked in childcare, I met young children of age three or four who had seen R rated horror movies; children too young to distinguish between reality and fiction. Some of our young children also watch news shows and see images of violence or destruction such as this week’s shootings at Virginia Tech, when they are home alone. How do they make sense of this without an adult to help interpret what they are seeing?

If, as Pastor Markquart says, violence is contrary to God’s kingdom, if violence is the opposite of the living Spirit of Jesus who comes to bring life and give it more abundantly, if God’s purpose is to heal both individuals who are sick and cultures that are sick, then how do we connect with that Spirit. How do we connect with the grace and love of God in our lives so we can be avenues of grace for God’s love and healing to move through our culture and our world?

Can we connect to those who feel isolated, to those who have been unable to express themselves, or to those trapped in mental illness? How does God call us to respond each day to others? How can we respond to those whose life experience has been steeped in tragedy and violence?

Our scripture passages today offer some challenging information. Historians write of the culture of violence in Rome.[1] From Pastor Marquart’s article I learned that “in 65 CE Nero filled the public stadium with 400 wild elephants, wild bulls and wild tigers and let them fight and kill each other until they were all dead, the blood flowing deep on the floor of the coliseum, with the crowds cheering.”[2] We also remember that not only did gladiators fight to the death for the crowds but also that Christians were place in the arena to confront lions or bulls while the crowds cheered and watched them die.

Peter and the other disciples were living in a culture of violence and of oppression by Roman soldiers. Perhaps going back to fishing was the only sane response they could imagine after watching Jesus be crucified. Even though, some had already seen Jesus in post resurrection appearances, they had no vision for the future. And yet, Jesus provided them with a huge catch of fish. Jesus cooked fish for their breakfast and gave them bread. And yet, Jesus spoke to Peter, to Peter who had denied him three times. Do you love me, more than these? Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, Feed my sheep, follow me. New hope, a new future living out God’s vision of healing for the world.

I love these stories in the Bible in which the most unlikely people encounter God and are transformed to become agents of God’s love and presence in the world. Who would have thought that Peter, who had denied his Lord, three times would become a rock upon which the church was founded?

Or imagining this Roman culture of violence, and remembering the threat that followers of Jesus brought to the powerful leaders of the Jewish religion, picture Saul, “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” Picture Saul looking for any men or women of the Way, (that is followers of Jesus) so he could bring them ‘bound to Jerusalem.’

The story of Saul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus is another one of those great stories of transformation by God’s love. Who would have thought that the Pharisee who was persecuting Christians would become God’s chosen agent to evangelize the Gentile world? And yet… read Acts, Romans, and the Epistles to see what happened.

And where did the Incarnation occur? During a time of Roman oppression and violence. Jesus was born into a world and culture of violence, an innocent baby of an oppressed people. God chose a most unlikely way to enter the world. What a way of showing grace.

Look at Paul after today’s encounter with Jesus; again we see, grace, forgiveness, redemption, and a new purpose in life.

God’s grace in confronting Saul, and Jesus demanding to know why Saul was persecuting him, began the process of conversion which led to the evangelization of the Phillipians, the Colossians, the Galatians, the multitude of cities and towns where Paul preached the gospel and where Paul introduced others to the love, forgiveness, and grace of God through God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

Into a violent time and culture came a message of grace, forgiveness, and a new vision of God’s kingdom, a place where the broken hearted, and the sinful, could be healed and redeemed.

What a message of hope for today this is. If God chose to become incarnate into a world of violence two thousand years ago, if God chose to enter the world as an innocent baby of an oppressed peoples, and if, when the powers and forces of the old order had Jesus crucified, then we have hope. Why? Because, with Jesus resurrection, with Jesus appearance to the disciples, with Jesus encounter with Saul on the road to Damascus, the world began to change. A new way of being, a new vision of what the kingdom of God meant began to grow.

How did early people recognize Christians? By how much they loved each other, by how they cared for each other, and for the needy, and the hurting. As the early Christians encounter the risen Christ in their lives they were transformed, as was Peter, and as was Paul. They began to act out God’s purpose of healing the person and the culture with love.

It has been a tough week. We are still saddened and stunned by the violence at Virginia Tech. We are in danger of being numbed by continual news of violence in the Mid East.

Saul’s eyes were opened on the road to Damascus. Peter’s eyes were open by Jesus standing on the shore telling him to throw out the fishing net on the other side of the boat. Listen again to the words found in our collect today. “Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work.”

When we behold him, when the scales fall from our eyes, may we know God’s great and redeeming love for each of us. May we experience the healing we need so that we may become avenues of God’s grace to share God’s message of love and redemption in a broken world.

Amen.