Scripture texts: Genesis 50:15-21, Matthew 18:21-35
In the classic martial arts film, Enter the Dragon, the villain, Mr. Han has invited one of his guests, Mr. Roper, to visit him in his home. Mr. Roper, a scoundrel of some ill-repute, is well-named, since he is “on the ropes” for much of the film as to whether he will side with the hero or the villain in the coming conflict. Mr. Han is determined to bring Roper onto his side, so he brings him into his personal museum, filled with weapons and military artifacts from throughout history. Han is clearly hoping to scare Roper into choosing him.
As Roper
inspects the artifacts, Han begins to speak, “It is difficult to associate these horrors with the proud civilizations
that created them: Sparta, Rome, The Knights of Europe, the Samurai... They worshiped strength, because it is strength that makes all other values
possible. Nothing survives without it. Who knows what delicate wonders have
died out of the world, for want of the strength to survive.” His efforts to
intimidate Roper are not, in the end, successful, but that speech of Han’s has
stuck with me. I don’t like it. I suppose I’m not supposed to like it, since it
is the villain of the story talking. But I really think I dislike it is because I have a hard time disagreeing
with it.
It is, I regret
to say, the way the world has worked for the whole of human civilization (and
probably before that.) Might has made right. Peace, what little we’ve had over
the generations, has always come through superior firepower. As a Christian, I
am compelled to believe there is a better way, that love and mercy are better
than violence at creating peace. But I’m torn.
I’m
particularly torn in these times in which we live. We’ve got Nazis again. Oh, I
know, we’ve always had Nazis, but they were underground. Their ideology was so
toxic they were embarrassed to let their true colors fly for all to see. Not so
anymore. No, now they march in our streets unashamed, using their First
Amendment rights (or so they claim) to intimidate and frighten anyone who is
not like them. And there are those who
have argued we should do with them as my grandfathers’ generation did, kick
them in the teeth, break their skulls. Some have tried to carry that out, like
the Antifa movement, claiming themselves cut from the same mold as our war
heroes of old. I can’t say I haven’t been tempted too. But is that the right
answer?
And then
there’s that world leader with the crazy hair and his increasing belligerence
against all who oppose him. A leader with his finger on the nuclear button, who
could at a whim, start World War III and wipe out all life on this planet. One
such man is terrifying enough, but we’ve got two and they’re at loggerheads
with one another. Is strength the answer to the threat of North Korea? Is
strength the answer for North Korea to respond to the threat of us? Both our
leaders seem to think so. Are they right?
“We must put an
end to war or war will put an end to us.” JFK once wisely said. Sometimes, in
my most despairing and cynical moments, I fear that will be our fate. I’m old
enough to remember the Cold War, but I was the generation after all the
foolishness of “duck-and-cover.” We knew better. Once the missiles launched,
there would be nowhere to hide. It would be over. Endgame. Extinction.
Are we there
again?
Perhaps, but as
tempting as it is to give into fear and despair, I refuse to do so. I refuse to
believe we humans are fated to destroy ourselves. I refuse to believe that
because Jesus didn’t believe it. Are we broken and sinful? Yes. But inside the
heart of even the darkest of us is a longing for peace and tranquility and
harmony. Far too many believe the only way to achieve it is the destruction of
enemies through violence and strength. But Jesus knew there was a better way to
have peace: love.
Our Scripture
readings today highlight one of the most difficult manifestations of love:
forgiveness. I talked at length recently about how love is hard. Here’s the
hardness of it. To love one’s enemies is to forgive them, no matter the wrongs
they’ve done. Can it be done? But it takes great strength, greater than most of
us know, but it’s also a different kind of strength.
Daryl Davis is
a jazz musician, who’s played backup with Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, and a
host of other famous musicians. But now he has a new calling. He has, with very
deliberate intent, gone out into the world to befriend white supremacists.
Daryl Davis is black.
White
supremacists scare me and I’m a white guy. I’m intimidated by the KKK. I fear
that kind of hate, even when it’s not directed my way. Mr. Davis dives in where
angels fear to tread. He talks with these people. They chat about music and the
things they have in common. And the relationship grows and friendships are
formed. And many of these white supremacists come to see the error of their
ways. They surrender their hate. Many have even given Davis their robes; he’s
built up quite a collection of them as I understand it.
I preached last
week about how we love not just the victim but also the victimizer. This is how it’s
done. And maybe that’s how we have peace.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the world’s evils. We
see how big the problems are and think we can’t do anything. We can’t change
the violence between nations or the hate in these mass movements. But there’s
that old saying, “You eat an elephant one bite at a time.” Those movements are
made up of people. Those nations have millions of citizens. Each of group a
collection of individuals. And each individual not all that different from us.
Twisted, fearful in ways we are not, but still human.
And maybe that’s
Jesus’ point. You don’t win peace by loving the movement. You win peace by
loving the person within it. One-on-one. Love, forgive, persist. Love, forgive,
persist. Seventy times seven if need be. One person at a time.
It’s better
than the alternative. I am not a big fan of Dr. Who (despite the Pizzarusso’s
family’s efforts), but there is an amazing scene near the end of the 2015
season. The Doctor has gotten two sides of a feud (one human, one alien) in a
room together and he’s pleading with them to stand down their hostilities. He
says of war “Because it's always the
same. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no
idea who's going to die. You don't know whose children are going to scream and
burn. How many hearts will be broken! How many lives shattered! How much blood
will spill until everybody does what they're always going to have to do from
the very beginning -- sit down and talk!”
Jesus’ call for
forgiveness, his discipline mechanism in last week’s lesson, the story of
Joseph in our First Lesson, are all pleading with us to skip the middle and get
to the talking. Skip the violence and talk, like Daryl Davis. Skip the
brutality and talk. One-on-one. One person at a time. That’s how you save the
world.
That’s how you
make peace. Real peace. By talking. By loving. By forgiving. The way Jesus did.
Amen.
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