Troop Surge

I was scheduled to fill in and preach tomorrow, but our service was blended with another congregation and taken a new direction. I won’t be preaching, so I thought I’d share some of the message with you! 

"Troop Surge"

C: January 31, 2010

Jeremiah 1:4-10, Psalm 71:1-6, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 4:21-30

Even knowing our leader calls for more troops, it is easy to forget that we are at war. It is easy to forget that more troops are needed, that more troops are planned for, that more troops are being deployed. It is easy to forget when there’s no draft, no mandated service. We can get lax about what is at stake.

It is easy enough to think of war as necessary, but it is also easy to write it off as something “out” there or “over” there. We might give a solemn nod toward the idea of war as our proper responsibility or good sense, but we might also be found “MIA” when it comes to participation.

So, where is our fight, Christians?

I understand that war has changed. Maybe we don’t talk enough about conventional wars between sovereign states, “total war” or nuclear, apocalyptic war. We could also think about wars of the third kind—including civil wars and non-state actors—and the present state of perpetual war, as Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove has insightfully described.[1]

Unfortunately, war has changed for many Christians too. It has--too often--changed simply into one of these forms mentioned! Again and again, Christians have been co-opted into these battles and the kind of fighting that fuels them.

So, where is our fight, Christians? Today’s lectionary passages remind us of who we are and of the fight we are called to fulfill.

Jeremiah calls our attention to the word of the Lord declaring our being made—created—to fight:

⁵“Before I formed you in the womb… I consecrated you; I appointed you … to the nations.” […] you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, ⁸Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” ⁹Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. ¹⁰See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

The Word of the Lord can always show us the futility of our own words—the limitations and the sheer bondage of our own speech acts. Perhaps the Word would do some plucking and pulling down in our thinking and our language. In many ways, our language limits our imagination. Think for a moment of how the Living Word took on flesh and put up a fight like the world had never seen.

Just last week, our gospel reading captured Jesus’ declaration of war. Paul talked of clarity with a battle cry in I Corinthians 14:8 saying, “[I]f the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle?" Let’s revisit Jesus’ declaration and check for that clarity.

¹⁶When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: ¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” ²⁰And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-21)

Plainly, Jesus not only laid out the mission and the Way, but he also sounded the call to battle! “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Friends, the bugle still sounds, and it is still distinct. When war has changed for Christians into the violent forms of participation we talked about earlier, “we” have become tone deaf to the Living Word.

So, where is our fight, Christians?

Our fight is in the Way of Jesus. In many of the world’s strongholds of power, it is time for Christians to put up or shut up. This may be better understood as living up to our calling as Jesus followers. “The congregation of Jesus [living] uncompromisingly under a different economy and politic,” will--without a doubt--cause a stir! Jason Goroncy, a theologian in New Zealand, says, “The consequence of such living will inevitably provoke a declaration of war by the gods. History is indeed the battle for worship, as the Book of the Revelation bears witness to.”[2] We can remember in today’s gospel lesson the rage ignited when Jesus made his declaration (cf. Lk 4:28-29). We had better hold fast to our training and the Way we learned from Jesus.

What about control? What about our security? The Psalmist reminds us that the Lord is our fortress and our refuge. Rescue us, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel. The Lord is our hope and our trust (cf. Psalm 71:1-6).

Perhaps a reminder to keep in our uniforms would be helpful. If we need to check our mission and our orders, each of us soldiers could pull out a copy of our “War Chapter":

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not make war, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but I am not at war, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not make war, I gain nothing.

War is patient; war is kind; war is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

War never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and war abide, these three; and the greatest of these is war.

Let’s quit worrying about winning and simply surge. Amen.

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^[1] Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today's Church, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2008.

[2] Jason Goroncy, “Aliens in the Church: A Reflection on ANZAC Day, National Flags and the Church as an Alternative Society,” posted at Per Crucem ad Lucem