Billy Nessen, an independent
journalist, reporting what it was like being in the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk,
as it was being shelled,
This is the thing. I mean, people who haven’t been in this
situation, artillery, it’s an unhuman sound and an inhuman shaking of the earth
that’s hard to describe. I think at some point, hopefully, we can play some of
the sounds. It’s almost like some deep sea monsters are battling under the sea,
and you hear these echoes and the tremors.[1]
War is hell.
And beyond pandemic, we, as a nation, just came out of the longest
running war in our history as a nation.
That violence and death, though disembodied and not televised, ran as a
low hum behind everything we did. On May
25th, we, as a nation, marked the 2nd anniversary of the
death of George Floyd, another Black life. If we needed any further proof that violence
is a part of us, deep down a significant part of our culture, as the last
funerals in Buffalo take place . . . Uvalde, Texas.
Yes,
we’ve been sold a bill of lies. Cultural
Christianity plays a huge role in this justification of war and violence. We’ve been told that Biblical faith is about
making us individually better people, more moral and upright. To be sure, our individual integrity is
important. But Biblical faith is much
more concerned about the community and the nation.[2] That distinction is so important as we try to
make our way in the world as people of faith, as we seek to resolve issues and
problems that face us. For what the
Bible teaches is that it’s a grove, a forest, not a bad apple.
What are we preparing for?
How are we resourcing, investing, and developing our soul
priorities? For what have we given our
money, our time, and our effort? When
tragedy and trauma happen, failure and disappointment almost certainly occur,
what have we invested in systemically and structurally to solve our
problems? What do we teach our children
is our fallback for resolving conflicts and working through their anger and
frustration? What are we preparing for?
As
a pastor, I have now been around long enough to see a sweeping transition in
celebrations of the national commemoration of Memorial Day. Where at one time the regular message used to
be, “We remember our dead, so that we actively make peace, weave together
peace, prepare for peace, so that war and these war dead will be no more,” has
now become the celebration and glorification of war as necessary, the
preparation for war as inevitable and right and just. When I am asked to pray or deliver a message
for Memorial Day in the current climate, I must choose my words about
preparations for peace carefully, prudently, judiciously so that I somehow do
not offend those who want to hear about how God ordains what we prepare for,
what God wants and ordains in further carnage and bloodshed.
For
this God, this god does not mourn the dead.
This god does not weep. This god
does not grieve. Instead, this god has
been re-created in our own image. God is
prepared. God stands—armed and
ready.
What are we preparing for?
This spring, the Biden administration
announced it was pursuing a military budget for next year that exceeds $813
Billion, an increase of $31 billion over last year (which saw an increase of
$32.5 billion from the year before).
Among the Pentagon’s priorities, according to a Reuters report, is the
expenditure of billions on new and upgraded (and nuclear-equipped) ballistic
missile submarines, land-based missiles and bombers.[3]
Now even more is being asked for to
support military operations in Ukraine.
It was General and then President
Dwight D. Eisenhower who warned us against the threat of the military
industrial complex, who said,
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every
rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and
are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money
alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists,
the hopes of its children . . .[4]
Today we have one of the most meaningfully poetic stories of
Christian faith before us. I have used the story within our communion
liturgy.
The road to Emmaus story borrows from ancient Judaism’s story of
hospitality, found in the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Sodom and
Gomorrah.
Rabbi Sharon Brous writes about the sin of Sodom, how the
rabbinical commentary on Sodom said their ethic was, “What is mine is mine and
what is yours is yours.” That might
sound innocent enough but Sodom was a place known for its rich, natural
resources, its milk and honey, its abundant bread and gold. So rich that the people of Sodom came to
believe that foreigners or strangers came only to divest them of their
plenty. What they did then was to treat
guests to their fair city with an unusual violence and cruelty. If your legs were too long for the bed
provided at the local inn, they would cut them off. If legs too short, they would stretch them
out until the stranger died from pain. Just
for a better fit.
The people who lived in Sodom said, “We don't want to share with
any foreigners, outsiders who come here only to deprive us of what is
rightfully ours." That quote,
repeated often and often in our culture in white replacement theory, should
ring in our ears. The people of Sodom
enforced this theory through their red-lining:
. . . when a poor person would come into
Sodom, each person would give them a gold coin, but they would write their name
on that coin and then the poor person, the hungry one, the traveler, the
foreigner, would go out into the market where there was abundant bread and
drink and they would try with these gold coins to buy food, but nobody would
sell it to him. So [the person] would
die from hunger and then they would all approach [their] dead body and take
their money back.[5]
The whole system of Sodom was set up to legalize and encourage
the most cruel and violent acts to people who were the most vulnerable. It was decreed
that whoever handed a piece of bread to the poor or to a stranger shall be
burned at the stake. And if you were
found helping, like a small girl was, the most unimaginable was done. This kind, small girl, who shared to love her
neighbor was doused in honey and hung so that the hornets would cause her untold
pain as she died. This was the sin of
Sodom—violence and inhospitality. The
sin was contrary to a fundamental Jewish value as a nomadic people—hospitality
as a way of remembering our shared journey in the grove, in the forest..
The road to Emmaus story is an answer, a riposte, to the sin of
Sodom, crystallized in the violence of the Roman Empire.
In destroying Jewish rebellion in and near the city of
Sepphoris, not too far outside Nazareth, the Roman legions totally
destroyed the village of Emmaus in 4 BCE.[6]
By including Emmaus as the
destination in this story, the gospel writer is signaling to us how
ever-present the violence and death of the Roman Empire was, the loss and
trauma experienced by the people, Early Christian scholar, John Dominic Crossan,
highlights that the meaning of this story was not found in a literal understanding
Crossan said, “Emmaus never happened.” Emmaus
was obliterated by the Romans.[7] To include it as a destination sets the mood
and tone for two disciples who are mourning the death of their friend and
teacher. They are grief-stricken. Empty.
On the way to a place that was no more, devastated and consumed by
empire, violently destroyed, and hopeless. Violence wins. Life is no more. All that Jesus taught and lived and shared is
dead. Or is it? Is something else dying and dead.
The road to Emmaus story is a way of saying that life cannot stay the same, the world cannot remain as it is, the present way of being, the Roman imperial path is full of rot and desiccation and death. Something must change. A new way must be found. There is no hope found in continuing business as usual.
God does not win. God does not conquer. God does not return with the marauding hordes or the heavenly armies to violently take the Roman Empire in some revenge fantasy. This is not how God resolves problems, moves through the world, to midwife a new way. It is not a bad apple that somehow needs to be morally upright. Or someone who is of questionable mental health. It's a grove. It's a a forest. What are we preparing for? What are we helping to grow in the midst of loss and trauma? What are we nurturing?
And as those disciples of old, our first response is to grieve.
Grieve, children of earth!
Grieve! Grieve until your tears
become a stream, a river, a torrent of prayers that will pour and soak every
last bit of soil, prayers that pour and never cease in reaching out to bring
about Christ’s peace on God’s good earth.
Do not let the peddlers of violence, the war profiteers, the
inhospitable citizens of Sodom, the empty thoughts and prayers keep us from
joining hands with our children. Then
beg God to come! Come, God of
tears! Come! Make your eyes to become like fountains so
that justice flows like ever-rolling streams.
Join, O God, our hands in prayer.
Join your hands with our children until true transformation is kindled
in minds, hearts, and bodies. Grieve!
Come! Know!
Know that already the change we seek is within our grasp. Move!
Move into the street, into the city hall, into the legislature until our
wailing becomes one with the earth as it cries out with the blood of our
children. Grieve! Come!
Move! Know!
Now! Now, before any more
blood is found on the ground. Now, let
us make peace and no longer prepare for war.
Ruth Whitfield, 86
Roberta Drury, 32
Aaron Salter, 55
Heyward Patterson, 67
Pearl Young, 77
Geraldine Talley, 62
Celestine Chaney, 65
Katherine
Massey, 72
Margus
Morrison, 52
Andre
Mackneil, 53
Eva Mireles, 44
Irma Garcia, 49
Uziyah Garcia, 8
Xavier Javier Lopez,
10
Amerie Jo Garza, 10
Rojelio Torres, 10
Jacklyn “Jackie”
Cazares, 10
Annabelle Rodriguez,
10
Jaliah Nicole
Silguero, 11
Jayce Carmelo
Luevanos, 10
Makenna Lee Elrod, 10
Alithia Ramirez, 10
Eliahna “Ellie”
Garcia, 10
Miranda Mathis, 11
Tess Marie Mata, 10
Jose Flores, 10
Nevaeh Bravo, 10
Alexandria “Lexi”
Aniyah Rubio, 10
Maite Yuleana
Rodriguez, 10
Eliahana “Elijah”
Cruz Torres, 10
Layla Salazar, 10
Let us no longer prepare for violence and war.
In the Road to Emmaus, the stranger
reminds the disciples of their ancient stories of faith, reminds them that this
is how it has always been for the truth-tellers in the world, that God does not
act primarily through the big event and the miraculous, and how they should see
God’s hand in all of life.
When they arrive at their destination, the disciples see that the stranger is
going on, and in remembering their faith tradition, as people who follow in the
path set forward by Abraham and Sarah, these disciples grant the stranger
hospitality, and invite the stranger into their home. In keeping with not
only Abraham and Sarah but with the teaching of their dead friend and teacher,
these disciples invite the stranger to their evening meal. As the
stranger breaks, blesses, and shares the bread with the two disciples that
evening, they recognize Christ, and then Christ immediately vanishes from their
sight. So let us do the same: accompanying those lost and binding
up the brokenhearted along the road of discipleship, sharing the great stories
of faith so that we all might see God’s hand in life, granting hospitality to
the stranger, and blessing, breaking, and sharing bread. We do all that
to catch fleeting glimpses of Christ in our midst. It is an enacting of
our sacrament of holy communion.
`
We know, however, that this story is not the one told in our wider culture—a
culture steeped in profit margin, war, and violence. This is the forest
we have grown over the years, tended, and nurtured, and prepared for.
Time and time again throughout history the story is told that the rich and
powerful prevail. The strong survive. The weak perish. Those
with the most toys, tanks, and guns win.
And what that story has created in the world is inhuman; it is the sea
monsters battling under the sea robbing the hopes of our children, robbing us
of our children!
This is the last Sunday in the Easter season leading up to Pentecost
Sunday. During this Easter Season time we are told and retold stories
that remind us which story, in our tradition, is to be believed. Empire
and the violent death that accompany it do not have the last word. The
rich and the powerful do not prevail. No, they are creating a world we
can now see is dying and hanging onto its last breath with ever-greater violence. The world is woven together on the backstrap
loom of compassion and justice. We share
in the beauty and the bread provided for us by a just and compassionate God, a
God who grieves, so that we might be called God’s just and compassionate
people.
We need to repeat those Easter stories time and time again because the other story is so thick out in the wider world, that forest. That forest is filled with rot and desiccation, has shown itself to be deadly and lacking. That story is being told over and over again. The rich and the powerful prevail. Those with the most toys, tanks, guns win. We prepare for war. We hold tight. Circle the wagons. Hoard and keep all of our stuff. What is mine is mine. As long as we are morally fit, we are good. Protect only the interest of our children and our children’s children. Justify striking out in fear to maintain our place in the world. That story has so infected us that resurrection has become a revenge story.
And it is not. Resurrection is not a revenge story. It is a story deeply rooted in an acknowledge grief and trauma that courageously picks up the pieces to weave and darn something new. We are in the Easter season, but we are a pilgrim people always on the way from Good Friday to a place we might call home--that radiates out hospitality. Along comes this stranger who accompanies and wants to hear our story of pain. And so we grieve, we speak the names of the dead who have died senselessly at the hand of cruelty and violence. This stranger explains to us that this is how the imperial story always begins, how it is always told, but it is not how it has to end.
Something in us knows that this stranger has something for us, makes us burn from within. And in keeping with who we know ourselves to be as people of faith, we invite the stranger to a meal, grant hospitality. Only by granting the stranger hospitality, do we recognize Christ in divine actions--blessing, breaking, sharing.
That is our deep, deep, deep story—accompaniment with the lost and binding up the brokenhearted-grieving- telling God’s story, granting hospitality, and blessing, breaking, and sharing bread. How often will we have to repeat it before it becomes who we are in the world? How often do we have to repeat it before it becomes a part of our bloodstream, our spirituality, our politics, our economics, till we have grown a new grove, a new forest?
That
has been the promise of resurrection throughout this whole Easter season—a
reminder that God’s tears fall to the ground with ours, Christ accompanies us
on this journey, and shows up when we grant hospitality to the stranger to bless,
break, and share bread all over again. Love
endures. Again, early Christian scholar,
John Dominic Crossan said, “Emmaus never happened.” The road to Emmaus story was not a historical
event. But, as a person of faith,
someone who knows the power of that story, Crossan says, “Emmaus always
happens.” Emmaus always happens. May we, as people of faith, prepare the way,
grow the grove, and nurture that forest.
Emmaus always happens.. Amen.
[1] Billy Nessen, “Report from
the Donbas: Shelling Intensifies in Severodonetsk as Russia Moves to Capture
Key City,” Democracy Now! May 27,
2022. https://www.democracynow.org/2022/5/27/russian_eastern_ukraine_severodonetsk_shelling_donbas.
[2] An individual response to a systemic problem is the height of white
supremacy. Racism, xenophobia, patriarchy, cisnormativity, homophobia, ableism,
are all systems of oppression, not individual choices. It’s a grove, a forest,
not a bad apple.~Joseph M. Pierce, Cherokee, Associate
Professor, Stony Brook University.
[3]
Jim Rice,
“Against the Zeitgeist,” Sojourners, June 2022, p. 9.
[4]
Dwight D. Eisenhower,
From the Chance for Peace address delivered before the American Society of
Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953. https://www.nps.gov/features/eise/jrranger/quotes2.htm.
[5]
Rabbi
Sharon Brous, “The spirit of Sodom live:
Reflections from the border,” ikar, November 16, 2019, https://ikar-la.org/sermons/the-spirit-of-sodom-lives-reflections-from-the-border-rabbi-sharon-brous/.
[6] Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and
Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), pp. 29-30. Under the
leadership of Quinctilius Varus, Roman legions would not have only destroyed
cities like Sepphoris and Hertowns like Emmaus, but also rural villages
like Nazareth. Horsley believes Gallileans and Judeans would have
experienced incredible trauma from the mass killings and enslavement.
[7] As John Dominic Crossan says about the road to
Emmaus story and the point it makes: “Resurrection is not enough.
You still need scripture and eucharist, tradition and table; community and
justice; otherwise, divine presence goes unrecognized and divine presence goes
unnoticed.” The Birth of Christianity: Discovering what
happened in the years immediately after the execution of Jesus (New
York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1999), p. xi.
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