A Time for War

The news has not been good in recent weeks.

Many of us try to avoid seeing the suffering and killing,

the death and destruction in Ukraine.

We turned away from similar horrors in Syria a few years ago. 

This feels different. 

The victims look more like us, and dress like us; 

        they are mostly Christian like us.

But in the current case we feel somehow betrayed because in 70 years 

        we have not seen an invasion for conquest of one country by another; at least not in Europe.

And America has not been innocent.
We just ended our longest war of all, in Afghanistan.
We invaded there to assert our will, as we had done in Vietnam and Iraq,
and if we are to criticize Russia, 
we have to admit that we were wrong in those “actions.”
Both Russians and Americans are more comfortable killing from far away
than up close.
And the threat of nuclear and chemical war is now spoken of as possible,
and we forget that the US is the only country so far 
to use nuclear weapons.

When I began writing my autobiography 
I thought that maybe a major theme of my life would be peacemaking.
I became Christian and entered seminary because of our war in Vietnam.
I have been opposed to wars and at different times 
a member of various peace groups.
In my book I wrote of my childhood fear of nuclear war.

As I finished writing my autobiography I realized that 
peacemaking had been a small part of my life, 
but that wars were the constant.
Some of you like me were born during or before WWII.
Then there was Korea, then the Cuban revolution and the missle crisis there,
then Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, 
various smaller wars in Nicaragua and Africa,
Bosnia, then Syria, and now Ukraine. 
Wars have been the bookends and the constant background of our lives.
But we have enjoyed peace.

Or have we?
When I thought about the context of my life, 
I realized we have not had peace in America.
We had a Civil War over slavery and whether we would remain 
a single nation where all are free.
We started a war with Spain and took Cuba, Puerto Rico, 
Guam and the Philippines from them.
We fought a world war to make the world safe for democracy, 
but that didn’t work well.
We fought WWII with Russia or rather the Soviet Union on our side, 
and while Hitler was defeated,
we ended with a divided Europe, a divided world, 
under the threat of nuclear annihilation.
And now China has become perhaps the greatest threat to freedom and peace in the world.

The world wars and conflicts outside our borders 
deflect and distract from our view the terrible divisions and conflicts
within our own country.
Our disputes and conflicts among parties and groups today have their roots 
in our war for independence.
States rights, what government can and cannot do, 
whether the rich and powerful will rule, 
and whether slavery would be allowed:
These things are there, baked in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
And so we forget the racial warfare, the lynchings, 
the destruction of whole towns in the south, the riots in our cities 
that have been a part of our national history 
for more than two centuries.
We forget the labor strife of the 1880's through the Depression,
the attacks on Hispanics and Asians through all this history;
the mass deportations of Latinos 
and the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during WWII.
We forget the attacks on women who wanted to vote 
and have a right to choose not to have a child.
We forget the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma
and many want us to forget the assault on the Capitol building 
Jan. 6, 2021.

I name all of these facts of history to illustrate
that we have always had 
and probably always will have conflict and war.
"There is a time for war, and a time for peace."
Life will always be a conflict over truth, what is right and wrong,
who shall get their way, and how we shall live.
Life will always be a choice between what is just and what is unjust.
Yet we have hope that swords will be beaten into plows.

But those who make war on others say, in the words of Isaiah:
“We have made a covenant with death,
    and with Sheol we have an agreement;
when the overwhelming scourge passes through
    it will not come to us;
for we have made lies our refuge,
    and in falsehood we have taken shelter”

I preach these things today partly because too many people
on the left and right are saying that our president is doing too little
and that we should provide a “No Fly Zone” over Ukraine
maybe with jets provided by Poland or other countries
or maybe with our own planes.
This, it is said, will stop or slow down the brutal destruction 
of the country and its people.
I worry sometimes that the news media could lead us 
into another foolish war.

I conclude in my book that love and justice 
are above and beyond everything else. 
We give the name “God” to whatever lies behind justice and love.
“Justice is God” and “Love is God” come close to my creed today.
And yet justice has its limits.
We may wish to be right and just, 
but our actions will always have consequences, 
and as Obama said when contemplating action in Syria, 
                ` “I wish to avoid serious unintended consequences.”
This is a warning to us if we contemplate getting involved 
in the war in Ukraine:
A writer in the NYTimes yesterday [Tanner Greer]:
“Any realistic assessment of the policy options 
available to the Western powers 
must begin with a sober appraisal of the situation on the ground — 
even if that means contemplating a settlement 
that falls short of justice.” 

I don’t want anything short of justice.
Some of the psalms pray for the destruction of enemies,
“...destroy all my adversaries, for I am your servant.”
Like the writers of those psalms 
if I could convince an interventionist God to destroy the Russian army, I would.

But I want to tell you a story:
A campus minister invited me to speak at an anti-war event in 1980
at Rider College in Trenton NJ. 
I showed up for what became a debate between me and a history professor, 
who argued that the Soviet Union represented Communist ultimate evil. Fortunately, I had studied some Russian and Russian history 
and was quick to explain that “Russian” regional interests 
of expanding westward and southward 
were the same nationalist goals of the czars, 
and not new evil, ideological, communist goals. 
As the debate moved on, I sensed soon that I was in the weeds 
and that the professor had a much deeper well of data to draw from. Then I remembered who I was, and I spoke as a Christian minister, 
a follower of Jesus and the prophets, 
who was there to witness to justice and peace 
against zealous nationalism that would justify more nuclear warheads. 
So I said:
Jesus told us that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.
Jesus taught us not to resist violently against those who are evil.
Jesus taught us to love our enemies and to be peacemakers.”
I appealed to a spiritual approach to life
rather than a purely rational calculation 
of threats and counter-threats by world powers.
Students afterward told me that they thought I had “won” the debate.

It may be a shock, but the earliest communities of Jesus followers were pacifists,
because of the teachings of Jesus I read this morning.
If you turn the other cheek you may get beaten to death,
but the person who beats you wants an excuse to beat you more.
Fighting back would be that excuse.
We saw examples of this on television this week when we saw 
small crowds of Ukrainians stopping a tank by standing in front of it
and shouting “Go home!”
This what MLK called “non-violent resistance.”
He learned that from Ghandi, who used such tactics 
to drive the British out of India.
Most people think pacifism is “non-violent non-confrontation” 
or “passive non-violence.”
Jesus non-violent, but resistant.
So he said: “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.”
Roman soldiers were required not to force a citizen 
to carry something more than one mile.
So Jesus said, “Insist on carrying the burden 2 miles 
and make it hard for them to ask you for anything.”

A reality in the gospels is that if you love your enemies, 
they are no longer your enemies.
We are right not to think ill of the Russian people.
They are not our enemies; 
the leaders and oligarchs are enemies enough.
If we were to enter the war, the Russian people would see us as their enemies.
They would be galvanized behind Putin and against us as he wants.

Yes, I would like to destroy Russia’s army,
but there would be unintended consequences 
that probably would not lead to greater justice and a more sure peace.
The justice that is God will have to wait.
Ukraine will lose much in this war.
I would like to see Russia rebuild Ukraine and pay 
for the damages and death it is inflicting, but that is unlikely to happen.

None of us and none of the commentators on TV, or the generals, or those in the WH, 

        or the Capitol know what will happen next, 

                or what terrible decisions they will be required to make.
We can only hope that they maintain their peaceableness, 
that they hold fast to their love 
and the high value they give to justice,
                        and not do anything stupid.
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Prayer:
In our peace and prosperity, our wanting for nothing, 
in our choices of which clothing or shoes or foods or cars 
or houses or tvs or couches or recliners to buy,
we stop and in this moment, perhaps in many moments,
We try to imagine what it would be to flee from our homes, 
to leave our country knowning not where we will land.
We try to imagine what it would be to stay in cities and villages 
targeted by bombs and artillery and rockets, 
not knowing where they will land.
Will it be near us or on us?
We try to imagine learning to shoot and the smells of gasoline 
to be mixed with soap poured in beer bottles, stuffing them with rags.
Our minds and our hearts are with those we love and know who suffer, 

        but also with those in Ukraine who flee and those who stay,
who need food and water and shelter and showers, 
who need strength to go on while grieving .
We seek healing of all the differences that divide us 
and all people from one another.
We want to transcend desires for revenge.
We desire wisdom to act in ways that will bring justice 
and an end to hostilities, 
and wisdom to face up to the endless problems that we make for ourselves.