Pearls of Peace

PEARLS OF PEACE

"No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it." - Aristotle

1 Peter 3:13-18

"When our hatred is violent, it sinks us even beneath those we hate." - Rochfoucauld

Matthew 5:21-22

"The test of every religious, political or educational system is the person that it forms." - Amiel

Matthew 7:15-20

"Difficulties show people what they are. In case of any difficulty, God has pitted you against a rough antagonist that you may be a conqueror, and this cannot be without toil." - Epictetus

Romans 5:1-5

There is an old oral tradition among the Jews called "stringing pearls." When a speaker is "stringing pearls," he or she is taking separate pearls of wisdom and stringing them together on a single strand. The book of Proverbs is "stringing pearls," and some believe that Jesus' Sermon on the Mount also follows in that tradition. It doesn't hang together in the way we would understand a sermon, but it is a collection of thoughts that are strung together one after another, all hanging on the strand of God.

That is the tradition I am calling on this morning as we remember last September and all the things that have been said and done in its wake. I'm not sure that my own thoughts can rightly be called "pearls," but I do offer a string of pearls from the wisdom of others, and want to focus my own reflections around four quotes from secular literature, each of which is paired with a quote from Scripture that I believe expresses much of the same thing.

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I. The first quote is from Aristotle: "No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it."

The first Scripture passage is from 1 Peter 3:13-18. "Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing goo, if suffering should be God's will, than to suffer for doing evil."

I have to say first that I don't think either of these writers is trying to glorify suffering. Sometimes the passage in Peter has been used by cruel people to insist that the people they are harming should just bear up under their cruelty and not do anything about it.. This is a passage that was wrongly used to demand the submission of slaves and it has also been used to keep an abused spouse in line. Those are gross misuses of Scripture, and is a frightful offense against the love of God.

What the passage does want to insist, however, is that if you end up on the suffering end of the stick for whatever reason, it is far better to be there unjustly than it is to be suffering as a consequence of our own sin. On the one hand, we can probably deal better with our suffering when we know we have caused it by our own sin or stupidity...at least I can. When I start to cry out "Why me?" I suddenly think... "Oh yeah...that's why me. I did this to myself."

But when I have done nothing to deserve my miserable fate...when I have done everything right and gotten persecuted for it anyway, that is the really difficult time for me when I have to ask myself if it is all worth it. The answer of both Aristotle and Peter is that...yes, it is worth it. It is better to be a good person, a righteous person, a person of moral courage, than it is to be a scoundrel. Not because doing the right thing keeps you out of trouble...it doesn't...but because it is better for your soul.

Their advice is something to bear in mind this September. Last September 11, hijackers and firefighters died together. Neither escaped suffering. Neither escaped death. One died trying to kill. One died trying to save. Which is better? "No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it," said Aristotle. "It is better to suffer for doing good than to suffer for doing evil," said Peter. They are both right.

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II. La Rochfoucauld reminds us, "When our hatred is violent, it sinks us even beneath those we hate."

Jesus reminds us in Matthew 5:21-22, "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire."

Hatred and violence are linked at a very deep level. Violence is the natural outlet of hate that is left unchecked and unchanged, and both of these sources remind us that violence is about the lowest, basest response we can have to a situation. When we become violent out of hatred, our violence can never be justified. It is automatically unrighteous. Why? Because 1 John tells us that God is love. To act with hate is to act outside of the nature of God. An act of hate cannot be the will of God.

Jesus did not say, "Hate your enemies," as understandable as that might be. Neither did he say that it was wrong to have enemies. Enemies seem to be a given in life. Jesus said, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Before last September, we didn't really think that much about enemies, except maybe in an individual sense. But now the talk is everywhere and our government is currently debating what we should do to our enemies. I do believe that Saddam Hussein is an enemy of ours. More than that, he seems to be an enemy to his own people. But let's put Jesus at the helm for a moment. If Jesus were calling the shots, how would He deal with Saddam?

How I pray that in this country we will be careful with our hate. Why do we seek to stir it up both here and abroad? It can only lead to violence...which leads to more hate...which leads to more violence. When our hatred turns violent, are we any better than those we hate? If we bomb the Iraqi people, are we better than hijackers who crash planes into towers of working Americans? "No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it." "When our hatred is violent, it sinks us even beneath those we hate."

To my mind, when the first pre-emptive bomb falls on Iraq, we may as well take the line out of the pledge of allegiance. We will no longer be "one nation, under God."

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III. According to Amiel, "The test of every religious, political or educational system is the person that it forms."

Jesus echoes that thought in Matthew 7:15-20. "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits."

For over a thousand years now, Protestants and Catholics have been arguing about whether faith or works are most important to our salvation. I guess I'm just dense, but I've never understood the problem. To me, the relationship between faith and works is made perfectly plain in Jesus' little pearl of wisdom about fruit. In essence, you will know what someone believes by looking at what that person does. What is truly in our heart comes out in what we do.

"You will know them by their fruits." "The test of every religious, political or educational system is the person that it forms." If students graduate from high school without basic skills, we are right to say there is something wrong with the educational system. The fruit is not what it should be. If our elected officials are ridden with scandal, there is something amiss in the political system. And if people who call themselves Christians live no differently than those who do not, there is something wrong with our religious system.

Last year, on the Sunday after Sept. 11, the church was full of new faces. At a time of crisis, other fruit did not seem to satisfy and they came looking to a new tree to find the thing they craved. Some of you stayed, others did not. We must always be mindful of the fruit that we produce, both as individuals and as a church. September 11 was the church's moment...suddenly everybody prayed, everyone turned to the ancient institution which had always proclaimed that comfort and hope could be found there. There was no time for the church to prepare, anymore than there was time for the country to prepare for the disaster. It came upon us, and we were either ready or not...the fruit was either ripe and ready or it was not.

The most important work of this church or any church is fruit-production. Making disciples is simply making branches that produce good fruit. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, and if our branches are not producing fruit to feed a starving world, then we may as well be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Someone new may walk in on a Sunday morning coming from incredible trauma and pain. They might come and sit on your branch. They might not have the energy to go to another branch...will they find what they need on yours? My dream and my goal is that anyone who walks into this building could find nourishing and life-giving fruit on every branch. I can see that the tree of the church would have large, full branches that simply cannot be contained within these walls...they would reach out across Dover, across the Seacoast, even across the world, hanging the fruit of God low enough for even the smallest child to reach. "You will know them by their fruit."

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IV. The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus once said, "Difficulties show people what they are. In case of any difficulty, God has pitted you against a rough antagonist that you may be a conqueror, and this cannot be without toil."

Paul shows in more detail how our difficulties shape us in Romans 5:1-5. "Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whome we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces characeter, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."

If you have ever grown fruit trees, you know that good fruit doesn't come easily, and neither does the fruit of our faith. If simply saying, "I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior" were able to automatically make us strong, perfect Christians, then the Kingdom of God would have been perfected among us long ago. Our move into faith is just the beginning.. It is the beginning of a journey that has joys and rewards like no other. But those joys and rewards are only achieved through putting in the disciplined hard work required to produce good fruit. As we saw a couple of weeks ago, that road at some point always leads through the desert, where the strength and flexibility of our branches are tried and tested...right up to the breaking point. But that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

Hope is the end-product because once you have gotten through a time of suffering, you know that...however painful it was...you do get through and come out on the other side. With that little bit of confidence, the next trial becomes a little easier...not because the suffering is less, necessarily, but because instead of despairing that all is lost, you can enter it with hope. You know that you will come out stronger somehow, that you will be able to use your experience later to help others, and that there will be better days again. Our hope is anchored in our faith that God is love and that love cannot and will not give us more than we can bear.

We went through a lot last September...we went through a lot as a nation and each of us had our own struggles as individuals. But we came through. Insofar as we faced the situation directly and wrestled with the issues and questions it brought in light of our faith, we are stronger for it. Something on that magnitude or greater may happen again. Next time it might touch us more directly or less so. But by pulling together we got through it once, and we now have the hope that by pulling together we can get through it again...even if the challenge is greater than the last.

Hope is the last pearl on the strand, because our hope is only realized when we have lived the truth of the other three pearls...that it is better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil, that when our hatred is violent, we sink even beneath those we hate, and that our faith will be shown by the fruit we produce, especially by the actions evidenced when we are in the crucible of suffering. If we can lovingly place all four of those pearls on a strand, I believe we will be well on our way to finding the great jewel of peace on earth.

Amen.

© 2002, Anne Robertson

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