GRACE, MERCY AND PEACE. It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes. I don t know whether or not

Transcription

1 GRACE, MERCY AND PEACE 1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19 It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes. I don t know whether or not soldiers dig foxholes to protect themselves in today s warfare, but there was a time when a hastily dug hole, called a foxhole, would be a soldier s desperate refuge against enemy fire, a last ditch (if you will allow the pun) effort to avoid being shot when caught in the line of fire on an open battlefield. Surely it was a strategy more common to warfare in the two World Wars and in the Civil War from which derives our Memorial Day observances. The expression, There are no atheists in foxholes was meant, of course, to suggest that in the face of a battlefield threat to life and limb such as would force a soldier to resort to digging a foxhole for himself, even non-believers look to God for their help. A soldier pinned down in a foxhole would conceivably have time, though maybe not much, to consider how desperate his options are and pray as a last resort for mercy from above. Hence, the expression. In the case of millions of dead soldiers, that mercy would not save their lives, whatever else the prayer might do for them. In the 17 th chapter of the Gospel of John, there is a long section that is known as Jesus high priestly prayer. Part of this prayer is our Lesson for today. Aware that his days are numbered, Jesus prays for his disciples, commending them to God, commending God to them, insofar as we who are reading this prayer are also Jesus disciples who are being told who Jesus is and who God is for him. There is no reason to believe that Jesus actually said these words. St. John puts these words into Jesus mouth to tell us who he 1

2 believes Jesus is and what his life and teachings mean. The Gospel of John is written some 70 years after Jesus crucifixion and is most concerned with making the case for Jesus divine nature and his oneness with God, and in making a witness to Jesus as God s divine Son, to show the way to eternal life that is promised in Jesus name. We see a similar intent in the First Letter of John, and this similarity is one of the reasons that some scholars think that this Letter is from the same hand that wrote the Gospel, both of which are called by the name John. We read in the Letter, God gave us eternal life, and this life is in God s Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. Would this be a message that would be of comfort to a soldier in a foxhole? If that soldier were looking to God to save him from imminent death, I would say no. There is nothing in Jesus prayer in the Gospel of John or in our Lesson from the First Letter of John to suggest that God will step in and wrench one out of the jaws of death. On the contrary, in the Gospel, Jesus prayer is made not long before he dies on the cross and is a kind of last will and testament on behalf of the disciples. He was not spared crucifixion and death. The soldier should expect no better treatment than Jesus received. If there are no atheists in foxholes and this is because the fear of death in such circumstances drives one to God for help, whatever that help is, that help would not seem to be protection against death. Nor, so far as I can see, is the life that John is promising in Jesus an after-life, going off to heaven after death. There may be an afterlife or there may not be an afterlife. But either way, this is not John s topic and is, in any case, something that is entirely in the hands of God and out of our control. So, if we re going to get to the end of this sermon together, I encourage you to put aside all notions about 2

3 afterlife and concentrate with me on what it is that John is talking about, which is eternal life. In the Gospel of John, we read, I [meaning Jesus] am not asking you [meaning God] to take them [meaning his disciples] out of the world but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. What is Jesus talking about? The difficulty hinges here on the word world. What Jesus means by world is not the earth or the realm of nature or the physical universe. He is not talking about a place. The world for Jesus in the Gospel of John is wherever ignorance and selfishness and cruelty reign, or, to state this more broadly, the condition of living in bondage to sin. As a case in point on this Memorial Day Weekend, the world is where wars are made. Can there be any greater example of sin than that we are willing to make war on one another, to commit organized and legalized carnage against our fellow human beings? If soldiers and armies and weapons are necessary to defend against soldiers and armies and weapons, this does not mean that it is not a tragedy and sin that there are soldiers and armies and weapons in the world. The violence of war is unmitigated evil, even if wars must at times be fought. Not that wars are ever necessary. Our last justifiable war, the last war which could be defended as morally responsible in light of the horrors of Nazism, was World War II. But there was no necessity for World War II except that a terrible peace had been made after World War I, a peace that served the interests of the victors of that war us and our allies and sowed the seeds for Hitler s rise to power in a Germany which was destitute and anti-semitic, and primed for the ideas of racially reordering Europe and dominating the world. The evil of war murder, rape, theft, 3

4 wanton destruction, unending trauma is the clearest evidence of the sinful condition that St. John calls the world. When Jesus says that his disciples do not belong to the world as he does not belong to the world, he is appealing to a higher truth than that which makes war and justifies war and which is the way of the world. In other words, Jesus is talking about another way of living, one that is above the world where war is made and justified as necessary. He s not talking about the planet when he says world Jesus didn t know that he was living on a planet nor was he making a distinction between the physical life we are living on Earth and a spiritual life in a place called Heaven. He is talking about two different ways of living our lives, one which is driven by the forces of fear and selfishness and violence, and one which is devoted to grace and mercy and peace. The truth of God s word makes us holy if we will heed it. This is not a holiness that is out of this world, but is rather holy living in this world. Sanctify them in the truth, says Jesus. The word sanctify means to make holy where holy is the life of grace and mercy and peace that Christians find portrayed in the teachings and life of Jesus. The truth that makes holy is the truth that inspires one to live as Christ to her or his neighbor in the world. Jesus prays his followers will do that. Back to the foxhole. Bullets are whizzing overhead. The soldier presses himself into the earth. Death is everywhere around him. He is not a religious man. He knows nothing of St. John s Gospel, little or nothing of Jesus. He is not at this moment the least bit concerned about questions of truth. In all likelihood, he is going to die and in fear and panic and despair he looks momentarily to God whom he may be thinking of as a big father in the sky who has power no mortal person has to do something for him now that there is little he can do for himself. Raw terror the prayer: God, help me! 4

5 Jesus prayer for his disciples: God help them! He is praying for their lives, not that they be rescued from death, but that they be rescued from a living death of pointless living, that they would be inspired by a higher truth, a holy truth to live lives of grace and mercy and peace until at last swords have been beaten into plowshares and there is peace on earth and goodwill for all. To live in this way is, according to Jesus, to enter eternal life, life-in-god, life that is always true, life that is in the world but that is not of the world, or, in the spirit of Easter, resurrected life. Christ is risen! Amen. Seventh Sunday after Easter, May 24, 2009 Emanuel Lutheran Church 5