Ghost Ranch 2007 Week of Peace

Ghost Ranch 2007
Week of Peace, Global Justice and Creation

For a listing of all our stories from the Week of Peace >>

Worship and the Word for the Week - Page 2
For earlier worship services >>

Dr. Larry Rasmussen looks through the Christian rite of baptism to help us understand the water that renews and sustains all of human life -- and the shows how we are now at a "tipping point" in the relation between human efforts at domination and the realities of "the great economy of creation."
[8-7-07]

Larry Rasmussen

Week of Peace, Global Justice and Creation
Ghost Ranch, New Mexico
Thursday, August 2, 2007

2 Corinthians 5:17

The Baptized Life¹

Here is Paul’s word to us in 2 Cor. 5:17: “When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world; the old order has gone, and a new order has already begun.”

Ours is a thrilling, dangerous moment for the baptized life. We stand, a bit off-balance, at two “tipping points.” The “great transformation”² of Earth-human relations set in motion with the fossil fuel avalanche of the Industrial Revolution creates the first tipping point. It pits the big human economy against the great economy of creation. That transformation transported generation upon generation from “an organic, ever-renewing, land-based economy to an extractive, non-renewing, industrial economy”, the one now reigning as “a controlling presence throughout the entire planet.”³ While some of the human world grew rich beyond imagining, the biosphere and atmosphere were fatefully altered. Stored energy in the form of fossil fuels meant that great numbers of humans no longer needed to live in sync with the rhythms and requirements of the renewables—with solar and hydrological cycles, or the imperatives of fickle seasons, lazy flora and unimproved fauna. Stored energy let us conjure up a built environment to replace our more immediate dependence upon the unbuilt environment, or so we thought. “City” replaced “country” and “organization” displaced “nature” as our environment, our habitat, our home.

The churches’ ministries tagged along, as though on a leash. How many of your ministries are not carbon-based? How many are automobile-free, air-conditioner-free and fast-food free? How many of your churches have not moved all sacred space indoors? Clergy, your ordination vows did not include, “Before God and this community, I pledge myself to fossil-fuel ministry,” but that’s the pledge you made.

But now we are at that “transitional moment when small changes make huge differences” and “predictable processes” give way to unpredictable, non-linear outcomes.⁴ A couple degrees warmer and liquid turns to steam, a couple degrees cooler and it turns to ice, though all the while we thought our ministries would never leave the liquid state of our baptisms.

Thomas Edison once chatted up Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, and this is what Edison said: “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”⁵ Ford and Firestone (i.e., cars and tires, smokestacks and tailpipes) were admittedly a poor choice of audience. Edison badly underestimated what oil, coal, and natural gas made possible, and the sun did not. None, including Edison, could resist the fossil fuel interlude.

But the downside is way up now and we are of hard necessity at another tipping point, poised for an ecological reformation, poised for “a root change in human outlook” and practice, poised for a “spiritual phase transition”⁶ that effects a counter tipping point, a tip toward Earth-honoring faith rather than Earth-abusing faith.

But who are we, the baptized, in this thrilling and dangerous moment? ‘Fess up: we are Joseph the dreamer, and we are rebuked by the brothers who say, “Here comes [the] dreamer” again (Gen. 37:19). Moreover, we find ourselves dreaming in Egypt where we, too, may well be prospering in Pharaoh’s court, or trying to do so, happily seduced by the glitter and glamour of evil and fortune. Yet “way down in Egypt Land” is not our true habitat and these good neighbors are not the pilgrim people to whom we belong. So we sure sinners dream on, dreaming of the divine domain come on Earth as it is in heaven. We dream of the new order already begun amidst the old.

The brothers said, “Here comes the dreamer.” We are Joseph and this we know. We have been here before with the ancestors, through other reformations and transformations. We dreamed different dreams then, but they, too, were dreams of faith.

This time we dream of Ecumenical and Ecological Earth. And we dream of the baptized life as Earth-honoring faith.

“The baptized life”…so of course we must talk of water, the waters of life of baptism and the waters of life of the planet.

What is the substance of baptism? How do the waters of life both capture and forge the way of discipleship? Is being water washed and Spirit borne, and “remembering our baptism” with wet branches waved over the congregation, a quiet formation of moral orientation and courage? Consider this. Paul has to explain his innovative missionary policy of Jews and Gentiles in community together on terms that honor the outsiders as insiders. In 2 Cor. 5:17 he does so in the words of our text: “When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world; the old order has gone, and a new order has already begun.” (New English Bible) Baptism is the focal practice that celebrates this new world in which the previous ethnic identities and the inherited social definitions are both transcended and eliminated in Christ. Paul to the Galatians could hardly be more explicit about baptism initiating a new people by crossing and canceling the boundaries that the world insists upon: “Baptized in Christ, you are clothed in Christ, and there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, neither male nor female; you are all one in Christ Jesus.” [Yoder’s trans. of Gal. 3: 27, 28, p. 29 of Body Politics] This baptism of both Jews and Gentiles in one community is itself an improvisation on a Jewish practice, and it initiates what Paul deems a “new creation.” It is one in which, according to the letter to the Ephesians, enmity as the dividing wall between peoples is broken down and peace is made, now in the form of a new multi-ethnic community, named “a new humanity” in Christ (Eph. 2: 14,15). And don’t overlook that this new human reality is the church’s message to “the principalities and powers” of the way of God. (3:10). In different words, baptism celebrates and effects the concrete community alternative to empire and empire’s rule by division. Empires use differences (Jew/Gentile, male/female, slave/free) to separate people, set them against one another, and rule them. In baptism the new status is a new kind of social relationship that overarches the difference in a new unity, an “oikumene” embodied as a “contrast society” to empire. A multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, multi-cultural humanity on equal terms, with shared leadership, but no army, in contrast to hegemony and privilege and the projection of military and economic power. [Yoder, 30] I only add what we all know, how baptism and discipleship went wildly wrong when Christianity itself decided to ally its fate and its faith with empire. Then faith ends up mimicking empire and baptism is stood on its head and baptism becomes the means to exclusive membership in the only true imperial faith, Christianity, rather than the new order begun in the midst of the old. What was to be a Torah community of Jews and Gentiles became, with Constantine’s sword and Charlemagne’s offer few could refuse (“Be baptized or die!”), became murderous of the Jews and numerous other communities of outsiders over the centuries. So perhaps we cannot any longer even sense the profound moral substance of baptism as reconciling, community-creating, inter-ethnic unity on egalitarian and nonviolent terms. The divisive distinctions that separate and set people against one another are to be gone, yet the richness of differences of culture, language, art, and personal gifts remain. Prior stratifications and classifications that treat the “other” as alien—these are washed away in a new covenant of interethnic and multicultural inclusiveness and justice. [Yoder, 32-34] These waters of life birth the discipleship of this new “public,” the ekklesia.

But is “the water of life” no more than a metaphor? What about the literal waters of life so many are deprived of? Are there neglected dimensions of baptism we best attend to now, for our tipping-point time?

Perhaps you know the scene in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead where the old pastor writes this. “You and Tobias are hopping around in the sprinkler. The sprinkler is a magnificent invention because it exposes raindrops to sunshine. That does occur in nature, but it is rare. When I was in seminary I used to go sometimes to the Baptists down at the river. It was something to see the preacher lifting the one who was being baptized up out of the water and the water pouring off the garments and the hair. It did look like a birth or a resurrection. For us the water just heightens the touch of the pastor’s hand on the sweet bones of the head, sort of like making an electrical connection. I’ve always loved to baptize people, though I have sometimes wished there were more shimmer and splash involved in the way we go about it. Well, but you two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour, whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water.”⁷

The waters of life. Sane people should do some good whooping and stomping, with a little shimmer and splash, when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water! You were born in it, your mother’s warm womb waters, and it’s surer than taxes that that you die without it. Millions have lived without love, no critter in all creation has lived without water. Life itself likely emerged from the waters of the sea, and most life is still in the salty brine. Water births, it cleanses and purifies, it heals, it revives, it transports, it rains down and wells up. The planet, in fact, should be dubbed “Water,” not “Earth,” since it’s 70% H2O. And all the rest—that other 30%—depends utterly on this miniscule molecule sent from heaven above.

The waters of life. When will you know that God has been raptured to Earth and the New Jerusalem has descended from heaven? Not when houses of worship are planted on every corner. There is no temple in that redeemed city, as there was no temple in Eden—no “minstrel show of hate,” “no sanctimonious piety,” no “bruised and bloody grass,”⁸ and no empire. There is the throne of God and “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” (Rev. 22: 1-2, echoing Ezekiel)

“[F]lowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb,” the baptized Lamb, baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptizer. And did you know that just as you breathe the same air Jesus did, so, too, you were baptized in the same water as Jesus the Lamb, just a different river or a different Samaritan well. The sum of water has been fixed since prehistoric times, far longer than we late-arrivers have been spilling it, splashing in it, and baptizing with it. So be forewarned: Jehovah’s not making any more of the waters of life.

I am not by nature an alarmist—Lutherans don’t get alarmed, they just go quiet and take to prayer and choral music and beer. But I live in the droughted Southwest. No one is towing melting icecaps to Santa Fe, and I can sense Edna Jacques’ lament from the Dirty Thirties:

The crop has failed again, the wind and sun
Dried out the stubble first, then one by one
The strips of summerfallow, seared with heat,
Crunched, like old fallen leaves, our lovely wheat,
The garden is a dreary blighted waste,
The very air is gritty to the taste…⁹

Yet we, the thirsty, gather in worship in Santa Fe. Here is a Call to Worship in our congregation.

We gather to worship God, the Lord and Giver of Life.
    God gives us the waters of life.
In the deserts of our lives, in the wilderness within,
    God gives us the waters of life.
To give us hope when our lives run dry, to give us strength when our world seems barren,
    God gives us the waters of life.
To let peace flow like a river and love spring forth like a fountain,
    God gives us the waters of life.
To make justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everlasting stream,
    God gives us the water of life.

And here is what greets us in the sanctuary:

The nave on one side is a wall of glass, adobe mud brick, and timbers. It is the eye’s passageway into the high mountain desert of which the sanctuary is a part: piñons and juniper scatter themselves across sandy loam like the sower’s seed on arid ground; chamisa and cottonwoods await the next rush of rain in the arroyo; the Sangre de Christo Mountains rise close in; and the desert Sun floods yellow into the sanctuary. The sunrays glisten at the base of the glass, dancing on the moving water that runs the full length of the eastern wall. That long trough is the baptismal font, if “font” isn’t too feeble a word for an acequia, the desert irrigation ditch of a thousand years of Pueblo Indian peoples and four hundred years of Hispanic and Latino/a farmers in this valley. Acequias bear waters of life to this day. The desert blooms along them like an Isaiah vision. Without them, we do not eat or laugh.

The waters of life of the font and the acequia waters flowing in the desert: something sacred, something essential from womb to tomb, is borne by the waters precisely as water, and our bodies know it in every watery cell. It is the Creator’s presence, incarnate and full of life.

So, friends, will the ministries gathered in this place today become that second tipping point, creating, with the grace of God, a way of life that is set, like a bulwark never failing, against the slow tsunami of planetary degradation? Will our spirits and deeds join the ecological reformation for a different Earth-human community? Will we Joseph dreamers be Joseph the wise dreamer who, yes, right in the midst of Pharaoh’s court, conserves and preserves Earth’s bounty in the fat years so as to sustain Earth’s life in the lean years?

For this is where our lives are now, trembling in the balance between two tipping points in what will be the century of the environment, the century of religion, and the century of the economy. One tipping point is physical and social change of, well, biblical proportions. It is geophysical change bearing a strong human imprint and it is underway. The other tipping point is our long-delayed conversion to Earth-honoring faith for the century of the environment, of the economy, and of religion.

I close with words lifted from the sermon of a pastor friend in Virginia. Let the clean water of baptism “wash away any indifference you have, any despair you feel, any fear which clouds your vision. And let it symbolize the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon a transformed people. Let it remind us of the thirst of the earth and the thirst of the people in many parts of the world who live parched lives. Let it remind us of the dream of children to dance and bathe and drink clean water. Let it remind us of the promise of scripture that streams will break forth in the desert, and that the river of the water of death will be replaced by the river of the water of life.”¹⁰

So there it is: the throne of God in the midst of the city, with the rivers of the waters of life flowing from it. How can we, the baptized keep from singing?

Larry Rasmussen
Santa Fe, NM 87505

Not for distribution without permission. To request permission, contact Dr. Rasmussen at lrryrasmussen@yahoo.com

Notes

This sermon is an adaptation of a Commencement Address given at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Chicago, May 20, 2007.
The reference is to Karl Polanyi’s famous work, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Times (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001; the original was published in 1944).
The formulation, not by Polanyi, but Thomas Berry in Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community, Mary Evelyn Tucker, ed. (Sierra Book Club, 2006), 107.
Kearns, Laura and Keller, Catherine, eds., Ecospirit (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007), xi.
Andrew C. Revkin, "Budgets Falling in Race to Fight Global Warming," The New York Times, 30 October 2006: p. 4 of 6 as printed from the website: www.nytimes.com.
Kearns and Keller, Ecospirit, xi.
Robinson, Marilynne, Gilead (New York: Ferrar Straus Giroux, 2004), 63.
The phrases are from Maya Angelou’s A Brave and Startling Truth (New York: Random House, 1995), no page numbers.
Cited by Marc de Villers, Water, 155.
Janet Parker, "From Apocalyse to Genesis," sermon available from the NCC Eco-Justice Programs, www.nccecojustice.org/awardsermon.html.

Speaking of water ...

"Nobody owns water.
Drink some, and try to keep it."

This little thought comes from the poet Alberto Rios, who grew up in Nogales, AZ, on the border between Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. He grew up between between worlds, cultures, languages – which "showed me how to look at everything in more than one way" – and that ability is, he says, what made him a poet. This line is part of his "Words over Water" project around Tempe Town Lake, which consists of bits of thought like this one, inscribed on 600 granite tiles placed in a line six miles long around Tempe Town Lake.

I discovered this tidbit on the PBS News Hour ,with Margaret Warner interviewing the poet.

To read a transcript of the interview >>

From there you can also find sound and video clips.
[8-11-07]

Roberto Jordan's third sermon of the week focuses on Jesus' feeding of the multitude as a model of the new life into which he calls us -- a life of radical sharing.
[8-8-07]

Roberto Jordan

Week of Peace, Global Justice and Creation
Ghost Ranch, New Mexico
August 3, 2007

John 6: 1-13

Challenged by God and sharing fearlessly

Our first text concluded with a call to worship on the mountain, our second text referred to true worship and transforming injustice, including the promise that God would feed during the march of this Exodus from injustice.

Today’s text describes a crucial moment in the ministry of Jesus – a new Exodus. Jesus, the incarnation in concrete and practical terms of the new community which will survive through solidarity and which will be freed from selfish lifestyles and systems of exploitation.

Of all the Gospel references to feeding the multitude, this one in the Gospel of John has unique characteristics which sets it apart for the other three.

The time is around Easter – the Passover (vs. 4), indicating the celebration of liberation (= Exodus). In chapter 5 all that goes on happens in Jerusalem, while in chapter 6, we are told in verse 1 that Jesus crosses the waters to the other side, with a large crowd that follows. The people see the signs, and interpret them; they don’t fully understand –as we will see at the end of the text, but they believe (How many times do we condition our believing to our understanding?). Having crossed the water, Jesus goes to the top of the mount, as Moses did after the liberation from Egypt. It is the time for change, new hope is being born.

Who are those who follow Jesus? When Jesus looks up and sees the multitude and expresses concern for their survival, what Jesus sees is a group which has nothing, not even enough for a meal: they are socially, politically and economically weak. But they know whom to follow – not Caesar but Jesus.

Jesus calls Philip. Philip has first appeared in John 1: 43, where he refers to Jesus in a Moses context. Jesus speaks to Philip and sets what is still today the disturbing question: where are we to buy bread for all these people?" Again this reminds us of the need for food on the road to liberation, might not the people yearn for the stews of Egypt. What can Philip answer? The simple thought of the situation is overwhelming, particularly as Jesus seems to put the picture into a "we" situation (vs. 5). We don’t have the money needed for them.

The picture raises the question: is it a matter of production or of distribution? Does not the world produce enough for all to eat? Why then are people hungry? Again we are faced with structural sin, and our response to this structure.

Jesus here refers to an economic situation of exclusion and exploitation, which causes hunger and injustice. Philip sees this clearly: ‘not even 6 months’ wages will buy even a little for each, much less for fullness.’ What can be done? All seems to be part of a system in which hope is thrown out of the picture. Where people have no hope, all systems of exploitation based on false hopes find an open door. The system answers: TINA= There is no alternative. This is bad enough, but it gets worse when men and women of faith also adhere to TINA. Here again we are confronted with the image of God. Do we believe in a TINA God? If our answer is no, then, in what God do we believe?

We believe in a God who sees the opportunity emerging from the rejected, the socially no existent, from the despised. Here comes Andrew, the first called, but always in a secondary place, but when Andrew does appear, what a success! Andrew introduces a new vision.

Here is a small boy with five loaves and two fishes. ‘But what is this for so many?’ Depression or challenge? Certainly the second alternative! We proclaim a God who does have alternatives to the depressive perspective the powers present as the only way out. As in Exodus, there is a need for organizing the people, a trusting leadership, and recognition of the problem.

Organize the people in groups, lie on the grass – yes, lie as free people lay at the banquets, grass reminding them of the promise of a new land, and of abundance. Jesus takes the community’s bread and fish, and calls God to be part of the day. Not a time for selfishness, rather a time for fearless sharing. And this way Jesus gives back to the community that which belongs to the community. All eat, not a little, but in abundance, and twelve baskets are left. These 12 baskets represent the nation, and so remind us that sharing provides enough for the nations.

In this text Jesus has proposed a new understanding of power, while at the same time he has produced a terrifying critique of power. Those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus must take this into serious account so as not to play into the hands of the denounced system of power that produces death, hunger, injustice, and delights in the lack of hope.

The uniqueness of this version in John is that Andrew – who is always in a secondary position – shows us the meaning of sharing and service – diakonia – in the figure of a child, who represents weakness, exclusion and is socially a non-existent figure, with limited resources. This also speaks to us about the God we believe in and TINA … where does God find the alternatives to the system?

Sharing fearlessly brings into existence a new form of community, based on values of sharing even if the resources seem limited, a new community not based on appropriation rather on generosity. It will take time for the people to realize; they want to make Jesus king, but the kingdom Jesus presents if not of that kind, and not now, and not in those terms. Jesus teaches us we are called to respond differently from what the power system of that time and our times presents to us. This again is what the Accra Confession calls us to see: AC 22, 23; 25, 26.

Are we able to take up the challenge to share fearlessly?

Let us pray:

Eternal God, for generations faithful disciples have responded to your call and have fruitfully served you and humanity in this world. Grant us wisdom and courage so that as followers of Jesus we may, in our time, glorify your holy name through the work we do each day. In gratitude for meaningful work in vineyards of all kinds, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

From the PC(USA) Mission Yearbook of Prayer, 2006, p. 247.

Closing worship remembers Hiroshima [8-10-07]

The service of worship on Saturday, August 4^th, was a commemoration of the first use of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. At the opening of Jim Atwood -- a retired PC(USA) missionary to Japan, who visited Japan in 2005 for the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- offered this prayer of invocation:

Creator God, August 6^th is a day whose significance most of us blissfully ignore, and the rest of us even reluctantly remember. But remember we must; for 62 years ago thousands of your children and our brothers and sisters in Hiroshima were vaporized in one second by one bomb which was made only a few miles from this beautiful place by a few brilliant people who came to Ghost Ranch for their R and R. .

We remember, Merciful God, that these victims who died instantly were the fortunate ones – for tens of thousands of their fellow citizens and their descendants, even to this very day, have experienced untold physical and mental suffering, illness and rejection as a consequence of that hideous radioactive black rain which fell from that mushroom cloud turning their life giving streams into rivers of death.

O God, we remember as well that in these 62 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Los Alamos day by day is still making even more powerful nuclear weapons because our leaders claim we need them for national security. They would have us believe that more than 10,000 such weapons are not sufficient for our needs.

And here we are your people, gathered in worship after a week of studying the things that make for peace. We confess that we have such little power to do battle with these principalities and powers; we confess our lack of political and spiritual strength to stop our nation’s and the world’s madness. How can we tear down these demonic idols from their thrones? Where would we get the wisdom and the power to do your work?

So we turn to you, God of all creation, because down deep in each of our hearts we know you do not like any weapon of war, let alone nuclear weapons. We know you cherish life and shalom for all in Your good creation.

Therefore we ask you to see our nation and have pity on us, for we are so enslaved by our appetite for power. Hear the cries of the world’s people who need bread, not bombs; and hear the cries of anguish from those of us who strive for shalom because our words and our witness for peace and harmony are so systematically disregarded and dismissed as naÏve by the leaders of our Empire.

Come once again among us, Great God, come down as you did to your servants Moses and Jesus and work new miracles which would deliver all your people and your beautiful earth from war and the threat of war. And we are bold to make our prayer in the name of Him who conquered the power of death and gives life to all. Even Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Roberto Jordan's final sermon of the week reflects on the radical call of the Letter of James to working for peace -- a commitment that sets us off sharply from the secure world of Empire. [8-8-07]

Roberto Jordan

Week of Peace, Global Justice and Creation
Ghost Ranch, New Mexico
August 4, 2007

James 3: 13-4:10

Challenged by God and responding differently

Back in 1989 one of the most recognized rock stars in Argentina wrote a hit: "those who have ears to hear" (Quien quiera oÍr que oiga). This is not a religious song; rather it relates to the recent events of Argentine history. In a certainly free translation, it says:

When we don’t remember what happened
The same things can simply happen again.
Those things which marginalize us,
Kill our memories, burn out our ideas,
Steal our words.
If history is written by those who win
It means to say there is another history
True history.
Those who have ears to hear let them hear…
It is useless to kill – death simply proves to
us that life exists.

(Mignona - Nebbia, trans. by RHJ)

Today’s service, and closing our week together, is our way not to forget August 6^th and 9^th, 1945 – Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And so we not only don’t forget, but rather we must remember (which is not always the same thing!). This is why I turned to the letter of James, believing it has quite a bit to say to us.

James suffered to be included in the canon, and even after it was, Martin Luther seriously questioned its eligibility and would quite gladly have burnt the letter, yet having to accept it he only included it at the end of his translation of the Bible. James has a lot to say and most people don’t like what James says, surely it is not the most preached book in the Bible, is it? Those people who still today would prefer the letter of James to be burnt at the stake, for the same reasons have condemned the Accra Confession: superficial theology, incomplete reasoning, etc, etc. I mention this only to prove that it comes from the other side of history!

When we refer to war, on what side of history do we choose to stand? Because I can assure you, war though always a tragedy and a recognition of defeat, changes perspective, is different, according to the side one is on: victors or defeated. Is it at all possible for us to cross sides and try to "see things" from the victims side of life?

James’ letter questions our perspectives. Who is wise and understanding? This is not only a question to the ‘twelve tribes of the Diaspora’; it is a question to us here. But it is not only a question, there is also a serious warning – there is wisdom from God as there is wisdom from the devil. And war, injustice, violence, hatred and destruction are not part of the fruits of wisdom from above, mentioned by James.

Peace, in its fullest and most disturbing sense, is the result of… and it can only come from peace, and no destruction, justified as a form to bring peace, will ever bring peace with justice. And though it may be quite obvious that all of us here are on the side of peace, it is even more important to commit to a peace with justice that questions the traditional understanding of peace, as presented to us by the powers that rule.

The recent report of the Stockholm Peace Research Institute is really disturbing. It mentions that 63% of arms sales in the world proceed from the United States of America, 29% from Europe, 2% from Russia and the rest from Japan, Israel and India. Arms for peace seems to be a contradiction in itself, but sadly it is one we have been called to live with, and which many sustain with votes, ideology and passion.

While I was preparing for these services, I discovered what for most of you may be common knowledge, but to me was a surprise. On 16^th. July, 1945, the first atom bomb blast took place not too far away from here. In other words, we are in the belly of the monster, are we not?

When reading this text in James, I cannot help asking myself what we have done to prevent the causes of war. Again, this is a matter of structural sin. Don’t the world powers produce the factors and the information that then make war seem inevitable? Don’t the media conglomerates present war as the only way out and set out to convince the people that it is the right way to do things? Who then is responsible for presenting alternatives? We are, for one! How can this be done when we are confronted with reality. A press release of August last year from Pew Research Centre indicated that only 39% of people in the United States of America closely follow world events, and only two years ago that number reached 52%. This is shocking, considering the United States of America is involved in much of what could be described as ‘world events.’ This research also mentioned that for most of these people it is CNN which is the main credible source of information. The call to wisdom and understanding which James makes is so relevant today. I challenge you and yours churches to be sources of alternative information. You have climbed the hill and seen the other side. Share it!

The Third World suffers situations created from outside the Third World that seem to justify war. How many governments in Asia, Africa or Latin America have been toppled and dictatorships installed which support economic systems that destroy the life of the people and the planet, simply to gain the support of the Empire of today? As James says; "You want something and do not have it… you covet something and cannot obtain it." The result? Murder, disputes, conflicts. And all this within an ideological framework as I pointed out at my first preaching this week.

Yes, we all have our ideology and there is nothing wrong with it, though we need to recognize it and declare it. None of us approaches these situations ideologically pure. Where we stand explains who we are, where we are, and what we do. What we choose to see and what we choose to ignore. As James says: "friendship with the world is enmity with God." And as Patricia Sherattan Bisnauth (Executive Secretary for Church Renewal, Justice and Partnership, of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches) said recently while in Canada: There is no such thing as a comfortable pew for Reformed Christians who want to answer God’s call to bear witness that a world of justice is possible.

I believe we are challenged by God and we are called to respond differently; this means getting involved to change the system: capital-economic-political-social. Since 6^th. August 1945, how many Hiroshima have been destroyed? How many atom bombs have been launched on the world and where most victims are women, children, and civilians. We cannot talk of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a thing of the past to calm consciences; they are still present today and need our response. And asking the questions about the present (not only referring to the past) is uncomfortable and risky, but it is the only thing we can do. Asking the questions on the whys and the becauses not only changes the agenda but puts God’s will at the centre of our life.

James reminds us that laments, mourning and weeping will be heard by God, and so we reach our closing today, which coincides with the beginning of the week: God who hears the cry of the people will come down to liberate. This is the promise which we cling to, because the promise is also the challenge. We just cannot respond the way we have been told is the right way to respond. That happened in Hiroshima and the world did not experience the end of war, on the contrary!

This is why Empire much prefers to have us stay right here, together. The Empire sees risk when we travel the way, trusting God who leads. That is why we cannot remain here – we have to go to where God leads us, and share what we have seen, and call others to join ranks and say what we have learned. It is out there – not here – where we are mandated to respond differently, and this is where God hopes to find us.