A Homily by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull

Please find below the homily given by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull at the worship service on Saturday, April 5, 2008.

“Peace Work”
A Homily by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
UU-UNO Intergenerational Seminar
New York, NY
April 5, 2008

It’s good to be here. It’s good to be here with you as we think, speak, plan, strategize, worship, sing, sleep a few hours or so, and hold silences, because how can we not be silenced by what we know still rages in our oh so fragile world. Violence brims, propelled by rhetoric that conscripts the language of faith and the psychology of fear in this slice of history in which you and I happen to be alive. How can we not be silenced by what we know rages in each of us when we turn away, too busy to notice, or when we close the ears of our hearts to the story of another and become complicit with a nuanced lack of reverence for one who stands before us, or when we heaven forbid gather in a circle of self-righteousness because how could we cool UUs not be right even though our affinity bends somewhat to the left?

Peace work is hard work, humbling work, harrowing work. It calls us to remember, to reflect, to listen, to move out of our comfort zone into our conscience zone, and to engage in acts of conscience. Peace work is hard work.

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” we read in the Second Testament’s Gospel According to Matthew, “for they will be called children of God.” At one point in my life, I had all the “blesseds” memorized:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit….
Blessed are those who mourn…
Blessed are the meek…
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…”

“Blessed are the merciful…
Blessed are the pure in heart…
Blessed are the peacemakers.”

And that’s not conclusive. It’s reported that Jesus, that scruffy thirty-something who lived and taught radical love two millennia ago, added a few more “Blesseds,” but these are quite enough for this morning.

These are words that “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” as relentlessly as any I can imagine. Surely his message caused some squirming in the halls of power for those who caught wind of what Jesus was saying. Surely we’re not intended by the powers that be in our own day to take this guy seriously, anymore than we’re intended to take to heart that seasonal carol of angelic voices, “Peace on earth, good will to all!”

Peace work is hard work. It costs us. Jesus knew this. So did another prophet among us who spoke radical words of peace and universal love. Forty-one years ago yesterday, Dr. Martin Luther king, Jr. invoked the congregants in the expansive marble sanctuary of this city’s Riverside Church to the hard work of peace amid a time of war not so unlike the time that is ours. King was moving from a message of racial equality at home into a message that linked oppressions within and across nations. He saw the powerful of the earth wielding unabated violence against the powerless of the earth, and he spoke out. “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now,” he roared, hauntingly aware that his own time was running out. “We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world—a world that borders on our doors.” ….echoes of “Blessed are the peacemakers…blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” blessed are those who are downwind of power unchecked. It was not a mainstream message. Truth-telling prophets sometimes pay with their lives. Jesus did. One year to the day after his words rang out at Riverside Church, King did. Forty years ago yesterday, King did.

Peace is hard work. It calls us like the prophet Jonah was called to places we’d rather not visit. It calls us like the prophet Micah to “do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly.” And it calls us to know when to voice our outrage and when to hold our rage altogether in the strength of containment—like the Buddhist monk who stood on a late September evening six and a half years ago in that same marble expanse where King had spoken. How can I forget sitting there, with my husband, Dan, and a few thousand other New Yorkers as Thich Nhat Hanh recalled the devastation of his country at the hands of this one, recalled his anger, recalled his choice, grueling as it was, to hold his anger in the palms of his hands, recalled his decision to come to this country and plead with our leaders to change course. On a September evening when hearts were raw and minds confused, Thich Nhat Hanh looked us in the eye and offered timely counsel:

“I believe very strongly that the American people have a lot of wisdom and compassion within themselves. I want you to be your best when you begin to act, for the sake of America and for the sake of the world. With lucidity, with understanding and compassion, you will turn to the people who have caused a lot of damage and suffering to you and ask them a lot of questions.”

We know now, surely we know now, that “the people who have caused a lot of damage and suffering” isn’t just “them.” It’s us again, once again. What questions do we ask of ourselves as people of faith and as a nation whose rhetoric and reality of practice have rarely worshipped together? What questions do we dare ask of ourselves?

How about that core question of whether violence and war are ever justified? It’s the leading question of an issue that rose through our Unitarian Universalist Association’s social witness process and was adopted at our General Assembly almost two years ago as a Congregational Study/Action Issue for at least four years of committed attention. Our Peacemaking Congregational Study/Action issue begins heavy duty:

“Should the Unitarian Universalist Association reject the use of any and all kinds of violence and war to resolve disputes between peoples and nations and adopt a principle of seeking just peace through nonviolent means?”

Take a deep breath and remember to exhale! Some of you here this morning are on the Core Team mobilized through our Commission on Social Witness that shepherds our social witness process. It’s a compelling team of disparate Unitarian Universalists who partner with congregations across the country for study and action, reflection and discernment. How many of you are from the more than 120 congregations engaged in this issue? [pause] You’re doing amazing work, you are. You’ve rolled up your sleeves and headed right for the kitchen in taking on the kaleidoscopic stuff of peacemaking. But that question that heralds the verbiage of the issue as posed remains as the elephant in our sanctuaries.

As adopted, the text states that:
“Historically, [we as] Unitarian Universalists have agreed with the theory and practice of “just war,” or use of force in self-defense to preserve the life of another person. However, we have also supported peace and disarmament in over eighty resolutions since our merger in 1961. We offer counseling for conscientious objector status. We call on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Our principles are models for peacemaking yet we act as if violence is more effective than nonviolence in certain situations. As a religious denomination, we need to clarify our position and apply our covenant to affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.”

The either/or of “just war” v. “pacifism” is a slippery slope; yet we choose our slopes, and flat terrain is a non-choice. Violence as I understand it, as I have experienced it, as I have enabled it, as I have practiced it with a closed heart and mind, is toxic and intoxicating. Violence is addictive. From Mi Lai to Memphis, from Golgotha to Guantanamo, from cool glance to cold murder, violence is addictive.

I know in my heart of hearts that if someone dear to me were being threatened with lethal harm by another, I am wholly capable of using lethal force against the person threatening that harm, all 5’3” of me. I would do it! Where do I stop? How vulnerable am I—liberal, self-righteous Unitarian Universalist I—to the forces that would “justify” my complicity in violence that is violence that is violence?

The notion of just war is a seductive myth. The notion of redemptive violence is an even more seductive myth. Yet pacifism is a misnomer, as explained by theologian Walter Wink. Pacifism carries the assumptions of passivity and non-resistance to oppression. While “just war” invites us to descend the slippery slope of rationalizing any lethal conflict as having a “just cause,” as waged with a “peaceful intention,” and engaged in as a “last resort”—to name just a few “just war” criteria—the way of Jesus, claims Wink, is “beyond just war and pacifism.” The way of Jesus and of King and of Thich Nhat Hanh is “nonviolent resistance.”

Wink proposes that we scuttle the language of “just war” criteria for the language of reducing or eradicating any and all forms of violence. Nonviolent resistance is neither passive nor placating. “Nonviolence,” writes Wink, “is highly aggressive, and Jesus,” he argues, “is the best example of it.” He didn’t strike back; he talked back. He called domination for what it was in terms savvy and strategic. He made the powers squirm in their thrones and their pews and reminded folks that thrones and pews are ever interchangeable.

We know there are other prophets of peace—all the invisible women and men and children and youth who are doing heavy-duty soul-stretching peace work day after day after day. Many of you are among them. All of us are called.

All of us are called to the hard work of peace, because what is the alternative? Shall we be among the bystanders who believe we can do nothing? Shall we be among the deniers who opt for so many diversions we’re doomed to remorse at best and complicity at worst? Or shall we sign on to the tough-minded, open-hearted, persistent, passionate company of blessed peacemakers?

“Blessed are the peace makers, for they will be called children of God.” Just what we need, to be God’s offspring, but here we are, plunked into the miracle of our lives and the possibility that we might, we just might, live up to such a blessing. Amen.
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Sources

The Book of Jonah and Micah, The Bible, Revised Standard Version.

The Gospel According to Matthew, The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Matthew 5:1-9

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam,” Address delivered to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church, New York City, 1967 - http://www.africanamericans.com/MLKjrBeyondVietnam.htm

“Peacemaking,” The Congregational Study Action Issue (CSAI) for 2006 – 2010, http://www.uua.org/socialjustice/issuesprocess/currentissues/44160/resourceguide/44160.shtml

Thich Nhat Hanh, “A Public Talk by Thich Nhat Hanh at the Riverside Church, New York City,” September 25, 2001. http://www.theconversation.org/essence.html

Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1992.