Matthew 5:9 and Words from Plato
By Rev. Nicole M. Lamarche
October 8th, 2023
Welcome again on and for you who are just getting to know me, I do have
the gift of tears and I do have a heavy heart today…welcome that into the
space. I invite you now to take some deeper breaths so we can let go of
our to do lists and whatever awaits us, to listen to our heartbeats, tuning
into whatever word God has for us today.
God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be
acceptable in your sight our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Is war ever moral? What a weekend to explore this topic. I can thank the
Friday Men’s group for asking me to preach on this. And it feels important
to remind everyone up front that in our tradition we do our best to
remember that I am a human, not any closer to God than any of you so my
words are delivered with prayer and reading and research and
contemplation, but my DNA is the same as yours and so as always I offer
this in love, being humbled by the task.
It broke my heart to learn is transpiring in the Holy Lands.
Those of us committed to and invested in religious communities know
firsthand how much symbols and traditions and temples and places and the
preservation of them can inspire us. And also invoke a sense of
righteousness and therefore also disconnection sometimes with those we
deem to be wrong. And then so if it goes on, the sense of superiority that
emerges from that comes because it’s necessary to maintain the
arrangement. And then anger and angry action that leads to harm in order
to defend the position.
It feels important to say up front that I believe that Hamas attacking civilians
is terrible. And strategically, I doubt that doing what they did will make life
better for the average Palestinian. I join others in wondering if they were in
fact trying to ruin the possible agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
But what is also true is that the lives of those who live surrounded by a wall
with barbed wire and checkpoints is terrible and is basically a prison. If you
don’t know it, it’s true and I am not sure I would believe it or feel the way I
do if I hadn’t been there myself on a pilgrimage.
The whole situation as it is right now makes me think of the words from the
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, who said riots are “the language of the
unheard.”
There is a certain point where some will feel as if there is no hope and what
I observed when the food is coming from the same ones who offer arms,
the options are dire. And when it is not possible to have faith in tomorrow,
for some all that is left is anger and bombs and missiles.
And then the response to that war, is more war and I heard this morning
that there has been an all-out declaration for a regional war. Where far
more will lose their lives and on it will go, with more blood and more tears
from parents who lose their children with no gain, no real reason for any of
it.
This is why Jesus said that he blessed the ones who give energy to peace.
This is why Gandhi said that "an eye for an eye will make the whole world
blind."
It might be a surprise to some to learn that for the first few hundred years of
Christianity, the people of the Way, as they were called, for the first three
centuries, they were mostly pacifists. It was typical for Roman soldiers who
converted to the movement to in quotes "put off the military belt." Some
scholars argue that this was as much practical as it might have been
philosophical or theological. Because the Roman Empire was a “beast.” But
maybe predictably, when Christianity became the religion of the state with
the Edict of Milan issued by Constantine in 313, when the religion got the
cloak of power, that’s when it started to change. And maybe you have
heard of Just War Theory. The foundation for it is rooted in a piece of
writing called the City of God crafted around the year 413 by Augustine of
Hippo or as some call him St. Augustine.
Apparently, he was inspired by the writing of people like Cicero and the
book of Deuteronomy in the Hebrew Scriptures. And even though his
theory has been now used over time to support wars of all kinds. But
Augustine himself was extremely committed to the part of the “Christian
tradition of believing all war to be intrinsically evil.”
In an essay called The Just War Theory of St. Augustine Of Hippo, the writer
contends that Augustine “unequivocally condemned those who desired,
sought, or enjoyed war, and made it clear that to engage in a just war is to
engage in war by force of necessity.”
Augustine wrote, “to carry on war and extend a kingdom over wholly
subdued nations seems to bad men to be felicity, to good men necessity.” (1)
The criticism of the "just war theory" is that it has never (seemed to have)
stopped a war. Some call it the "justified war" theory. As it has mostly been
used to justify more war.
So is war ever moral? Well here’s the bottom line, for me at least. As I have
pondered this a lot… the answer for me is Yes and No. Defending what we
care about is worth our treasure of money and lives on occasion.
And as I have put a lot of thought into it, I think self-defense is moral and in
general I don’t see war as moral as a whole, but what if sometimes war is
collective self-defense? What if that can be moral? And what if part of how
we can bring peace is when we can draw a boundary around those causing
harm? So we limit what needs to be lost to protect what is good? Is there
such a thing as a just war? Maybe WWII?
In general, I kind of wonder if it’s impossible to kill in order to stop killing?
COMMUNAL REFLECTION
Is war ever moral? What do you think?
Amen.
1 - From Book 4, chapter 14 of Augustine’s work magnum opus, The City of God
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