Hilton Head Island, SC – February 24, 2019
The Chapel Without Walls
Amos 5:16-20; Isaiah 2:1-4
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore. – Isaiah 2:4 (RSV)
“War is the continuation of politics by other means,” said the famous nineteenth century German military historian, Carl von Clauswitz. To say that war is the continuation of politics by other means is to say that war is fundamentally political, which it is.
An even more famous German contemporary of Clauswitz was Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck said, “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable – the next best.”His implication was that perfection is impossible, and therefore that the art of politics seeks the best attainable outcomes, which are next to the best.
If Clauswitz was correct in saying that war is politics by other means, then was Bismarck correct in being the primary political engineer of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, whose victory for Germany was presumably the next best and attainable result of that war? Or is war almost always the worst possible result of whatever political or military factors lead to war?
This sermon is probably going to sound much more like an academic lecture in political/military strategy than a sermon in an ecclesiastical setting. I confess to you that through the years my preaching has become more and more academic and intellectually-oriented. I want you to know I am aware of that, and I presume you are aware that the tendency is not abating. In any case, this sermon is based on what I believe to be a fundamental biblical tenet, namely, that war under any circumstances is always morally unacceptable. To be sure, there are several instances, especially in the Books of Joshua and Judges and the historical books of the kings of Israel which clearly indicate that God intended the Israelites to wage fierce and total wars against some of their neighbors. I further believe, however, that was a human attempt to impose a purported divine mandate on a very human decision of the Israelites to attack those they chose to perceive as enemies.
Throughout history, innumerable politicians have “righteously” declared that war should always be the last resort. Nonetheless, many of them still resort to war with an unhesitating bellicosity and zeal. When war prevails as policy, it means that diplomacy fails as policy.
This is not to say that any nation can adopt a policy of total pacifism. By its very nature, every nation requires a military to guarantee law and order within its borders and peace among nations outside its borders. Maintaining peace without a military is like trying to bake bread without flour or to play basketball without a basketball. It cannot be done. Nor can lasting peace be kept without armed forces to uphold it. The only nations which can afford to have no army are very small ones, such as Costa Rica, which has not had an army for several decades.
However, at their best, armies should be used only in skirmishes or battles, not in all-out declared or undeclared wars. Remember what President Truman insisted on calling the Korean War? For political reasons he chose to refer to it as a “police action.” If armies truly engaged solely in genuine police actions, we would have a far better world. Sadly, the Korean War was a war, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians killed on both sides. The police are perceived to be keepers of the peace, and soldiers, sailors, and airmen also should be like that.
Casey Stengel, the manager of the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, was known as “the old perfessor.” In one of his more memorable “perfessorial” quotes, cagey Casey said that in trying to make a team cohesive, “The idea is to keep the guys who hate you away from the ones who are undecided.” Thus it is that when large-scale wars threaten, the most belligerent nations try to line up undecided allies on their side. The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have seen the largest and most lethal military alliances in human history. The bigger the “coalitions of the willing,” the better.
Since the Spanish-American War in 1898, The United States of America has been a major player politically and militarily upon the world stage. In the last century and a quarter, no one has engaged in nearly as many wars as the USA. Since the end of World War II, we have been the undisputed military colossus. Our government allowed the peoples of the Soviet Union and the American people to think that there were really two colossi, but in fact there was, and thus far is, only one.
John Paul Lederach is an international conflict negotiator. In the denominational journal of the Mennonites, one of the historic “peace” denominations, he said, “Having been close to contexts of armed conflict…for nearly forty years, I have found one thing to be true: Wars never end easily. Wars have lives. They leave legacies many are born to, decades and centuries later.”
Someone said, “War does not determine who is right, only who is left.” Many of those who are left nurse their wounds – and perhaps their resentments – for the rest of their lives. War inevitably creates grudges, and therefore it is always an unending tragedy. Treaties do not end wars; only changed hearts and clear minds can end wars, and that almost never happens.
John Fowles was a well known English novelist. He wrote several novels with military settings, the best-known of which was The French Lieutenant’s Woman. He said of war that it is “a psychosis caused by an inability to see relationships.” What an extraordinary --- and inciting --- insight! “War is a psychosis caused by an inability to see relationships.”
War is perhaps not truly madness. While it is being waged though, and especially after it is over, it seems like madness. And always it does result from an inability to see how enemies are related to one another by a common humanity and by similar goals and aspirations. When those goals and aspirations begin to conflict, the nature of the undeniable relationships of the supposed enemies is deliberately overlooked. Then intra-national hopes and desires take precedence over international similar political interests, and differences overshadow similarities.
In the Christian Old Testament order of the books (though not in the Hebrew scriptures), the books of the prophets are in the last section before the beginning of the Gospels and the New Testament. Perhaps they are placed there to offset what Christians suppose is the defective theology inscribed in the earlier books, especially regarding the wars of Jews against Gentiles, and to prepare for what Christians refer to as “the Good News of Jesus Christ.” If so, that in itself creates conflicts caused by an inability to see relationships.
The first major prophets, Elijah and Elisha, appeared on the scene about 850 BCE or so. They did not write down their prophecies, however. The first canonical prophets appeared a century later, about 750 BCE. There were four of them: Amos and Hosea in the northern kingdom of Israel, and Isaiah and Micah in the southern kingdom of Judah.
The prophets arose five centuries after Moses. By their time, the Israelites had come to espouse something they called “The Day of the Lord.” The Day of the Lord would occur at some point in the future, when God would insert Himself directly into human history and declare divine victory over the forces of sin and darkness. Five centuries after that, “The Day of the Lord” would be referred to in the Greek language, which by then had become the language of all educated people in the eastern end of the Mediterranean region, as “The Apocalypse.” That word means “the last things,” or, as we might say, The End.
Anyway, the prophet Amos wrote about The Day of the Lord. He didn’t perceive it to be a time of victory, however, but of defeat. God was going to punish the Israelites, not their purported enemies. “Woe to you who desire the Day of the Lord!” Amos thundered. “Why would you have the Day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him…. Is not the Day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?” (5:18-20)
In both World Wars One and Two, German soldiers had this inscription on their belt buckles: Gott Mit Uns: God With Us.” When any people imagine that God is with them in a war against any other of God’s sons and daughters, there is bound to be devastating trouble. God hates war. He detests bloodshed. He will not abide armed destruction.
While Amos was prophesying in the northern kingdom of the Jews, Isaiah was prophesying in the southern kingdom of the Jews. (The fact that there were two kingdoms rather than one tells us something not only about the Jews but about everybody. We are all a fatuous, fractious lot. Far too frequently do we find fault with one another and far too infrequently do we seek commonality and community with one another. We ignore our similarities and emphasize our differences.
Isaiah had something to say about that first inclination in just the second of his sixty-six chapters. The word of the Lord would come to Jerusalem, and He would judge between the nations. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares,” Isaiah proclaimed, “and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more” (2:4).
Two very different glimpses are presented there about The Day of the Lord. In the one darkness and violent disagreement descend, and in the other peace and tranquility break forth. Either way, is it God who brings The Day of the Lord, or the Apocalypse, or is it the daughters and sons of God who do that? Who causes wars, and who brings peace? But does God bring peace directly, or does He do it indirectly --- through us?
God enters infrequently, if ever, into the world directly. We are the hands and feet and muscles of God. He moves through us. Only we can make war, and only we can maintain peace.
Peter G. Peterson was the Secretary of Commerce under the presidential administration of Richard Nixon, and an American ambassador. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, by way of the Peter Peterson Foundation, The United State of America annually spends $619 billion on defense. The next nine nations under us, in terms of expenditures, from China as No. 1 to Japan as No. 9, spend a combined total of $578 billion.
Nation-states which spend vast amounts of money on defense tend to get into lots of wars. The British did, the French did, the Spanish did, the Ottomans did, the Romans did, the Greeks did, the Babylonians and Persians and Egyptians did. If nations prepare for war, they tend to go to war. If they prepare for peace, they are far more likely to obtain peace.
According to CNBC, a recent study, which in my opinion may or may not be accurate, says that wars in the Middle East since 2001 have cost American taxpayers $5.9 trillion. That figures seems quite inflated to me, but even if it is only half correct, that is a great deal of money. And what have we received for our investment? We are the most unpopular nation on the planet to countless millions, while we are the light of the world to ourselves and to countless other millions. The study calculates that $1 trillion of that has been spent on health care for veterans. If so, I suspect many of those veterans would say their injuries, both physical and mental, were a disastrous expenditure which they would have been only too glad to have avoided.
That is one of the primary dilemmas of warfare. It damages so many people during and after. The Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University estimates that 480,000 people have died as a direct result of fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Of those they calculate that 244,000 were civilians. The dead are half military, half civilian. Ten million people have been displaced. Thirty percent of the Syrian people are now homeless because of the war being fought by several competing forces in their homeland.
Jesus didn’t say much directly about anything political. Whatever he said about politics was very indirect, because he knew that he was in enough hot water theologically without also jumping into the seething cauldron of first-century eastern Mediterranean politics. Most of what he said that could be interpreted as having reference to politics or armies or wars referred to individual actions. We should love our enemies, he said, and pray for those who persecute us. But I think he was talking about individual people who are our enemies or our persecutors. Nevertheless, his injunctions do have relevance for how we perceive other people in other nations whom we believe are our enemies and persecutors, even though they are all related to us. The question is: Do we understand that they also are related to us? Do we see that we are all sisters and brothers of a common heavenly Father?
It is easy to start wars. It is hard to get out of them. “If you break it, you own it,” said a famous US Army general, who later became the US Secretary of State. We had a very hard time getting out of Viet Nam, where that general fought. Right now we are having a hard time getting out of Afghanistan, where we have been for seventeen years, and Iraq, for sixteen years, which is what Colin Powell was talking about when he said that if you break it, you own it. We have also been in Syria for five years or so, in various capacities. To his credit, the President is wanting to get us out of all three wars, but he is having a hard time doing it, for various reasons, and he is unable to do it fast, if at all.
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore.”
Do you suppose that could happen? If so, would that represent The Day of the Lord? Or would it be, as some would no doubt insist, The Apocalypse --- darkness, and not light? Remember the last lines in the movie Apocalypse Now? “The horror! The horror!”