Peace Through Justice

“In those days John the Baptist came to the Judean wilderness and began preaching. His message was, ‘repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.’ The prophet Isaiah was speaking about John when he said, ‘he is a voice shouting in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for Him!’ John’s clothes were woven from coarse camel hair and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food he ate locusts and wild honey. People from Jerusalem and from all of Judea and all over the Jordan Valley went out to see and hear John. And when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River. But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to watch him baptize, he denounced them. ‘You brood of snakes!’ he exclaimed. ‘Who warned you to flee God’s coming wrath? Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’ That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones. Even now the axe of God’s judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees.

Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire. ‘I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God. But someone is coming soon who is greater than I am; so much greater that I’m not worthy even to be his slave and carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with His winnowing fork. Then He will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into His barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire.’” (Matthew 3:1-12) (Also read Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13) The lectionary gives us John the Baptist to jar us away from the sentimental and wake us to the scandal of the season and the meaning and message of the birth of HaMashiach. John the Baptist is tired of people playing church. People who think that because they attend church and pray then all is well with them and YAHVEH. John says no, the Moshiach is coming with fire in His veins and He’s going to burn away all useless religion and ignite the life of the Kingdom of YAHVEH within us; the Kingdom of justice and mercy and peace. He will teach us what the prophets of old have been trying to teach us for centuries; that peace with YAHVEH, peace with one another, peace among the nations requires justice.

I.) Joy Jordan-Lake is a former Harvard chaplain who now teaches at Belmont University in Nashville. She has written a book titled Why Jesus Makes Me Nervous. In a chapter on peace, she describes many of us, including herself, as Peace-at-All-Costs kind of people. We don’t want conflict of any kind. In a self-confession she writes, “Part of my yearning for peace is YAHVEH-driven and part of it is the pansy ducking for cover. I want the lion to lie down with the lamb 24-7.” Many of us are like that. We don’t want to upset anyone. It was the Peace-at-All-Costs crowd that Martin Luther King Jr. blasted in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” as being worse than the Klan. Those who impede real peace, the kind of peace that flows down from justice, are not just those ignorant buffoons in bed sheets spewing hatred, but those of us who are well-educated, respected citizens and clergy who keep quiet in the face of evil because it would hurt our business or reputation. We seek peace through our investment portfolios, our gated communities and controlling what our children watch on TV. This is what Jordan-Lake calls a “plastic peace” that ignores the troubles of others and the injustice in our city, country and world. To quote Lake again: “Peace according to Yeshua has to do with the Cross, an act of horrific violence met by aggressive non-violence and a power that violence could not overcome. If we see any example of peace in the Cross, then surely it’s not that we’re to sit still, making daisy chains and hoping that little children won’t have their legs blown off by land mines or their mothers mangled by shells.” Peace has to do with justice and fairness and making right what is wrong.

II.) The working out of peace through justice is a struggle that takes place in the world of global politics. This text above, like so many prophetic texts, challenges any claim that religion and theology have nothing to do with politics and international relations. Decisions made by world leaders and the people who elect them are crucial to peace and justice. And they matter to YAHVEH. Isaiah envisions a day when rulers will be shaped by the Spirit of Adonai, when peace reigns through justice and equity, not power and violence. Much is being made these days of the faith of presidential candidates. It’s quite a fascinating conversation. We should never expect presidents to divorce their political life from their faith. They must be careful not to impose their belief system on the country. They must guard everyone’s constitutional right to religious freedom, which includes freedom from religion. But the true test of a leader’s faith according to scripture is not the denominational or religious stripe they wear; be it Catholic or Jewish, Methodist or Mormon, Baptist or Buddhist. Nor is the test of faith the doctrines they say they believe. The test of a leader’s faith is whether or not he or she works for peace for all nations and justice for the world’s poor. That’s what I want to know about a president’s faith. The psalmist guides us to pray for our leaders, that YAHVEH would grant them wisdom and understanding, that they would stand up and shape policy on behalf of the poor and needy, that peace would be their goal and justice their means. Author Brian McLaren was having dinner with a man who had spent several years in prison for participating in revolutionary activities against the apartheid regime in South Africa. His methods in those days were violent, inspired by Marxist revolutions in other parts of the world. While in prison he became a Christian and then after his release, a pastor and eventually, a denominational official. As he rose in the religious world, he distanced himself from politics and economics. But the present world situation and the global economy have changed his mind. He told McLaren, “The economic prescription by Karl Marx was faulty, but he did diagnose the problem: the exploited and excluded poor won’t abide their marginalization forever. We escaped a bloody revolution in the election of 1994 as we peacefully dismantled Apartheid. But if we can’t dismantle the inequity of our current economic system, we will have an explosion of violence that nobody can imagine. The streets will run red. I feel it when I walk the slums. It’s like a volcano, ready to explode; the anger and hopelessness of the poor.”

III.) The roots of terrorism and violence can often be found in poverty and injustice. People who are starving have nothing to lose by risking violence. Someone has said that “peace begins when the hungry are fed.” The way to peace is fed by the waters of justice. And “justice leads to a transformed relationship between human beings and the rest of creation.” A nineteenth-century American Quaker named Edward Hicks painted this teaching’s Isaiah text over and over again. In all he painted over eighty versions of the peaceable kingdom, the animals at peace led by a child. In one painting, off to the side of the beasts and little children playing together there is a scene of William Penn and other leaders making a treaty with the Native Americans. If you study many of the paintings, you will notice that over a period of years, as Edward Hicks became more and more disappointed with the conflicts of his age, the predators in his paintings look more and more ferocious. Painting by painting, the miracle of peace looks more and more difficult. It’s hard to trust this vision when so many adversaries are so deadly. Is such a vision of the peaceable kingdom a realistic hope today? Can we hope for a day when Republicans and Democrats care more about the peace and well-being of the world than they do about the special interests of donors, even when those interests are unjust?

IV.) In the face of oncoming despair, we can do small things: feed the hungry in our city, vote for leaders who care about the poor, light a candle as a witness to peace. Joan Baez said action is the antidote to despair. We can also pray for peace and the desire of justice to have more power in us. Violence and passivity in the face of injustice are not just problems of the political world. They’re problems of my heart and your heart. There is a lion and a lamb that live within each of us. In some of us the angry lion is dominant. We lash out at others. We tear at ourselves. There’s an untamed aggression that destroys relationships. In others of us, the passive lamb is in control. We’re timid and afraid. We’re never willing to roar, even when roaring is called for. The integration of lion and lamb within us is the work of YAHVEH’s peace. And such peace is found in a deep friendship with the one whom scripture calls both Lion of Judah and Lamb of YAHVEH. He is YAHVEH’s Moshiach, the one we call Yeshua and in His life the lion and the lamb dwell together. He came like a lion with strength and judgment. And he came as a lamb; gentle, caring, forgiving and suffering even unto death.