A Sermon Preached By

Rev. Peter W. Shidemantle

6^th Sunday in Easter, May 21, 2006

PEBBLE HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

5299 Jamesville Rd., DeWitt, NY  13214

Phone:  315-446-0960     FAX:  446-0672

phillchu@twcny.rr.com     http://pebblehill.presbychurch.org

          Our epistle lesson today says that “whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and (that) this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.”  Among other things, faith is a way of looking at the world.  Those who look at the world through eyes of faith do see things differently than those who don’t.  For example, if someone we know and love recovers from a severe illness, if we are people of faith, we will be thankful to God for that person’s healing.  It’s not that we would be denying the skills of the medical community who cared for our loved one, nor denying the power of the human body to heal itself.  It is, rather, that faith sees and understands nothing and no one to be outside the realm of God’s activity, God’s love and care, God’s justice and judgment and compassion.  For faith, it is not “God, or” but always “God, and.”  It is not God or the world, but God and the world.  “God so loved the world that God gave the only son. . .” – to the world, in the world, for the world.  So what could the writer of 1 John mean by saying that faith is the victory “that overcomes the world”?

          For the most part, in the New Testament the word “world” (cosmos) doesn’t refer to the physical universe but to an interlocking network of powers (sometimes called the “principalities and powers”)  – political, economic, cultural, ideological – that have turned their backs on their divine purpose, and set themselves up in defiance of God.  It is the old biblical story of humankind enforcing our prerogative over God’s, seeking to replace God’s will with our own - as if our will were God’s will.  It is the sin of idolatry, of making God that which is less than God.  This “world” is characterized by things such as inequality and injustice and racism, with immorality as the accepted norm - and it is constructed and maintained, for the most part, by violence, by intimidation, by enforcement - formal and informal.  This is the “world” to which the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans wrote that we should not be “conformed.”

          Since history has shown that every effort to create the “perfect” human society has failed utterly, we have to somehow make our peace with the world as it is - which does not mean, again using Paul’s words, that we are to be “of the world.”  There should always be about us, as people of faith, a sense of dis-ease with the world.  Whether or not you experience “the world” as something to be overcome might depend on where you are standing.  For many in this nation, for many of us, who realize significant benefits from the current arrangements of this world, perhaps our growing edge needs to be in nurturing our discomfort with the way things are.  This would be a step toward “overcoming” this world.  For others who are more victimized by this world, who don’t see much hope for themselves or their children, who feel stuck in situations they are powerless to change, their “overcoming” might lay in refusing to use the same methods of violence and intimidation that are used against them, such as Martin Luther King counseled in acting with non-violent resistance against the entrenched forces of racism in the movement for civil rights in this country.

          Jesus’ answer of how to overcome the world, being fully “in” it without being “of” it, was through the power of love.  The world is conquered for love, not through old notions of conquest but by choosing to be a servant in the kingdom of God.  It is less about triumphant victory and more about daring to have hope in a world filled with despair.

          The conflict between Israel and Palestine, according to some of the people who spoke to us, is nearly as dark and dire and as far from resolution as it has ever been.  The word that I often heard before I went there, and used myself, is “intractable.”  Stuck, going nowhere, an impossible situation.  When all the apparent forces are at play – political, cultural, geographical, historical, even (and some would say, especially) religious forces – this is not an unreasonable conclusion.  Perhaps it is the only logical conclusion one could draw.              

          But I keep thinking about the world being conquered for love, about daring to have hope in a world of despair.  This is our faith!  Geopolitical arrangements are part of the equation.  But it isn’t the whole story.  Mitri Raheb, the pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem and the director of the International Center of Bethlehem, reflected with us how the historic land of Palestine, with Jordan to the east and the Mediterranean to the west, has always been a land on the periphery.  Never a superpower itself, it has always been used as a battleground by other superpowers – Egypt, Syria, Babylonia, the Romans, Europeans, the Crusaders - and in modern times the U.S. and Soviet Union.  Because of this the land has always been divided.  But yet for three major religions it is the center of the universe.  It isn’t geography that does that.  Much of it is desert.  The Jordan River, now in most places a polluted stream, never held a candle to the Nile, or the River Thames, or the Mississippi.

          Only God can fight geography, Mitri said.  Living on the periphery for your whole history is hard to deal with; it can drive you crazy.  Throw into the mix that the population has always been diverse, with others always passing through.  The land was never empty, and never for long controlled by one group.  How do you create unity, or at least peaceful co-existence with all these different groups?  Throughout history there have been primarily two models.   One is the model of the biblical story of Babel – with one strong nation rising up as if to heaven, taking on the divine prerogative, trying to enforce a mono-cultural society.  As the story of Babel tells us, this can only lead to confusion, in the end (as God scattered the people, each with a different language. . .)  The other model has been one of exclusion, with the land cut up by the powerful at the expense of the powerless.  He likened the land today to a piece of Swiss cheese - Israel gets the cheese, Palestine gets the holes.  The point is that the people of the land have always resisted these arrangements, all these invasions - the Jews in Roman times, the Palestinians today.    

          As for religion, and its role in the conflict, Mitri shared how he believed there was too much religion and not enough spirituality.  Religious institutions have, to a great degree, become part of the intertwining powers that Paul would say constitute the “world.”  Both Jewish and Christian leaders told us, and by their testimony, the moderate Muslim leaders say as well, that religion must be a positive force, or it will be a negative force.  I take that to mean that for Christians it is our service to the kingdom of God as Jesus proclaimed it - “preaching good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19)

          There must be a new vision that is lifted up, for “without a vision the people perish,” the vision that is described at Pentecost.  On that day there were devout people dwelling Jerusalem from every nation under heaven - and as the Spirit of God descended upon this diverse multitude that had come together at the sound that came from heaven, like the rush of a mighty wind.  And though one would expect this to result in nothing but confusion, there was instead communication, of a kind never known before.  Though they were all Galileans, still each heard in their native language the speaking of visions and the dreaming of dreams, testimony to the wonders of God in heaven and on earth, telling the mighty works of God – Parthians and Elamites and Medes and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphilia, Egypt and parts of Libya . . . and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes - Cretans, and Arabians (there from the beginning).

          The new vision must be a vision not for just one or the other, but for both and for all. 

          There is very little difference, in our limited exposure to the various voices of the land today, as to what the resolution of the conflict should include - a settling of the issue of borders, which is negotiable, and an end to occupation.  And then, as Mitri shared with us, they’ll need a couple of generations to start building a new reality. 

          Hope across the long haul.  Maybe more than anything that’s the inspiration I take from this experience.  With every reason not to hope, hope is what sustains the people there who see not just the darkness, but the “everlasting light” that still shines on the “dark streets” of Bethlehem.  Faith overcomes the world.

          What do we need to sustain us?  Not hollow optimism, not naive assumptions that everything will work out in the end, and certainly not cynical detachment that is enabled by our distance from the difficult conditions in which others live.  Hope across the long haul, hope and faith that overcomes the world – and love for God, obedience to his commandments, which is shown in our love for the children of God, or it is not shown at all.

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