Sunday was a long day for me – and I knew it would be. I had to preach at my home church at our 7:30AM service and then at a United Methodist church at 10:30AM. I didn’t wait until the last minute to prepare for the preaching engagements, but yet and still I was up late Saturday night putting finishing touches on one of the sermons that needed to be just right. It was a sermon that I called “A Word to the Church during the time of War” I know it’s a pretty long title and to be honest I was fighting with that title late Saturday night. However, the sermon was about what I perceive to be the responsibility of Christians in a militaristic and unjust society. The sermon in a sentence is: “Christians should be advocates for justice, righteousness, and peace in the world.” Some might say that’s a pretty common sense or maybe even a misguided sermon. Maybe. But I enjoyed highlighting Amos 5:21-24 where the herdsman turned prophet named Amos acts as oracle of YHWH and suggests that there are times when The Almighty gets tired of solemn assemblies, offerings, and “joyful noises” and those times are when injustices are allowed to permeate society. Iraq was the main focus of the sermon. The 2,000 deaths really hit me hard – of course not as hard as those who have lost loved ones, but I felt that people of Faith (any Faith) needed to be more vocal of our displeasure with the madness that is the Iraq invasion and ongoing resistance to occupation.
I was hoping to get a copy of the sermon so that I could upload it here so that you could listen and give your views on it. Church folk don’t really critique your sermon. If they don’t like it they just don’t shake your hand on the way out. One member did say that she thought I did a good job in raising a sometimes controversial issue in a non-polarizing way. She also said that just that morning before church she was on the phone with a friend and her friend was asking, “Why aren’t more preachers speaking out about the war in Iraq?” So I guess I took that as confirmation. A couple of the other preachers said that they heard “Martin Luther King” in me and that they see me “preaching to nations.” A humbling statement and thought, but not a surprising comment. In preparation for the sermon I listened to Dr. King’s “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam” sermon over and over again. When doubting whether or not I should preach about Iraq, I was haunted by the statement that King quoted from Italian poet, Dante’:
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.
I may not have lived a virtuous enough life to escape the boundaries of hell, but if I do go to hell, I don’t want it to be because I kept silent when I knew I should’ve said something.
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Hi!
For not living in the United States, there is a lot of things about the “commun life” that I miss, for example is preachers talk about Iraq war or not.
In my country you can read in the papers that at least once a week, there is an attack in Iraq, and that many people get killed.
I can’t imagine what it would be to live in a place where you don’t know when a bomb will exploted or when a plane will attack…
I would like to read your preach to understand your point of view. I strongly disagree with this war in particular… the real motives of why Bush is attacking them are pretty clear to me.
Well Reverend, I will be in prayer. It is sobering, your comments that is, which jolt us back into our reality. After having enjoyed “our Jesus” on Sunday afternoon, to think that this is good enough…whew, sobering. I thought being a Christian was finding the hope I needed for me and mine…I had no idea that the requisite for Christianity was the redemption of community. What a notion. To think that there is something required of me after having accepted all this good grace and mercy God just sees fit to give so freely.
Brother, I appreciate that which you have found to be the burden which we bear. Those of us who have placed ourselves in the position of potentate prophet perhaps, should revisit studies we have long forgotten. Studies about the conviction made evident in preaching truth to power by the prophets of old.
I charge you then to be instant in season and out of season. Preach! Until the captive have been freed and the thoughtless inspired. Preach…until the voice of God finds manifestation upon the chords of your own voice. Preach…until every valley be exaulted and every mountain be made low. Preach…until the evils of this society are conformed to the ways that have brought balance to the universe and places righteousness upon her throne. Preach…until the slaves feel the release from their shackles and the ancestors sing a brand new refrain of freedom to the hymns of our faith. Preach until the evil one gets tired and Zephyr winds blow cool breezes across the backs of them that labor. Just preach truth…not to excite us, but to inspire us, too put on the cloak that is ours and walk into eschatological promise. We shall overcome!
Preach man!!!!! But whatever you do…make sure that the realization of the words you speak heal the wounded. Brother…we got casualities not only on the front line, but behind us here where we live.–>