The alarm clock went off, and John groaned, rolled over, and stuck his head out from under the sheets. "It's time to get up," his mother said. "You have to get ready for school." "Oh Mom," John said, "I don't feel like going to school today. Nobody there likes me. The kids don't like me, the teachers don't like me, even the janitors don't like me. I think I'll just stay home sick today." "You can't stay home sick today," his mother said. "You have to go to school." "But why?" John asked, pleadingly. "Well, for one thing, people at school are counting on you. For another, everyone's expecting you to show up. But most importantly, you have to go to school because you're the principal!" We've probably all felt like that at one time or another. We didn't like our job, and we wished we could quit. Maybe we had a run-in with out boss. Maybe we didn't get along with one of our coworkers. Maybe the big project was just draining the life out of us. Still, more than likely, we went, because that was our job, and in some sense, we felt like we had to follow through on it. Moses had had it "up to here" with the Israelites. They complained about no water, they complained about no food. Now that they had food and water, they complained about the quality of the food. Apparently the manna they gathered every day left something to be desired in comparison with the food they had access to in Egypt. When things are bad, we tend to look at the past longingly, remembering the good and forgetting the bad. The truth of the matter for the Israelites was that their time in Egypt was even worse than what they were experiencing in the wilderness. Sure, the catering was better, but the boss was a real slave driver. Maybe Moses thought to himself, "If only I had minded my own business when I saw that Egyptian beating a Hebrew, I'd be living in the lap of luxury right now. I certainly wouldn't be out here in the desert trying to herd cats!" When we feel that life used to be better for us, we need to look back on our journey and ask some serious questions. Why did we make the choices we made? Realistically speaking, was our life actually better back in the "good old days"? What is better about like now than in the past? Often we'll find that things aren't as bad as they sometimes seem. And even if things really are worse now, can we reverse course? Usually we can't. That doesn't mean, however, that we can't make changes, either in regard to our jobs, our families, or ourselves. The place to start is with ourselves. If we adopt a more positive attitude, maybe life will improve. Maybe our families and coworkers will respond positively. Maybe we'll be able to accomplish more. Certainly we'll be more satisfied with life. I think God puts us in situations from time to time that are beyond our innate ability to respond, so that we will have to live by faith rather than by sight. If you're in the wilderness now, be encouraged. There is an end to it, even if we can't see it now, and God has promised to be with us throughout the journey.
In the aftermath of the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both sides claimed victory when the conflict ended, but Hezbollah had the better claim. They had lost more soldiers, but they hadn't been rooted out of their positions in southern Lebanon, and since Israel didn't achieve its objectives, Hezbollah, with some justification, claimed victory. One could argue, however, that it was a bit of a Pyrrhic victory. That didn't stop Hezbollah partisans from celebrating, though. They were convinced that their victory, such as it was, over Israel was the direct result of God's intervention on their behalf. The psalmist is convinced that God has fought on Israel's side in the national psalm of thanksgiving that today's reading from the Psalter describes. Despite overwhelming odds, the army managed to resist the advances of their enemy and ultimately prevail. It's easy to see God's hand in things when we achieve a surprising victory, but can we also see God's hand in defeat? There are undoubtedly many in Israel and the U.S. who would argue that Israel did indeed inflict significant damage on Hezbollah in the recent flare-up, and the resulting Israeli victory (as they see it) should be seen as God's taking sides on behalf of Israel. Abraham Lincoln long ago expressed an understanding God's relationship with warring parties far better than many self-proclaimed theologians today. He noted that both sides in the conflict (the U.S. Civil War) prayed to the same God and asked for victory, but obviously God could not answer both sets of prayers affirmatively, and God in fact did not answer either side completely. While it is good to give thanks to God for miraculous deliverances of any sort, it is dangerous to assume that God favors one side over another in modern international conflicts. Despite President Bush's confident assertions that certain nations belong to an axis of evil, a realistic examination of the facts belies such a claim. Every nation has good aspects to it, and every nation has bad. It's true that injustice is more rampant in some nations that in others, but it is not absent from any nation. Rather than proclaiming vociferously that God is on the side of our nation, we should rather be praying fervently that our nation side with God to bring about justice and peace on earth.
U.S. troops in Iraq are attacked by insurgents an average of once every fifteen minutes, according to the latest numbers. Christians and Muslims are at war with one another in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the potential is there for the conflict to spread worldwide. At least, that's the view of many Muslims--and many Christians as well. All of us in the West are well aware of the inflammatory statements of people like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, who urge their followers to continue to wage war on the West. We're not as aware of the statements of people like U.S. General William Boykin, who promoted the war against Islamic foes as a war against Satan. Or popular preacher John Hagee, who is convinced that World War III has already started, and says, "We must win this war at all costs." Pragmatically, there's no way either side can wipe out the other, so war is not a solution, it is an admission of failure. More than that, it's a promotion of failure. Those who advocate violent acts against the other side may win a lot of applause from their bloodthirsty constituents, but they won't achieve their goal of suppressing the other side. War begets war, not peace. What both sides need to hear is the words of James, who says, "Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed." Christians and Muslims confessing their sins to one another and praying for one another? Is it even possible? Yes it is, and it happens--it just doesn't make the headlines. About a month ago a local eastern rite Catholic church held an ecumenical prayer meeting that included Christians, Jews, and Muslims, who all gathered together to pray for peace. That sort of thing is not popular in fundamentalist circles, Christian or Muslim, but it's exactly what our reading today teaches. Is it possible that progressive Christians, and other Christians who take peacemaking seriously, have more in common with Muslims of a similar persuasion that either group has with fundamentalists in its own ranks? In some ways, the answer is clearly yes. It's not that we have the same theology, but we both understand God as a God who loves all people, hates the suffering that war causes, and wants people of all faiths to live in peace.
"You're either with us or with the terrorists," said President Bush in a 2002 speech. The implication was clear. Either go along with everything the U.S. does, or be implicated as a supporter, or at least an appeaser, of terrorism. Jesus had just the opposite message for his disciples. "Whoever is not against us is for us." This is a much more positive view of humanity. It's a way of looking at life that emphasizes the ideas that we share rather than focusing on the ideas on which we differ from one another. Fundamentalism distinguishes sharply between "us" and "them," and the circle of "us" is pretty small. Although some who view the world in this way are content to see themselves as a small, righteous, perhaps persecuted minority, others are convinced that they must use any means at their disposal to convert the rest of the world to their way of thinking. In 1533, Christians who were followers of self-proclaimed radical prophet Melchior Hoffmann streamed into the German city of Münster, where a popular preacher was proclaiming doctrines similar to those of their imprisoned leader. By 1534 the radicals controlled the city, outlawing infant baptism, instituting polygamy on the basis of Old Testament laws, and transforming Münster into a theocracy. Not content to live in a city where people were forced to live according to their personal understanding of theology, they made plans to spread their theocratic government to surrounding cities. In 1535 Catholics and Protestants, cooperating together for the first time since the Protestant Reformation began almost twenty years earlier, sent in troops and captured the city, putting an end to the theocratic vision of the radicals. God doesn't want us to make sharp distinctions between "us" and "them," at least not on the basis of theological opinion (or ethnicity, nationality, language, etc., etc.). There are good people of all theological persuasions, fundamentalist and progressive, conservative and liberal, and moderate and people of no theological persuasion at all. We all need to learn to see the things we can agree on and work to achieve progress in those areas. Do we believe that poverty is a serious problem? Let's work together to reduce it. Do we think abortion is too common? Let's work together to make it less frequent. Do we decry corruption in government? Let's work together to make those with political power more accountable to the voters. We won't always agree on everything, but there's no reason that people we believe strongly about an issue can't work with others who think the same thing, even if they might disagree on other issues. And what of those with whom we disagree? Those people we need to treat to respect, as people worth listening to, as people whose ideas happen to vary from our own. It's true that there are some ideas that truly must be rejected as contrary to the wellbeing of the human race, but the number of those ideas is not nearly as great as many people think.