Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
I retired after twenty years in the Air Force. This wouldn’t be of much consequence, except that I have been asked to reflect on this beautiful passage about God’s peace. As a warrior, as one whose job was once building and reading the message that would launch nuclear weapons meant to kill millions, initially I wanted to offer a different reflection. I wished to tell a story of transformation, a narrative about life in the presence of this God who says “I forgive your iniquity and I pardon your sin,” this God who calls us to do the same. I wanted to convey that through a continued connection with the covenant community who has no borders, I began questioning the systems I served, doubting the efficacy of my own nationalistic perspective, and for the first time, examined my identification with the standards of my culture over my embrace of the standards of God.
Yet, in struggle and prayer with this scripture, I began to realize this question of peace is not about militarism or politics. These are simply the structures where our actions in the world are lived out. Our failure to live in peace seems instead to flow from our belief that we have a right to what we think of as “redemptive violence,” even when that violence is internalized as non-actualized hatred. It appears we believe that such violence is not only just, we believe it is restorative. Thus, it seems that the military is only a structure created out of the body-politic that gives form to institutionalized redemptive violence. And most American Christians readily embrace this structure rather than the radical notion that God really means we are to “love your enemy.”
For these reasons, rather than speaking of power and patriotism, I want to tell you about
Sharon
.
Her story began in college, a place of new life and new possibilities. She embraced this new life with a passion, seeking liberation from youthful limitations. With every new activity,
Sharon
felt the shackles of restraint loosen a bit more, bringing her the independence for which she had so deeply longed. But freedom ended suddenly when, at a party, she was viciously raped. No doubt, she had made some bad choices but she had done nothing to deserve this. And in her was birthed a hate that only such defilement can muster.
Somehow, she lived on. In time, she married and had children. If her early ideas of freedom were impossible, then perhaps a very normal life would do. Perhaps here was a place where the dreams of her past could not reach. Yet, the nightmare sometimes resides in the waking. One day, she found her husband gone. He told her he deserved to find love. He left her and he left his children. And he left with her best friend.
Deep wounds do not always bring immediate death, only the excruciating edict of continual suffering. Each day, the black void of her being was filled more completely, filled with a growing hatred toward these ones who had forced such violation upon her. She relished the hatred. It seemed to be her only emotion, the only feeling that proved she was alive. It utterly consumed her.
It was there, in this living hell, where she received a bit of life offered by another who also knew violation, a morsel of hope extended from a community who knew how to love. It was the voice of God, birthed into her existence by a people who had heard the word of peace. At first, she didn’t want to hear; yet, bit by bit she did listen. Slowly, she opened herself to the Voice. And in the place of enmity, a small seed was germinated - the seed of love, a seed that grew until finally she could respond – “let it go and love … and forgive … and live.”
In a town far from her own, a woman who had once been a friend, opened an envelope and read the words, “In the midst of it all, I still love you.” Then, on a normal business day, a man picked up the office phone to hear a familiar voice, “No matter what, I forgive you.” And one day, a woman who had once been dead, kneeled at the altar rail and placed upon it a note. It was a note to a man from her college past, a man whom she would never again meet. It was a note about pain, a note of life. It was a note which said, “Even in the violation, even after all these years, I forgive you. Please forgive me for my sin of hate.”
It was redemptive love, forgiveness flowing out of the deepest violation. “Holy One, forgive them, for they don’t know what they do.” Christ incarnate in her life, peace realized.
When we discover the truth of salvific love in the midst of utter defilement, when we allow our communal and individual lives to be indwelled by God’s Spirit and our life to live into the life of God’s Spirit, as with Sharon, we will truly learn this promise of God -- Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss … and in such salvation, there is nothing left to protect.
Paradise
.
By Steve Taylor, Director of Missions,
North Carolina
Conference, United
Methodist
Church
