You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
When Jesus tells his followers that the dawn of God’s New Age will be accompanied by upheaval and cataclysm, he includes armed conflict among the signs to look for: “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…”
Conflict seems to be a fact of life, or at least intrinsic to human nature. Almost as soon as there were humans they began to disagree. As people developed the capacity to make weapons, conflicts became armed ones. As people developed the capacity to enslave or conscript one another, armed conflicts became a business with armies and navies, and eventually even the skies became a battlefield. And as people developed the capacity to philosophize and rationalize, armed conflict was often framed as noble and good, a necessary evil to achieve freedom and prosperity. The human cost of that freedom and prosperity was often conveniently omitted from the narrative.
Is it churlish to raise such issues on Veterans Day, a day we set apart to honor and celebrate the sacrifices and courage of those women and men who go to war on our behalf? I hope not. I am deeply grateful for those who serve and have served, and to those who paid the ultimate price in death or dismemberment. I ache for the many veterans who remain haunted by the trauma they’ve experienced and sometimes have perpetrated, and am troubled by the paucity of mental health support being given them. I honor our veterans even as I look for a day when we won’t have any, because the human race has figured out better ways to work out conflict.
That seems about the most ridiculous sentence I’ve ever written. Not even Jesus seemed to foresee such a day this side of the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom. As long as “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…” we will need armed forces to defend us and sometimes the defenseless in other lands. And as long as we have armed forces, we will have veterans to be honored and supported.
Itt doesn’t have to be either/or. God’s realm is a both/and place, and that same Jesus who predicted conflict was also called the Prince of Peace. We can support our veterans while working to expand the many effective peacebuilding and conflict-resolution initiatives in our world. We can champion restorative justice initiatives which seek to break cycles of vengeance that fuel so many conflicts. We can teach our children better ways to achieve their goals. We can honor our active duty service members while calling out bad actors who prey on the vulnerable, both within their ranks and in the populations in which they serve.
And we can proclaim the Good News we will one day know in full, that Life of God in which all are housed, all are fed, no one is in want or need, and therefore no one needs to be in conflict. The prophet Micah painted that dream: God shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
Jesus suggested that nations rising up against each other are among the birth pangs to realizing that vision of peace. Perhaps they are. But they’re not the only ones. We can show other signs of God’s in-breaking realm of peace by living as though it were already here.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Showing posts with label Veterans Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Veterans Day. Show all posts
11-11-22 - An End To Violence
You can listen to this reflection here.
The portion of Isaiah we’re looking at depicts different visions of peace and security. It goes beyond human life to show peace reigning in the natural world, with an image dubbed “The Peaceable Kingdom." "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox…”
In this vision, predator-prey relationships are completely overturned; in fact, there are no predators. Carnivores have become vegetarians – a return to life in the Garden of Eden, in which plants and trees provided all the food that was needed, in which there was no killing to eat, no killing to settle scores. All that came outside the Garden, after the first man and woman were expelled.
"They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain," says the LORD. No one will hurt. No one will be hurt.
Every time I'm on a highway, I pass the carcasses of deer and other animals slain by humans moving too quickly to get somewhere that seems more important than the world around them. It is an awful counter-narrative to Isaiah’s. Oh, I realize that in part deer are vulnerable because predator-prey relationships have been overturned in other, less positive ways in our world; without predators they have to go further for food, wandering onto our roadways. And I know that the natural order can also be fierce and dangerous. But my spirit takes a hit whenever I see a dead animal. I immediately pray for its spirit to be running free with Jesus.
So this image is powerful for me. It proclaims: “The order we call natural has been undone and remade by God.” I want the lamb and the wolf to hang out together – I love wolves, I love lambs. I want the lion to like eating ox food, not oxen. And yes, I want people to stop slaughtering animals and one another. Call me hopelessly naïve. I find this vision compelling – even more so today, on Veterans Day, as we mark the sacrifice of so many men and women and families in the human way of conflict we call “natural.”
What we do as people of faith is to call into being what is not yet. In Romans 4:17, Paul refers to God as the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” If it already exists in the mind of God, it already is; what we do when we pray is invite it to be made known in the here and now. So God puts out this vision in Isaiah of a restored creation with peace and security for every living creature – we add our faith to it, and it will be. Sooner or later… Transformation happens.
I want to add my faith to this beautiful vision. What visions do you want to call into being? Where are your prayers leading you today?
Earlier in Isaiah, the prophet sketches this vision also, with a different ending: "The lion shall lie down with the lamb… and a little child shall lead them." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
The portion of Isaiah we’re looking at depicts different visions of peace and security. It goes beyond human life to show peace reigning in the natural world, with an image dubbed “The Peaceable Kingdom." "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox…”
In this vision, predator-prey relationships are completely overturned; in fact, there are no predators. Carnivores have become vegetarians – a return to life in the Garden of Eden, in which plants and trees provided all the food that was needed, in which there was no killing to eat, no killing to settle scores. All that came outside the Garden, after the first man and woman were expelled.
"They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain," says the LORD. No one will hurt. No one will be hurt.
Every time I'm on a highway, I pass the carcasses of deer and other animals slain by humans moving too quickly to get somewhere that seems more important than the world around them. It is an awful counter-narrative to Isaiah’s. Oh, I realize that in part deer are vulnerable because predator-prey relationships have been overturned in other, less positive ways in our world; without predators they have to go further for food, wandering onto our roadways. And I know that the natural order can also be fierce and dangerous. But my spirit takes a hit whenever I see a dead animal. I immediately pray for its spirit to be running free with Jesus.
So this image is powerful for me. It proclaims: “The order we call natural has been undone and remade by God.” I want the lamb and the wolf to hang out together – I love wolves, I love lambs. I want the lion to like eating ox food, not oxen. And yes, I want people to stop slaughtering animals and one another. Call me hopelessly naïve. I find this vision compelling – even more so today, on Veterans Day, as we mark the sacrifice of so many men and women and families in the human way of conflict we call “natural.”
What we do as people of faith is to call into being what is not yet. In Romans 4:17, Paul refers to God as the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” If it already exists in the mind of God, it already is; what we do when we pray is invite it to be made known in the here and now. So God puts out this vision in Isaiah of a restored creation with peace and security for every living creature – we add our faith to it, and it will be. Sooner or later… Transformation happens.
I want to add my faith to this beautiful vision. What visions do you want to call into being? Where are your prayers leading you today?
Earlier in Isaiah, the prophet sketches this vision also, with a different ending: "The lion shall lie down with the lamb… and a little child shall lead them." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
11-11-21 - Neither Shall They Learn War Anymore
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
When Jesus tells his followers that the dawn of God’s New Age will be accompanied by upheaval and cataclysm, he includes armed conflict among the signs to look for: “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…”
Conflict seems to be a fact of life, or at least intrinsic to human nature. Almost as soon as there were two humans they began to disagree. As people developed the capacity to make weapons, conflicts became armed ones. As people developed the capacity to enslave or conscript one another, armed conflicts became a business with armies and navies, and eventually even the skies became a battlefield. And as people developed the capacity to philosophize and rationalize, armed conflict was often framed as noble and good, a necessary evil to achieve freedom and prosperity. The human cost of that freedom and prosperity was conveniently omitted from the narrative.
Is it churlish to raise such issues on Veterans Day, a day we set apart to honor and celebrate the sacrifices and courage of those women and men who serve on our behalf? I hope not. I am deeply grateful for those who serve and have served, and to those who paid the ultimate price in death or dismemberment. I ache for the many veterans in our midst who remain haunted by the trauma they’ve experienced and sometimes have perpetrated, and am deeply concerned about the paucity of mental health support being given them. I honor our veterans even as I look for a day when we won’t have any, because the human race has figured out better ways to work out conflict.
That seems about the most ridiculous sentence I’ve ever written. Not even Jesus seemed to foresee such a day this side of the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom. As long as “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…” we will need armed forces to defend us and sometimes the defenseless in other lands. And as long as we have armed forces, we will have veterans to be honored and supported.
Yet it doesn’t have to be either/or. God’s realm is a both/ and place, and that same Jesus who predicted conflict was also called the Prince of Peace. We can support our veterans while putting our energies into expanding the many effective peacebuilding and conflict-resolution initiatives in our world. We can champion restorative justice initiatives which seek to break cycles of vengeance that fuel so many conflicts. We can teach our children better ways to achieve their goals. We can honor our active duty service members while calling out bad actors who prey on the vulnerable, both within their ranks and in the populations in which they serve.
And we can proclaim the Good News we will one day know in full, that Life of God in which all are housed, all are fed, no one is in want or need, and therefore no one needs to be in conflict. The prophet Micah painted that dream:
When Jesus tells his followers that the dawn of God’s New Age will be accompanied by upheaval and cataclysm, he includes armed conflict among the signs to look for: “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…”
Conflict seems to be a fact of life, or at least intrinsic to human nature. Almost as soon as there were two humans they began to disagree. As people developed the capacity to make weapons, conflicts became armed ones. As people developed the capacity to enslave or conscript one another, armed conflicts became a business with armies and navies, and eventually even the skies became a battlefield. And as people developed the capacity to philosophize and rationalize, armed conflict was often framed as noble and good, a necessary evil to achieve freedom and prosperity. The human cost of that freedom and prosperity was conveniently omitted from the narrative.
Is it churlish to raise such issues on Veterans Day, a day we set apart to honor and celebrate the sacrifices and courage of those women and men who serve on our behalf? I hope not. I am deeply grateful for those who serve and have served, and to those who paid the ultimate price in death or dismemberment. I ache for the many veterans in our midst who remain haunted by the trauma they’ve experienced and sometimes have perpetrated, and am deeply concerned about the paucity of mental health support being given them. I honor our veterans even as I look for a day when we won’t have any, because the human race has figured out better ways to work out conflict.
That seems about the most ridiculous sentence I’ve ever written. Not even Jesus seemed to foresee such a day this side of the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom. As long as “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…” we will need armed forces to defend us and sometimes the defenseless in other lands. And as long as we have armed forces, we will have veterans to be honored and supported.
Yet it doesn’t have to be either/or. God’s realm is a both/ and place, and that same Jesus who predicted conflict was also called the Prince of Peace. We can support our veterans while putting our energies into expanding the many effective peacebuilding and conflict-resolution initiatives in our world. We can champion restorative justice initiatives which seek to break cycles of vengeance that fuel so many conflicts. We can teach our children better ways to achieve their goals. We can honor our active duty service members while calling out bad actors who prey on the vulnerable, both within their ranks and in the populations in which they serve.
And we can proclaim the Good News we will one day know in full, that Life of God in which all are housed, all are fed, no one is in want or need, and therefore no one needs to be in conflict. The prophet Micah painted that dream:
God shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
Jesus suggested that nations rising up against each other are part of the birthpangs to realizing that vision of peace. Perhaps they are. But they’re not the only ones. We can show other signs of God’s in-breaking realm of peace by living as though it were already fully here.
Jesus suggested that nations rising up against each other are part of the birthpangs to realizing that vision of peace. Perhaps they are. But they’re not the only ones. We can show other signs of God’s in-breaking realm of peace by living as though it were already fully here.
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