Sermon: Surprising Transforming Initiative

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Surprising Transforming Initiative

By Charles Rush

April 27, 2003

've just been through a campaign of shock and awe which achieved its objective. You cannot help but sit up and take notice of the sophisticated communication, coordination, and lethal effectiveness.

I was asking a couple folks who are leaders in Defense about the attack that reportedly took out Saddam Hussein at a restaurant. Someone on the ground phoned in his location, it was relayed to Central Command, to the Pentagon, back to Central Command, out to a ship that deployed 4 cruise missiles and got them to the target – all in 45 minutes.

On our job site, it takes me an hour to get someone to sweep up a pile of dirt. I asked them what effect that had on other countries. One of them responded that if it had been on tape, he bet there would be half a dozen petty tyrants around the world that would play it over and over again. The world unquestionably stands up and takes notice and it does motivate leaders of other countries to negotiate rather than act out or stand tough. I am fairly sure that in the political history of realpolotik, this decade of shock and awe will find its way into a seminar, especially on the subject of overwhelming, precise military force and its effect on the world political climate.

Our text this morning lifts up another way to effect substantive change than the exercise of power in realpolotik, but one that it equally important, and in some ways more effective.

We move in memory here from the Last Supper to the first Breakfast.[1] When the disciples were gathered around that table, celebrating the Seder meal that lifts up God's mighty act of deliverance in the Exodus, Jesus suggested that one of them would betray him to the authorities. They all became indignant and concerned that they might be the only ones left out of the rumor mill – the scene so imaginatively captured by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Peter, the prototypical disciple, bursts forth in bluster, ‘The others might desert you Lord, but not I.” Not me. It is the same bluster you get from your college kids home on break when you ask where all the beer in the refrigerator went. No, not me. What? Why would you even look at me like that? Not me.

Peter speaks with confidence like we all would, surrounded by intimate support, standing next to the leader. He feels, like we all do, that he is capable of quite a lot. He is like a friend of mine from Texas who is fond of closing deals informally saying, “My word is as strong as oak” as he grabs you with a bear handshake. Absolutely! Not a problem!

Only a few hours later, the Roman army descends in overwhelming force and the bold fraternity of courage and wisdom scatters each as they can running in sheer terror through the night. Everyone wants to do the right thing, but when the legions descend with swords and spears, the impulse just to survive takes over. Id immediately mobilizes to protect ego and run like hell if necessary.

The Romans were very blunt with the use of torture and violence. The cross that Jesus died on was not unique to Jesus. It was an intentional design by the Romans to slowly kill people with maximum pain. As you walked up to the gates of Jerusalem, these crosses hung on either side of the road, filled with runaway slaves and other insurrectionists, a grim reminder of what happens when the Imperial authority of Rome is defied. Fear does have a motivating force to it.

Peter flees into the night and later finds warmth, trying to anonymously blend in around a late night fire. There he is confronted by a curious by-stander who wonders aloud if he was a disciple of Jesus who was just arrested. Peter denies that he was. He denies it again. She goads him, saying that he has a hick accent from Galilee like peasant fishermen. Peter lashes out and curses Jesus. And he is left with that utter interior loneliness. Physically he is alone. It is late. It is dark. He ran. He behaved without integrity. He is alive. He is embarrassed at his actions. He is having that internal conversation that we have in these situations. “At least I'm alive… God if I could just erase the whole tape… what else could I do… God this looks bad.” Super ego is telling you, you are a fink and id is reminding you that a live fink is better than dead integrity and ego is just struggling for a way to get it all behind. You don't have any confidence, any resolve, bitterness and relief all mixed up… and you just want to get under a cover and curl up like a fetus.

When Jesus goes on trial, the disciples are still fearful and helpless. They don't bust him out of jail. They don't even blend in with the crowd when Jesus is brought before them. They stay away from the torture. Jesus dies alone. None of this betrayal is resolved, the relationship is not concluded. It just quits and it quits on a bitter note.

Spiritually, it is just deadening. I've known people whose parents have died unreconciled and it haunted them for years. They just wish they could have said something, they just wish they had done something different, they just wish they had showed up and been able to put some words together.

The disciples are dispirited and they just go back to their old jobs, they just return to their old routines and go on with life, making the best of it come what may.

And there, in the middle of the ordinary, Jesus seeks them out. Jesus comes for them. Jesus single out Peter. And he blesses him three times, the same number of times that Peter betrayed Jesus. You have to wonder if somewhere between the 2nd blessing and the 3rd blessing, the spark didn't jump the gap in Peter's mind, and he had an ‘Aha!' moment of awareness and growth. This is the story of God in the Bible, the story of the God who comes after us with a surprising, transforming initiative. We are changed. And because it is the story of God with us, it is also the story of us with each other, hard as it is to actually live.

I have a friend who lived this with his eldest son. The two of them had a turbulent relationship during the teenage years. The father gave his son lots of opportunities including private school. The son had trouble at school and was asked to leave. The father wanted the son to go to the college that he had attended and the son jettisoned that plan, went to a not very competitive college, partied enough to flunk out of school before the second term and Dad got to pay the bill for a full year. Somewhere in that period there was a wrecked car, there was also an incident earlier of some items that were charged a credit card without permission totaling a number that was in the realm of thousands not hundreds. More than that there was a life without direction, without a game plan or a sense of an ethic that was going anywhere. The father was ready to kill number one son and number one son moved out to Colorado, reportedly to instruct beginners in the sport of skiing.

Dad gets a call one night. Son is arrested for possession of serious narcotics, with a fair amount of weight. The relationship had deteriorated to the point that the Father's first and predominant reaction was ‘good', some time in jail might be the best thing for him.

The relationship had deteriorated to the point that husband and wife couldn't even really speak about it because they didn't agree. The father can't sleep. He stays up practically the whole night, thinking it over.

His wife comes into the study in the early hours of the morning and says to him simply. “He's not ever going to be like you. What do you think he needs?” And she went back to bed. A short while later, he gave up a lot of dreams for the future. He just let them go. And he realized that what was really important was just to be in relationship. And he didn't know what the right thing to do was. And he wasn't sure what the future would hold. And he didn't know whether he was enabling or rescuing or what he was doing, but he called the airline and got on the first flight and flew out and got his son out of jail.

I wish I could tell you that everything turned out ‘happily ever after' but it didn't. There were more complicated tales to tell. But one thing, I can tell you, that son will never forget the afternoon his father unexpectedly came after him, without judgment, without any speeches. He was just there. And he was changed. And the relationship was changed. Surprising, transformative initiative is like that.

And it is like that socially as well. The Irish and English have been fighting in Northern Ireland since the 1600's when the English drove the Irish off some of the best farm land in Ireland and settled Englishmen and Scots, who then hired the Irish as servants and field hands to work the very land that was stolen from them.

For all of my life the Irish Republican army has waged a steady campaign of vengeful terrorism against the English or as they say in that region, ‘The Protestants'. And the English responded by moving more and more soldiers into Northern Ireland. Year after year this revolution went on, led by grown men with names like Johnny Mad Dog Adair. Vengence, violence, retribution.

Just a couple years ago in the town of Amaugh another bomb went off. I think it killed 21 civilians in a shopping area, pretty much all English people. It injured dozens more people. Television the entire day in Britain covered people running from the area, bleeding, in shock.

For reasons that no one can fully explain, that day turned a corner. The Irish citizens in Amaugh came together and they said, ‘enough'. We don't want to become another battleground. The IRA are not welcome here, terrorism will not be tolerated, and they made some very concrete gestures of good will towards the victims of the tragedy. And they initiated a panel of Irish and English to come together and plan a series of civic events to develop understanding and community in the town. It has extended several years now unto the present.

Again, I cannot say that all tension is gone, nor that serious issues are still to be resolved. But they are not killing each other and they are talking about realistic ways to make their lives better for all people. And the change happened because some one dared to break the impasse, dared to step out, not knowing at the time if it would be received or rejected. They made a surprising, transforming initiative and it was a spirit-filled moment.

The conclusion of the gospels is like that as well. It doesn't end “happily ever after”. We still have separation and death. But Jesus comes back from the dead, almost as a highlight of what was really important about his mission. It's not about getting it right the first time. The spiritual point of life, is about fixing what is broken. It is about doing what we can in our little world to heal and make it right. Hope opens before our eyes when that happens. May you be blessed to fix something too.

Amen.

[1] I got this idea from John Dear's book Jesus the Rebel (find: find), pp. 194-196.