Peace of Jerusalem (Rob Gieselmann, Dec. 2, 2007)

I am feeling terribly old, these days. Older, perhaps, than my years, but aged nonetheless. I’m tired, you see, and it’s not from lack of sleep. Emotionally tired, from the chronic, chaotic state of the world.

Of wars, and rumors of wars, to borrow Jesus’ words. From killing, from hate, from the things we do to one another, from the way we treat one another, often in the name of God.

I long for, pine for, hope for peace, for that day when swords will be beat into ploughshares, when we will decline to make war anymore – but I, like Isaiah, am dreaming, I wake violently from sleep. Swords are not yet beat into ploughshares; bombs and AK-47s are not recast as tractors and combines.

And, of-course, I’m not as old as I feel, but I’ve lived through three publicly declared wars, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Iraq – through innumerable skirmishes -- I’ve watched wars start, and wars end – people bombing people -- and children dying – and I am befuddled by it all, at the hate, the fear, the devastation, Will there ever be peace on earth?

So confidently we called the first World War, the war to end all wars – oxymoronic, for war cannot usher peace. Peace through war is a mirage. And so I’m feeling tired, because I wonder at the effort of it all, whether it is at all possible to obtain peace.

Someone said to me the other day, the older I get, the more appealing I find the pacifism of the Quakers. I feel the same way – maybe, maybe there’s something to political pacifism.

But I digress; this is not a sermon on pacifism.

What I really want to know on this First Sunday of Advent is more fundamental: will there ever be peace on earth?

George Bush these days is acting as Jimmy Carter – trying to pull disparate Middle Eastern tribes together in an attempt at peace. Lest you think I am critical of George Bush in this regard – let’s all remember Jesus’ words, which were not written for democrats only: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall see God.

You see God because peace is at the heart of God; if you see peace, and you’ve seen God. But again, I have to ask, is peace on earth possible?

Jerusalem is located 22 miles from the Dead Sea. The shore of the Dead Sea is about 1400 feet below sea level, the lowest dry ground on earth. Jerusalem is located at about the same elevation as Mt. Tam, 2800 feet above sea level, meaning that you have to drive almost 4000 feet up from the Dead Sea to reach Jerusalem.

That is why Scripture speaks of going up to Jerusalem. Jerusalem predates Abraham. We call this ancient and holy city, “the City of David,” for David’s unabashed love of God, but it was his son, Solomon, who established Jerusalem religiously. Solomon built the first Temple, and then, centuries after Solomon’s Temple was destroyed, one of the Roman Herod’s built a second Temple.

This Second Temple was the center of Jerusalem, and its religious life, when Jesus made his own pilgrimages there. This Second Temple was destroyed in about 70 AD, when Jerusalem was sacked, and the Jews later scattered – the Diaspora, or dispersion, it is called.

The Romans dismantled the Temple stone by stone, leaving only a wall of foundation, the Western Wall, the Wailing Wall. As a mere remnant of the Temple, the Western Wall is the holiest place to all of Judaism.

Men and women still make pilgrimages up to Jerusalem, to this stretch of wall about 100 feet long. Men and women stand along this wall, divided, men to the left, women to the right, and offer prayers, written on slips of paper, and stick them into cracks between the stones, and they rock on feet, back and forth, praying with their whole bodies, not just their words.

And one of the prayers you offer at the wall is the prayer you hear urged in the Psalm, Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem.

Which is particularly poignant, given that the second most holy place in all of Islam is located only a football’s throw away, on the very spot where the Temple would be, had it not been dismantled by the Romans.

The Dome of the Rock – the mosque located on the site Muslims believe that Abraham offered Isaac in sacrifice to God. When I visited Jerusalem, I left my shoes at the door with all the others, and awkwardly found my own spot on the floor to pray with Muslims – facing Mecca, Southeast.

Jews facing East at the Western Wall, and Muslims facing Mecca, inside the Dome, both praying to the same God, the God of Abraham.

Christians, too, pray in Jerusalem. They pray a few miles away, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, said to be built on the site of Jesus’ tomb. They also pray walking along the Via Dolorosa, the alleyway along which Jesus carried the cross to his death.

Holy sites, located in this holiest city in the world, where people of one God and three religions intersect, where they co-exist partly by violence, in tenuous, a taught relationship.

Indeed, it is the Zionist or the Jihadist who seems most violent, but we Christians are not without our sin. We worship in Jerusalem as a result of our own violence, the Crusades, when we so presumptuously recovered the City of David for Christ.

Peace in Jerusalem is elusive – peace, peace, they cry, but there is no peace. There is only co-existence. What is one to do, then, with Isaiah’s bold promise that there will be peace on earth, that swords will be beat into ploughshares, that lion and lamb will lie down together? Neither shall they make war anymore. How can this be?

Isaiah promised a time when there would be global peace, and yet, we find ourselves hurtling through space towards an uncertain destiny bounded only by mutual assured destruction. It seems we are in need of a Savior, Emmanuel.

God with us. Isn’t the key question, Who is Us?

There is a natural tendency among people to create cells of acceptance – enclaves, tribes – People congregate, form groups, families, if you will -- Congregations and families are crucial to the development of a sense of identity and belonging.

There is a dark side to grouping, when a group becomes exclusive, and isolationist, when my group becomes both (1) for people only like me, and (2) superior.

A country-club mentality, I’m in and you’re not.

As to religion and grouping, Christian author James Carroll wrily observes, There’s only one God, and your God is not it!

Or, to paraphrase. There’s only one God, and I’ve got Him.

Which is the dark side to the Abrahamic religions – Christianity, Judaism, and Islam – I’m going to heaven, and you’re not.

Or, You’re an infidel, but I’m a true believer. Or, Jerusalem is ours, and you’re not welcome. These markers form Berlin-like walls segregating brothers by anger, hate, and finally, war. Which is ironic, given that Abraham is our common Father, and Yahweh is our common God.

Monotheism – that God is One.

But, Carroll continues, the Oneness of God, properly understood is the oneness of union, the reconciliation of oppositions [and] differences. The reconciliation of oppositions.

In the One God, and for us, as Christians, we say, “In Christ, there is no east or west; in Christ, our sad divisions cease.”

Which is perhaps Isaiah’s messianic insight, Nation shall not lift up sword against nation; Neither shall they learn war any more. In other words, maybe there will be peace when we can accept and respect our religious differences.

I suspect that this won’t happen because we evolve to a better place of human goodness. So far, that hasn’t happened. Rather, we need intervention. We need Salvation.

We need the hand of Almighty God to deliver us. But before deliverance comes turning – turning away from sin. Not your petty sins – like when you lie or steal or commit adultery --

Don’t get me wrong – you are certainly welcome to turn away from these sins in this Church, anytime!

But the communal sin that we as groups commit against groups – that the religious commit against the religious – hate against hate, strife, against strife, and finally, arms against arms, bombs and bullets.

From this, we as Christian people, must turn – we are not superior, as we had imagined, and we – all of us, Jews and Muslims included, need help.

From God.

**Advent is the season of longing, but not just for a better Wal-Mart Christmas. Advent means longing for peace, for Isaiah’s promise of peace on Earth. And that means seeking help. Because, after all is said and done we cannot help ourselves.

Some day you will see Isaiah’s promise fulfilled, there will be true acceptance among people of disparate religions. In Jerusalem.

When that happens – when there is true acceptance, and not just a tense tolerance -- then, you will know that your Savior has come. That salvation is at hand.

And so I ask you, this Advent, to pray with the psalmist, to stand with the Jew, and to kneel with the Muslim, and pray like you mean it, for the Peace of Jerusalem.

Amen.

Copyright 2007