Violence

Sermon given on 11th August 2024

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Bible Readings

I Kings 19 v4-8 – Elijah flees from Ahab

Ephesians 4 v25 – ch5 v2 – Paul paints a picture of Christ-like character

John 6 v35 & v41-51 – John continues his meditation on the words of Jesus – “I am the bread of life”

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I’d like to share some context on the Old Testament reading.

I Kings plots a descriptive timeline of early Jewish kings and prophets  The succession leads to lesser-known kings such as Omri and Ahab. The prophets (critical friends of the kings) culminate in Elijah who judges Ahab particular harshly for his involvement in the cult of Baal. Elijah has had the prophets of Baal slaughtered. Ahab blames him for the terrible drought which is afflicting the land but Ahab’s wife Jezebel( that old trick of blaming the wife who actually leads these men astray!) Jezebel orders revenge and  the murder of the pesky prophets seeing them possibly as religious fanatics. The Message has her declaring

“The gods will get you for this and I’ll get even with you!” So there’s a to and fro  battle of competing religions. Elijah is running for his life.

Elijah then, fears he will be murdered and I suppose you could call him an asylum-seeker. Under that broom tree, did he have  a moment of remorse  for the way in which he has been trapped in a cycle of violence and counter violence ?The story has the angel of the Lord ministering to him by providing him with much-need sustenance. Lovely – nice story. To take the story onwards he travels for forty days more then has another supernatural experience not through the earthquake, wind or fire but a quiet voice. Lovely, nice.

The problem is: that quiet voice tells him to appoint new kings Hazael and Jehu and prophet Elisha – but to what end?

“Anyone who escapes death by Hazael will be killed by Jehu and anyone who escapes death by Jehu will be killed by Elisha.”

So the long story is really about violence begetting violence.

Now I’ve been having a major sifting through of my journals over the years. I’ve thrown away so much  paper – getting ahead of the bin-strike! My journals represent the things which meant enough at the time to write it down – its been fascinating.

I wrote out the whole of Sting’s songs “They dance alone” and “Fragile” . These were written for the disappeared in Pinochet’s Chile. From Fragile: “Nothing comes of violence, nothing ever could.”  That’s the long and the short of it.

Paul, who earlier in his life had himself practised violent religious intolerance, gives us his refreshingly positive guidance for relating to others. The extract from his letter beautifully talks of building up the Christian character – honesty, inoffensive and helpful speech, sensitivity and forgiveness.

So I’ve been thinking about how this New Testament might speak into the social crisis on the streets of our near neighbours in Belfast, Cardiff, Hull ( from where so many schoolchildren come  who camp out cheaply in our Hall)? I have been looking at pictures of middle-aged men hurling chairs around, youths smashing up shoe-shops, women shouting slogans with venom.

So much unhelpful speech, so much anger after sunset, so much stealing, so much insensitivity. Exactly the opposite of Paul’s guidance.

How on earth does Paul’s message reach this generation?

It becomes even more of a challenge when you know that some Christians prefer muscular Christianity, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Personally I wonder if muscular Christianity is as bad as no Christianity.

So what might we commit to as liberal Christians, thoughtful Christians, New Testament Christians?

Obviously to have integrity ourselves in word and deed but this is a challenge.

For instance I turned to a book by a journalist called Marina Cantathuzino, based on her project “The F word” – I hasten to add that  The F is for Forgiveness. I was looking for one or two profound examples to give you  to illustrate Paul’s teaching on forgiving. What happened what was very interesting. Humanist Marina found the Christian form of Forgiveness defective in some ways. Well, I caught myself as a Christian, getting a bit hot under the collar! This is part of Our Lords Prayer!  You see how easy it is to react badly to other viewpoints! But I read on and I found that she has found that different victims of hurt  have different ways of moving forwards. That forgiveness can only be a vague term to work with. A warning I suppose to Christians, that forgiveness should not be trivialised.

And yet I do think that the New Testament’s persistent  message of Love is valuable in this world. It is important that we get it out there. It is important that we train ourselves and our next generation to value truth, develop empathy, listening, safe expression of anger, forgiveness.

Over the last few days, horrified by the riots, I’ve been trying to make the effort of  imagining myself as feeling the victim because I’d  want to  move to a nicer house but can’t afford it or I live on a noisy street, drive a delivery van all day, eat a bad diet and just feel stressed out all the time.

I do believe that the Christian message is needed out there. That the message we ‘ve heard today is a message of peace over and above  violence begetting violence. How we get it out there? Tweet it? Hang a banner on the railings outside? Carry a gentle message to a rally? Write a letter to the Metro? I don’t know…. Its our challenge –  mine and yours.

But anyway, lets just hear it again for ourselves….

Put away from you all  bitterness and wrath and anger and slander and malice. Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving as God in Christ has forgiven.

by Jenny Paton-Williams