The Church and Peace on Earth                                         12/5/48

 

Scripture:  Luke 19: 37-48.

 

Text:  Luke 19: 42;  “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.”

 

Our Lord, facing the cross, said, in a lamentation of love for Israel’s first city:  “If thou hadst known --- the things which belong unto thy peace!  but now they are hid from thine eyes.”   The city was controlled by those who valued their present security above other more urgent considerations.  They were proud, blindly confident, irritated at the changes which clamored to come.  The church they controlled idolized the past, glorified its present, and for its future hoped for nothing better than to restore the ancient kingdom.

 

All of that did not belong to the peace, and it does not now.  “The old order changeth, yielding place to the new” if men and women have the spirit to bring it to birth.

 

Jesus’ fellow Jews were in bondage to the myth of the superior race -- their race.  For others beyond their boundaries or kinship, they had little concern except to desire that these leave them alone.  Some of the most influential sought to bend the will of the Highest and Holiest to become a means for their own unholy greed.  This did not belong to peace, and it does not now.

 

Some of these things persist in the church of today.  Yet with all of this to bedevil our thinking, we may affirm that the church of our Lord, penitent, is slowly learning the things of peace.

 

A distinguished scientist, thinking as many of them do now, of how modernized warfare can pulverize vital portions of the earth, quotes from II Peter:  “The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.” 

[II Peter 3: 12].  Hearing the quotation, we can at least recall the rest of it:  “what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.  Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye be found of him in peace without spot, and blameless.”

[II Peter 3: 11, 13-14].  Surely it is God’s will that such a new earth must come out of the ordeal of fire through which mankind now passes.

 

This ought to be said of the church in today’s world.  It cannot be isolated and yet be the church of him who came to dwell among men.  It cannot be the Church of Christ, the Word made flesh, and be content with cherished ideals and lovely dreams alone.  It cannot be the church of the cross and fail to declare the gospel of love and the power of redemption.  It cannot truly pray “Thy will be done on earth,” and have no concern where the destiny of human lives is concerned.  It cannot be the church of the Christ who spoke with authority and be simply an echo of the cries of race and clan and nation.

 

And the church cannot be the church of Christian conviction unless we, its members, have and express our highest convictions.  A penetrating comment was made at the Men’s club meeting last Monday night.  The speaker of the evening had quoted the comment of a layman that he seldom went to his church anymore, for it had lost its power.  The comment here was this: when a man says his church has lost its power, that means he has lost his power, for the church if people, members, Christian folk.  We are the “body of Christ,” you and I.

 

If the church is to offer salvation to mankind, to other people, we must be the instrument.  If the church is to proclaim and promote the peace on earth sung in the Christmas carols of every year, we must do it.  We must begin with God, seek to know his will and his revelation in Christ.  If we do this much there will come the dawning of a promised new day.

 

If we succumb to the current doctrine that what seems to succeed must be right, the church will get nowhere.  We have victory without assurance, power without direction, responsibility without devotion, opportunity without vision.  We must begin with God and look to Christ for vision and assurance, direction and devotion, and not with a vague hope that He will mysteriously accomplish the right, but with our own dedication to the right.

 

Professor Wild of Harvard says that our Western civilization is beset by a disease which we call variously “nationalism,” “barbarism,” “tyranny.”  “One of the major symptoms of this disease is the absence of any faith in a real order of existence, independent of the opinions and desires of the national group.”  The church -- we Christians -- must have more than opinions to counter opinions.  If we be mere opportunists, with no theology of moral imperatives, our house is desolate.

 

At the center of our purpose, our decisions, there must be a “thus saith the Lord,” a standard of right for which we stand like Luther in the storm of his day, when he was powerfully ordered to recant:  “Here I stand; God help me, I can do no other!”  We must have a devotion to right like that of the master who stood patiently and unyielding before the threats of crucifixion at the hands of those who then trusted power alone.

 

When the church is the church, its breadth of ministry will be as broad as the experiences of all its members.  It will be dedicated to human rights, to brotherhood, and to peace.  It will be the tree of life for the healing of the nations.  It will not be limited to its own interest, but will face the needs of the world, of others.

 

It disturbs me deeply to hear it assumed that the church is an object of charity, to find it assumed that a church needs help and therefore should receive a donation as needed.  Is it not far more Christian if a church member or contributor gives not to his church but through the church to the needs of mankind?  The church is not the end, the aim, of our labor, love, service and sacrifice, but the means, the expression, the opportunity of expressing God’s will.  That is why I think a church’s missionary giving and service to others is so important.

 

This week, particularly yesterday, 6 or 8 or possibly more of the young people of our Sunday Evening Club have been at work on a specific Christian project.  They put in a day at definite, constructive work with the full purpose that they would give that day’s pay through the Pilgrim Fellowship Service Fund for the advancement of God’s kingdom in this state, in this nation, and abroad.  True, it would have been even more impressive if every one of the 30 or 40 high school young people had done the same thing.  It would have been more impressive yet if every college age member of this church and every one of us wage earners or salaried people had done the same.

 

That day’s labor was dedicated not to their club, but through their fellowship to the service of God’s purposes, and is a great gift by those individual young people.  And it is a personal, Christian extra service, not to apply even on their group pledge for this year to the same fund.

 

If the peace proclaimed by the angels to shepherds near Bethlehem is to come, it will be to and through men of good will.  The weapons of our warfare in the struggle for peace are not carnal, are not violence, not pride of race, nation, creed or government, but the purpose to know and do God’s will.  To this end the word of God is to be studied and proclaimed with a new authority.  In a world where the collective mass makes the individual so cheap, the divine purpose and worth of the individual is to be proclaimed anew.  Men are to be new creatures in Christ, standing on their own two feet, renewing their own minds.  It is pitiful when the sick must care for the sick, the blind lead the blind, the weak encourage the weak.  But when the individual is made strong by the renewing of his mind in Christ, the strong can encourage the strong and together they can help the weak to strength.

 

The hour has come to set our house in order, to give the world a chance to catch the contagion of the divine spirit from us as Christian individuals and from us as a church.  We are witnessing some growth in the fellowship of Christians.  Speed the day when it will be more!  We are on solid ground when we all pray for world peace, for economic and social justice.  We are on solid ground when we pray for the United Nations and urge that no nation bypass its charter.  We are on solid ground when we realize that only responsibility deserves rights and freedom.  The church is on solid ground when it calls spirit and principles to the attention of statesmen and urges that these, rather than physical might, be the ultimate guide of governmental affairs.

 

“What can the church do for peace?”  A minister asked this question of a Jewish rabbi who was his neighbor and who had been a chaplain in the Pacific.  With no hesitation the rabbi replied, “Practice what it preaches.”  This is both humbling and hopeful.  That same rabbi was asked to preach in the Christian church of that same minister on Brotherhood Sunday.  When asked what portion of the scriptures he would like to have read, he chose not the vision of Isaiah, nor the social passion of Amos, nor any other Old Testament passage, but some of the fourth chapter of the First Epistle of John.  In that chapter are these words: “If any man say, ‘I love God,’ and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen.”  [I John 4: 20].

 

Joseph Fort Newton was standing at Niagara Falls beside a famous engineer, Washington Cooper, who remarked, “That is the greatest unused power on earth.”  The preacher replied, “No, my friend, the greatest unused power on earth is the spirit of God.”  Then said Mr. Cooper: “You are right.  If only the church would become a school of spiritual technology, we could remake the world.”

 

It is not too much to ask that every congregation, every individual Christian, in this day of life-and-death issues, will study to become informed on how the principles of our religion can be applied to our human problems; that we study with the same ardor displayed by the engineer who plans the building of a canal, a power house, a bridge that shall serve all people.

 

In all our study, Christ is the teacher, the seminar leader.  His voice is heard on the shore of our troubled world.  “My peace I give unto you --- Let not heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.  [John 14: 27].  --- Not everyone that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father.”  [Matthew 7: 21].  And still he says:  “Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God.”  [Matthew 5: 9]  These are the things that belong to our peace, and they begin in the hearts of individual persons like you and me.

 

An old and trusted adviser to youth recently sent out a plan for personal action toward peace, a copy of which came to my hand.  It contains these points, with which I close:

 

1)  I will seek a change within myself that I may have inner peace.

 

2)  I will seek to effect, with God’s help, a similar change in my family, my social group, my community.

 

3)  I will seek to make my faith infectious, that I may attract other people to God by what I am.

 

4)  I will deliberately try to say something spiritually creative, realizing that by my attitude, in even the simplest relationships, I may help to build the one spirit upon which world peace may be established.

 

5)  Pray for peace, confidently, unashamedly, with willingness to act for peace as part of God’s answer to prayer.

 

6)  Win others to a similar dedication to peace on earth, good will among men.

 

----------------------

 

Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, December 5, 1948.