Shakespearean New Year’s Resolutions

Now, by two-headed Janus,

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

• The Merchant of Venice, Act 1/Scene 1

Janus was the Roman god of beginnings and transitions and was thus often depicted as having two faces, one looking forward and the other back. The month of “January” takes its name from this deity since it is a time to look back at the past year and forward to the new one. So we do things like New Year’s Resolutions, which I think are sort of fun. (Although they do make it tough to find a treadmill open at my gym, but by early February that problem tends to solve itself.) Anyway, since Shakespeare makes frequent reference to this character, I thought I would frame my resolves for 2016 in the Bard’s language. So here goeth nothing!

1. Keep more things to myself.

Good my lord, pardon me:

Though I am bound to every act of duty,

I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.

Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false

• Othello, Act III/Scene 3

Between Facebook and meetings at work I have a tendency to shoot off my mouth because an apt phrase occurs that seems too good to waste. I resolve to remember that it is haste that makes waste, not circumspection.

2. Be more sympathetic to people in power.

Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls,

Our debts, our careful wives,

Our children and our sins lay on the king!

We must bear all. O hard condition,

Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath

Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel

But his own wringing!

• Henry V, Act IV/Scene 1

Like Herman Melville’s narrator Ishmael, “ I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all honorable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not.” But having, at some cost, removed myself from any position of leadership, I tend to be a little hard on the folks willing to be in charge - like politicians and those in appointed office. I resolve to remind myself more often that they have a different problem than I do, and that Scripture promises them my prayers.

3. Live it up a little.

O, reason not the need: our basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous:

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Man's life's as cheap as beast's.

• King Lear, Act 2/Scene 4

I’m cheap. I also have a pretty well-developed Puritan work ethic. And a seminary professor’s income. As a result, I tend to avoid expenditures meant just for fun. It can get a little grim. I can get a little grim. I resolve to obey more first-impulses to invest in fun.

4. Pay more attention to the spiritual.

When wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining

o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

• King Henry IV, Part 2, Act II/Scene 4

I know, I know - I’m a seminary professor and former pastor and I have a doctorate in spiritual formation; I’m supposed to be all over this stuff. But sometimes “the hand of little employment hath/the daintier sense.” (I cheated - that one’s from Hamlet.) It’s easy to start reading the classics of spiritual theology as textbooks, or stop reading them because you’ve mastered them. . .as textbooks. I resolve to re-engage with a renewed naivete.

5. Sit still.

She sat like patience on a monument.

• Twelfth Night, Act IV/Scene 2

I’ve noticed that I tend to fidget as I sit in meetings, or in church, or with friends. I’m not sure why but I think it has something to do with trying to find a comfortable position. As I’ve become aware of this habit, I’ve also found that simply sitting, with my feet flat on the floor and the curve maintained in the small of my back, is quite relaxing, and moving is a twitch, not a need. I resolve to sit still more often and for longer.

Christ in the Chaos, a Sermon in Tryptich, Luke 21.25-36, Calvary Baptist Church, Corpus Christi, November 29, 2015

Collect

Great God who rules all nations, Your Son warns us that storms will come, but promises to come to us on the wings of those storms. Grant us grace now to see the throne of Christ in the clouds of chaos, to know that the leaves of grief hold the promise of precious fruit, and to seek our redemption in what feels like destruction. This we pray in the name of Your Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

Left Panel: The World in the Text

When you visit the National Memorial on the grounds of the former Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, you enter through one of two gates. An inscription representing a digital clock above the eastern gate constantly reads 9:01. Across a reflecting pond, the western gate steadily displays 9:03. Between them they hold in permanent suspension the minute of time when the entire world changed. At 9:02 on the morning of April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, an American citizen, detonated a truck bomb in front of the structure. One hundred and sixty-eight people died, along with a certain innocence and security among the citizens of the United States of America.

Sometimes in history, everything changes in an instant.

And these changes sometimes shatter a nation, or the entire world; but sometimes, their impact is more localized:

“Mom, Dad, I’m gay.”

“I’ve found someone else and I want a divorce.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Jones, I have been asked to inform you that your son has been reported dead in Kahandar, Pakistan, at 0700 on August 26, 2015. On the behalf of the Secretary of Defense, I extend to you and your family my deepest sympathy in your great loss.”

“Dear Employee: It is with regret that I inform you that you are being laid off from your position as pipe-fitter effective two weeks from today. Lack of funds and lack of work necessitates this layoff. This layoff action is indefinite in duration and should be considered permanent.”

News crews do not swarm to the site. Politicians do not make speeches. Protesters do not carry signs and shout slogans. But everything changes.

Central Panel: Christ in the Text

Thursday was Thanksgiving. The next day was Black Friday. For America, that means it is the now officially Christmas season. For Christians, going back centuries, however, today marks the first Sunday of Advent, from the Latin meaning “coming toward.” It is the time of year churches set aside to renew their faith that the Savior “came toward” us at Bethlehem, and is still “coming toward” us in his final appearing.

The text we have read today deals with that second idea, of course. But what is Jesus talking about? More importantly, perhaps, when is Jesus talking about: something that happened in those ancient times, as v.32 seems to indicate, or something that will happen in that great and final Day that is the focus of our future hope? And either way, what does Jesus want us to do about it? Perhaps more importantly, who is Jesus in this passage? What does he reveal about himself and, therefore, about God the Father? I want to offer one possible answer to those questions, and I can summarize it this way: Christ sits enthroned over the chaos of life.

Almost certainly what Jesus means to describe here is the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, along with the entire nation, in the Jewish rebellion against Rome from 66-70 AD, about thirty years after Jesus predicted it. We could compare that to an Oklahoma City moment for ancient Israel, only on a much larger scale. In 66 AD the Jews rose up in war against the occupying Roman empire. Before it was over, Rome crushed the revolt, smashed the temple - a symbol like our national capitol in Washington, D.C. - and exiled the Jews from their ancient homeland. Over the space of half a decade, tragedy struck Israel and nothing would ever be the same. We can tell this from the verses themselves and also from the verses before and after them.

First, look at the context: 20.45-21.4 contains two sayings of Jesus: one where Jesus denounces the religious professionals who run the temple for preying on poor widows, and one where he praises a poor widow for making the only truly meaningful gift to the temple. He seems to be saying that the temple is corrupt beyond rescue and that individual hearts matter more. Next thing (21.5-6), he flat-out declares that the temple will go down in flames. His disciples ask him to explain and he gives a very detailed description of the final Roman siege along with warnings about the persecution Christians will face until that time (21.7-24).  Our passage finishes up that same prophecy. After this, Luke records a plot on Jesus’ life (21.37-22.6). Evidently the religious authorities understood that he had attacked the temple, the source of their religious, political, and financial power, and wanted him dead for doing it.

Now look at the passage itself. Yes, it sure looks like end-of-the-world kind of stuff, huh? Signs in the sun, moon, and stars and all. But Jesus uses here a sort of coded language that everyone in his day and country would have understood. If I say a football team has a field general with a rifle arm who loves to toss bombs to a wing-footed receiver with hands like magnets, nobody thinks I mean that some sort of weaponized cyborg wants to blow up a bird-man with metal fingers. That’s figurative sports language and we all get it. In the same way, the Jews of Jesus’ day spoke of great acts of God, whether good or bad, in figurative terms. So let’s de-code it for a minute.

Notice the line about “distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.” The Jews associated the sea with chaos, since it never rests and can explode into terrifying storms. For this reason, the sea came to symbolize political turmoil. The Bible puts these together in Daniel 7.2-3 where Daniel sees four beasts, which stand for four kingdoms, come up from a troubled sea and engage in bloody battles. Jesus picks up that imagery to give a vivid picture of world-wide warfare. If this isn’t clear enough, Jesus directly quotes Daniel 7.13 in v.27: “Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.” In Daniel’s vision, this Son of Man comes before the Ancient of Days (a name for God the Father) and receives power over all nations so that there can at last be peace. The book of Daniel, especially the final few chapters, was very popular among the Jews in Jesus’ time because they felt that its promises of peace and freedom for Israel had not yet come true, and that the messiah would soon come to fulfill them.

The idea, then, is not that Jesus comes riding down the mainstreet of Jerusalem in a big cloud like a parade float. It means Jesus will ultimately receive power over all kingdoms and bring about peace. That’s why in Revelation we get comets turning the sea to blood (8.8-9) and the monster rising from the sea (13.1), and angels throwing massive stones into the sea to symbolize judgment on sin (18.21), but in God’s presence the sea is either made of glass, and thus solid instead of stormy (4.6, 15.2), or there isn’t any sea at all (21.1).

So Jesus pictures himself as God’s messiah who rises from the chaos of nations to bring about final justice. Now, watch the different reactions on either side of this event: In v.26 people “faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world,” but in v.28 they “stand up and raise (their) heads, because (their) redemption is drawing near.” Those phrases are important. Remember that Luke was a physician, a doctor (Col 4.14). Here, he remembers Jesus using a very specific medical term that we might translate, “faint dead away.” These people are, we might say, “scared to death.” By contrast, God’s people “raise up (their) heads” because they see their “redemption” coming. In Jesus’ day, the Jews associated redemption, not so much with the forgiveness of individual sin, as the liberation of God’s people from oppression and the establishment of their own nation. Oddly, Jesus says that the destruction of their country is what ultimately leads to their real freedom: liberated from nationalism, they can truly live in the Kingdom of God that includes all nations, tongues, and tribes.

Here’s the idea, then: Jesus warns that Rome’s armies will create chaos, but promises to be present, ruling over it all. Those who lack this faith will look only at world events and succumb to fear. Those who trust Christ will see the destruction of their own political nation as the means to ultimate redemption of the entire world under the Kingdom of God.

Jesus wraps this up with two commandments that really say the same thing: “Be on guard,” and “be alert.” Notice what he wants us to guard against: dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life. I believe Christians shouldn’t get drunk, but I don’t think that’s the main idea here; I think Jesus is making a comparison: drunkenness, of course, is when someone consumes too much alcohol; dissipation is a medical term (Luke the physician again) for how you feel the next day. So Jesus says, “Don’t get drunk on panic and hungover with worry.”

That’s why Jesus puts “the worries of this life” on the same level with drunkenness and dissipation. If those early disciples started watching political developments in Israel, they might have gotten caught up in one of the various failed schemes for avoiding the war with Rome or winning the war with Rome when what Jesus wanted them to do was ask how the war with Rome could be a chance for Christianity to thrive by throwing off its specifically “Jewish” nationalism and character and becoming a faith for all the peoples of the world.

See, Jesus really ends where he started, which was a common device in speeches and sermons in that day. His very first response to the disciples’ request for more information about the destruction of the temple is to warn them against false messiahs (v.7-8). There had been a lot of “messiahs” before Jesus, and there were several after him. (See Acts 5.36-37.) But they all had the same interest: How do we make Israel a great nation again? How do we keep Israel safe? How do we regain our empire? Jesus doesn’t care about any of that stuff. In fact, he says that it is in the very moment of Israel’s fall that the Church receives redemption!

Right Panel: The Church in the Text

So what about your own Oklahoma City moments? What about our world, torn to shreds by murderous foreign terrorists at concerts in France and murderous domestic terrorists at abortion clinics in Colorado? What about our private worlds, shredded by rebellious children and a bad economy and an uncertain future? Well, let’s go back to our original questions: What and when is Jesus talking about? What does Jesus want us to do about it? And, Who is Jesus in this passage? What does he reveal about himself and, therefore, about God the Father? I’ve given you my answer to the first two: Jesus is talking about the destruction of the temple in AD 70.

That makes the second question harder: What could Jesus possibly want me to do about something that happened nearly two thousand years ago? But remember Jesus’ overall message: When the sea of the world’s power structures turns stormy and churns out a series of leaders who promise peace, don’t get drunk on panic and hung-over with worry. Instead, believe that Jesus places his throne above all of the madness and will bring about redemption for God’s people.

I’ve noticed that politicians like fear. So do corporations with products to sell and so do a lot of preachers. Because if you’re scared two things are true: one, you aren’t thinking very clearly, and two, you have very low sales resistance. So you’re vulnerable to buying into any scheme that seems to promise peace.

Politicians say things like, “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule.” The next thing you know, we’re in favor of shutting down places of worship and shutting out people in trouble and shutting up people with different ideas even though Jesus talks about treating others as we want to be treated, and about welcoming strangers, and about blessing those who curse us. Politicians tell us we have to do these things to “Make America Great Again,” and we forget that Jesus never promised us America would be great; in fact, the fall of America might - how could we know? - be as great an advancement for the gospel as the fall of Jerusalem was.

And of course newscasters jump on this juggernaut. They make their living by scaring the living daylights out of us so we’ll keep tuning in so we can know who the enemy is, whom we should fear. And big corporations like fear too because then they can sell us guns and alarm systems and retirement plans, and they can tell us we have to keep giving them power and money or else the whole economy will tank because they’re too big to fail.

So I think what Jesus wants me to do is to be on guard instead of getting sucked in by all the worry-merchants in politics and on TV cable news and on Wall Street. I think he wants me to avoid getting drunk on fear and instead get serious about prayer. I think he wants me to stop asking how to save America and keep asking how to save souls. I think he wants me to remember that even if America falls, Christ still rules.

Then there’s that last question: What do we know about Jesus, and therefore about God the Father, from this passage? First, I’ll tell you what we don’t know: We do not know that we serve a God who promises that only good things will ever happen to us. In fact, we serve a God who basically tells us that people around us, sometimes powerful people and sometimes only people with power over our own smaller worlds, will do crazy, irresponsible, stupid things and that these things will affect us and can, in fact, bring our worlds crashing down as surely and as violently as that bomb ripping through the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. But once we get that down, we can look at what we do know about God from this passage: We know that we serve a God whose Son sets up his throne in the very middle of our worst days and nights and declares that it will all work together to bring about the Kingdom of God where the sea of chaos is as smooth as glass.

So when, in one click of the second-hand, your world goes from order to chaos, don’t lose your head; lift up your head! Don’t look for a mushroom cloud on the horizon; look to Christ who sits enthroned on the clouds of Heaven in the very midst of your mess. Don’t join anyone’s revolution; look for your redemption. It is not in some event frozen in the past, or some event hidden in the far-flung future, but right now, in your crisis and your chaos, in your difficulty and disaster, when you find yourself seasick with the tossing waves of events you cannot control, that the risen Christ who defeated the chaos of death takes his throne and brings you the peace that passes all understanding.

Don’t Take Your Guns to Church, Luke 22.35-38 - Northside Baptist Church, Victoria TX November 8, 2015

Collect

God of Hosts, You call us to serve the Prince of Peace in a world that worships the god of war. Grant us today wisdom to discern the dark sayings of Our Lord, grace to hear the hard words of Our Lord, and courage to obey the clear commands of Our Lord, that we might begin to live now in the Kingdom of Heaven where we will one day live forever through the saving grace of Your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ in whose name we pray, Amen.

Right Panel: The Church in the World

An old Johnny Cash ballad tells the tale of Billy Joe, a good-hearted but restless young cowboy who rides off in search of excitement. As he leaves, his mother pleads with him:

Don't take your guns to town son.

Leave your guns at home Bill.

Don't take your guns to town.

Of course he rejects his mother’s advice - what kind of country/western song would it be otherwise? - and dies in a showdown at the local saloon.

As of midnight, December 31, Texas House Bill 910 becomes law and properly licensed citizens have the right to display their guns in a shoulder or belt holster in public. We commonly refer to this as “open-carry.” Businesses, schools, and other institutions may opt out of this rule by posting a bill which warns that they are a gun-free zone.

On Wednesday, September 16, 1999, Larry Ashbrook strode into the Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth and unloaded three magazines of bullets from a nine-millimeter semi-automatic handgun before turning the weapon on himself. Three teenagers and three adults were killed at the church and a fourth teenager died later at the hospital. Seven others were treated at area hospitals.

On Sunday, December 9, 2007, a gunman appeared in the parking lot of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs as Sunday services were wrapping up. He killed two people and wounded three others before an armed security guard drew her weapon and shot him to death.

On June 17 of this year, Dylan Roof attended the Wednesday night prayer meeting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina and sat quietly through the service before opening fire and killing nine worshipers, including the pastor.

Taken together, these two facts - tragic murders taking place during church services and a law allowing Texans to carry sidearms - raise the obvious question: Should Christians go to church packing heat? Or does Our Lord cry out to us as we whiten our sepulchres and head off to Northside, “Don’t take your guns to church!”?

Of course, as Baptists, that question leads us to one source: What does the Bible say? But that question can be harder to answer than it might seem at first. Before we can declare the truth of the sacred text of Scripture, we have to wrestle with the question of how we are going to interpret the Bible. Do we simply pull out a passage that seems to speak to the issue and declare, “This is what the Bible says”? This is known as a “flat” reading, the idea that whatever the Bible says anywhere is what the Bible says everywhere.

But this can lead to problems.

Proverbs 26.4 says, “ Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself.” So “the Bible says” not to respond to dumb remarks. However, Proverbs 26.5 says, “Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes.” So “the Bible says” respond to dumb remarks.

Clearly in a case like this the Bible speaks situationally; depending on the circumstances, one response or the other might be better, and we must fan out across the entire landscape of revelation in search of biblical landmarks that will allow us to choose a particular course of action in a given set of circumstances. Everybody has a plan, a theory, a method of reading and interpreting the Bible. Let me give you mine.

I take it from the Baptist Faith & Message, the 1963 version, which says, under the section entitled “The Scriptures,” that “The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.” This means that since Jesus declared himself to be the focal point and ultimate meaning of all of the Bible (Jo 5.39, Lk 24.27), I read any particular passage in the full light of Jesus’ own words and deeds. To paraphrase the timeless children’s hymn, “The Bible says it, this I know, because Jesus tells me so.” Therefore, I want to bring our question, “Should we bring guns to church?” to the feet of Jesus. I think the text we have read this morning provides our best opportunity to find an answer.

Central Panel: The Text

We can give this passage a “flat” reading: Jesus says to buy a sword; that must mean Christians should take up weapons to defend themselves from persecution. Some even point to the word “now,” as if Jesus says, “Poverty and non-violence worked fine before, but the rules are about to change.” There are problems with this, however - problems looking backward and problems looking forward.

Looking backward, such an interpretation would undo most of Jesus’ teaching. He admonishes his followers to turn the other cheek to violence. (Lk 6.29) He tells his followers to take up their crosses daily, not to kill their crucifiers. (Lk 9.23) He rebukes James and John when they counsel violent retribution. (Lk 9.54-55) A few hours after this saying, he will tell Pilate that his kingdom isn’t the kind that involves war. (Jo 18.36) If we want to say that Jesus’ ideas about non-violence applied only during his earthly ministry, we have to ask what point there is in reading anything in the Gospels prior to the crucifixion, since all of it would now be out of date.

Looking forward, such an interpretation would mean that the early Christians completely rejected Jesus’ command. Yes, one disciple draws a sword in the Garden of Gethsemane (v.49-50), but that is the last time in all of Scripture that we see a sword in the hand of a saint! The book of Acts records multiple persecutions but not one case of armed resistance. When Herod beheads James and imprisons Peter, Christians do not fight; they pray. (Acts 12.5) Paul rejects Roman weaponry in favor of the armor of the Holy Spirit. (Eph 6) History reports that when the Romans attacked Jerusalem to put down the Jewish rebellion, the Christians obeyed Jesus’ teaching to flee. (Lk 21.21) They ran to Pella, a village across the Jordan river, and survived. The disciples seem eager to obey this command: they immediately show Jesus that they are, in fact, packing heat (v.39), they beg Jesus to punch in the nuclear code (v.49), and at least one of them is quick on the draw when the moment arrives (v.50). Why would they never again obey the one command of Jesus that made sense to them?

What then? I believe the best understanding of this passage is that Jesus prepares his disciples to join him in a dramatic enacting of prophecy. This kind of thing is common among Hebrew prophets. When Isaiah wants to enact the defeat and exile of those who trust Egypt instead of God for salvation from Assyria, he goes naked and barefoot for three years, living like one destitute on the refugee trail. (Isa 20) When Jeremiah wants to show that any nation resisting Babylon will be conquered, he straps a yoke to his shoulders and appears as someone who has been enslaved and forced to bear burdens. (Jer 27) When Ezekiel wants to predict the final conquest of Jerusalem, he eats unclean bread mixed from different kinds of grain and baked over a fire using dung for fuel; he literally lives like those we see today fleeing to Europe from Syria, starving pilgrims who cannot be too choosy about what they eat in order to survive. (Ez 4)

Jesus has already acted out two important prophecies in Luke 19 at the beginning of this same week. The Triumphal Entry isn’t a spontaneous parade; it’s more of a flash-mob that Jesus sets up. He chooses a donkey to ride to act out Zec 9.9. He selects the same route that the great Jewish conqueror Judas Maccabbeus had taken when he liberated Jerusalem from the Syrians a century earlier. He gives his disciples the talking point to feed the media: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” a slogan ripped right out of the Psalm 118 which predicts the coming of the Messiah.

He does the same thing when he enters the temple and ceremonially destroys it. Prophecy said the Messiah would rebuild the temple to make it a truly Godly place. (Mal 3.1) Later Jesus predicts that the temple will be destroyed (Lk 21), and he says in a similar context that he will be the new temple (Jo 2.19). So Jesus enacts a miniature Roman attack on the temple as a way of saying it will be destroyed and he will replace it with himself as the way to meet God.

I think he does the same thing here. The key comes in v.37 where Jesus interprets his own action: “For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted among the lawless'; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.’" Jesus quotes Isaiah 53.12 and basically says, “All right, that’s our script. They’ve been looking for an excuse to arrest me as a dangerous revolutionary. Well, we’re going to give them probable cause.” That’s the only possible reason he could say that two swords wielded by fishermen were “enough” to face down an entire detachment of highly-trained and well-equipped Roman soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Now look what actually happens: The disciple strikes his blow (v.50). Jesus says, “No more of this!” (v.51; The New Revised translation is very good here.) Then he heals the only wound ever inflicted in the only holy war ever fought. In fact in Matthew’s account (26.52), Jesus orders them to holster their sidearms because, he says, more swords only mean more corpses, not ultimate peace. Then Jesus goes willingly to a death he could have prevented with no help from the disciples’ blades. Again in Matthew’s account, we have that famous reference to calling “twelve legions of angels.” (Mt 26.53) You may have heard the old song, “He could have called ten thousand angels/To destroy the world and set him free.” That’s a good song but bad math: A Roman legion at full strength mustered six thousand men; I make that seventy-two thousand angels and Jesus actually said, “more than twelve legions.” If he’d wanted to settle matters militarily, he could have called in the shock-and-awe. He didn’t. The first and last act of Christian violence sanctioned by Christ took place two thousand years ago.

Right Panel: The Church in the Text

So back to our question: Should Christians go to church carrying guns as a defense against armed intruders? Some very well-intended people say we should.

I’ve heard people say that our world has become hostile to Christians, that we face violent attacks, and that this requires us to defend ourselves. There are two problems with that argument. The first is that it implies this is a new situation; but Jesus warned us all along that this was part of the deal. The early Christians died in droves but never took up arms against their persecutors. The other problem is that it implies we only take Jesus seriously as long as it doesn’t cost us anything, but that when things get real, we jettison Jesus and live by worldly “common sense.”

Which, by the way, is very common, but doesn’t make much actual sense.

For instance, we’ve all heard the famous slogan coined by Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre: “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” But let’s do the math on that. First century Jewish patriots thought the only way to stop a bad Roman with a sword was a good Jew with a sword. Result: No Israel for nearly two millennia and still no temple. Jesus said the only way to stop a bad Roman with a cross was a good guy willing to die on a cross. Early Christians actually took him seriously. Result: No more crosses, lots of Christians.

I think Jesus’ answer is clear: No, Christians should not come to worship the Prince of Peace bearing the weapons of the god of war.

Do not misunderstand me: I do not mean that if we lay down our arms Jesus will protect Northside and no one will ever enter this sanctuary and kill people. Jesus makes no promises of that kind; in fact, he promises us prison and stoning and exile and crosses and even says that there will be times when the people who kill us think they’re doing God a favor. (Jo 16.2) What I do mean is that in a world grown increasingly violent the Gospel of Jesus Christ challenges us to lead the way by living the Kingdom of Heaven before that Kingdom has fully come. We have the opportunity to lead the world out of violence, not follow it into more violence. We have the chance to show the world Jesus, not just tell the world about Jesus. We may - it isn’t really very likely, is it? - but we may have the occasion to resist to the shedding of blood (Heb 12.4) without being the ones who shed blood ourselves.

Conclusion

That’s the challenge: To live in a kingdom that isn’t yet here, because that is the only way for the kingdom to come here.

The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge put this in an interesting way. A great student of science, he noted that when the larva of the horned fly spins its cocoon, it leaves two tiny cavities for the antennae that it does not yet possess! Now, if the little pest could reason, it might say, “Why go to all the trouble of making room for what isn’t there? You show me those antennae and then I’ll make a place for them.” Of course, if it did this, it would never develop antennae because, when they tried to grow, they would find no room!

It is the same with the Kingdom of Heaven: We live in the pupal stage, if you will: Neither we nor our world is anything like being fully formed in Christ. Yet we are no longer what we were; like the insect in a cocoon, the Christian in Christ has entered a new and irrevocable stage of life. And Jesus challenges us to leave room now for the Kingdom that has yet to come! To live between the “now” and the “not yet” as though the “not yet” had already arrived. To feel the potential Kingdom work in us, even as the actual world works on us!

We can say, “Show me a safe world where I never fear anything at church, and then I’ll come to church unarmed.” But if we demand to see that world before we agree to live in that world, that world will never come!

I think the word of Our Lord to us is as clear as that old Johnny Cash song: Don’t take your guns to church.

Invitation

There are a range of responses someone might have to today’s message. Members of this church, I invite you to respond, not by agreeing with me, necessarily, but at least by pledging that you will, like those noble Bereans of Acts 17.11, search the Scriptures daily to discern the truth of this message. Dig deep into God’s Word instead of surfing the shallow whitecaps of the cable news networks and listen to Christ instead of the culture. Break free from the talking heads of television to discern the voice of Christ who is the Head of the Church.

Christians who are not members here, you need a church home and God may be calling you to Northside. No one will ask you to sign a pledge stating that you will never bring a gun to church. But you know now that this is a congregation unafraid to wrestle with the difficult teachings of Jesus as they apply to our own real lives. If that is the kind of church where you want to serve Christ, you are welcome to present yourself for membership.

To anyone who has not trusted Christ as savior, I will say this: Whether or not I have read the Bible correctly on the subject of guns, I have at least made it clear that Jesus calls his followers to a difficult and sometimes dangerous life: no false advertising today about prosperity, with all the hard stuff left in the fine print. But Jesus does not call us to suffering for suffering’s sake; he calls us to eternal salvation that makes everything - even suffering - work to our ultimate good and God’s ultimate glory. So if you’re willing to follow a Savior who not only predicted persecution but suffered it himself on our behalf, you are welcome to come and declare yourself his disciple.

Benediction

If there must be violence, may the Lord make us

Those who endure it,

And not those who inflict it.

Those who end it,

And not those who begin it.

Those who redeem it

And not those who return it.

If there must be violence, may we suffer it

In Christ

And With Christ

And as Christ,

That in us the world might see Christ,

And in seeing Christ might see God,

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

One God now and forever,

Amen.