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Creekside Church
Sermon of September
16, 2001
"A Defining
Moment "
Romans
8:31-39
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Rev. Dave
Eis
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Most
of us can look back on own history whether it is a long
or brief history and remember defining moments. A defining
moment is what I would call a moment in history when something
happened that has changed the course of our lives. It is
something that happened that you never forget. When one
has lived through a defining moment, one usually remembers
what they were doing at the time they first heard of the
news.
Some
of you may remember the beginning of the great depression,
when on that awful October morning in 1929 when the stock
market crashed and previously wealthy people jumped from
tall buildings because they were suddenly poor and did not
know how to continue a life that was not surrounded by wealth.
There were long bread lines and enormous unemployment.
Perhaps
it was the bombing of Pearl Harbor that you can remember
everything about what you were doing and it is indelibly
etched into your memory. It was the defining moment when
U.S. was drawn into W.W. II. It was a time when the prevailing
wisdom was that we must be a part of the War that was going
to end all wars.
Many
of you may remember the assassination of John F Kennedy.
For several days the nation was in mourning, and news reporters
publicly shed their tears in remorse. It was difficult to
explain such a tragedy to children when we could not understand
it ourselves.
There
are hundreds of defining moments in our lives. Some with
great magnitude and others that affect us personally on
a much smaller scale such as a tragic accident or sudden
death or a serious illness of a loved one.
I do
not come to you to try to recall all of the tragic events
of this past week. If you have read the papers or listened
to the radio or T.V. you already know about the carnage
and the response many brave firemen and policemen have made,
many at the expense of their own lives. There has been thousands
of heart wrenching stories of how people's lives are being
affected. The incident was not just an isolated disaster.
We have all been impacted and the whole nation is in mourning.
We are all New Yorkers. Families have been disrupted from
coast to coast. Every community knows someone whose life
has been injured or destroyed.
So the
question for us today is what is a Christian response to
the acts of terrorism all of us have experienced in this
most recent defining moment? How we respond will be our
defining moment that will be whether or not we are indeed
followers of Christ.
As we
contemplate the heart of God and the person of Jesus we
may come to a position that is significantly different than
the ways of the world. So what else is new? We may come
to a position that sets us apart from others and elicits
their ridicule or even their anger. So what else is new?
I want
to share with you where I have come out on this question.
First
of all, the call to engage in retaliation that indiscriminately
kills more innocent people is wrong. It would only continue
the cycle of violence that has been perpetrated on the free
world. In years gone by we have put innocent Chinese and
Japanese people in internment camps in the name of security.
We have retaliated with mass weapons of destruction such
as the atom bomb and indiscriminate bombing of civilian
populations. Rational, peace-loving people must oppose this
action. It only sets the groundwork and plants the seed
for more war and violence.
Secondly,
we must resist and deplore all actions that have a disregard
for the sanctity of human life. I condemn all religions
that can justify killing the infidels who do not worship
as they do. Christians through out the ages have been guilty
of killing people in the name of their religion in order
to achieve political ends. "Those who say they love
God but hate their neighbor is a liar, and does not know
God." Pretty tough words but they did not originate
with me.
Thirdly,
I want to lift up the Jesus standard. Many times when trying
to decide our course of action we ask what would Jesus do?
Can any of us imagine Jesus in combat fatigues supporting
a M-16 rifle ready to shoot and kill another human being?
It is hard for me to imagine.
When
we look at the life and teachings of Jesus we are afraid
to ask, "What would Jesus Do?" The reason is we
already know what he did when he faced violence, undeserved
suffering, and death. His response was passive non-resistance.
He could've brought down the full forces of God to destroy
his enemies, but he did not. What does that have to say
about our responses to evil around us? Few of us have the
stature of Christ in response to our being mistreated. What
would happen if a nation had the spiritual maturity to respond
that way? Often I feel embarrassed that we call ourselves,
"One nation under God." I am sure that we do not
live up to the standard of, "One nation under Christ."
Our nation at its best applies the Old Testament standard
of an eye for an eye or equal retribution. The standard
of returning love for evil is exclusively the Jesus standard.
But
you may say, "It won't work." My response is two
fold. First we don't know because we have never tried it.
My second response is we do not have any guarantees that
faithfulness will always get us what we want. It is not
a formulae for manipulating the situation for personal or
political gain.
The
evil perpetrated on all of us, as well as the evil that
is still to come, is a defining moment for our nation as
well as each one of us personally. We have heard the reading
in the 8th chapter of Romans that claims that nothing can
separate us from the Love of God such as trouble, hardship,
persecution, hunger or poverty, danger, or death. But one
thing can separate us. That is when we chose an ungodly
way of responding to the evil we experience around us. It
is when we chose to ignore the law of love that has been
given to us by Christ Jesus our Lord.
It is
a high standard. It can only be accomplished when we walk
humbly with our God.
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