Sermon Text(s): Micah 6:1-8, Matthew 5:1-12, Baptismal Covenant Question #5
The themes emerging from our collect and the lectionary readings today are related to peace and justice – we heard the Beatitudes in the Gospel reading, and our Hebrew scripture was a passage from Micah 6 often quoted in social justice work by both Christians and Jews:
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
So this week, as we continue our preaching series on baptism, we’ll consider the fifth and last question of our Baptismal Covenant:
“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”
It is interesting to note that this is the only question in our Baptismal Covenant that does not say anything about God, Jesus, or the Christian faith. It is a question that people of all faiths and none could answer affirmatively:
“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”
Yes, they will, and yes they do: Jews and Muslims and Sikhs and Buddhists and Baha’is and Hindus and indigenous people and agnostics and atheists – I know people who identify with all of those theological perspectives who “strive for justice and peace among all people” and “respect the dignity of every human being” in their daily lives, people for whom these values are the bedrock of their activism and their advocacy for vulnerable and marginalized communities.
But as part of our Baptismal Covenant, this question is asked of us in the context of a ceremony that marks our commitment to following in the way of Jesus. Even though the question doesn’t specifically mention God or Jesus or say anything about being a Christian, it is, in a sense, the culmination of all the questions that came before it. It is a summary of our church’s understanding of what it means to follow Jesus: to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.
We come to this understanding from the example and teachings of Jesus in the scriptures. Jesus consistently advocated for a peaceful ethic in the form of nonviolence, teaching his followers “not [to] resist an evildoer” (Matthew 5:39), to “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39), and to “love [their] enemies” (Luke 6:28). He said, as we heard in the Beatitudes today, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
But as the phrasing of this question in the Baptismal Covenant makes clear, the kind of peace Jesus advocated was not one that allowed the continuance of injustice. It was not a peace that stood back quietly and did nothing while God’s children and God’s creation were abused and misused, denigrated and destroyed.
Martin Luther King, Jr. is famous for saying, “There can be no justice without peace, and there can be no peace without justice.” In doing so, he was articulating a deeply biblical truth: that peace and justice are inextricably connected. You can’t have one without the other. And that’s why our Baptismal Covenant words the question this way: “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people” – it doesn’t allow us to squirm out of the hard work of justice by saying we’re advocating for peace in not stirring things up, not rocking the boat.
Last week, Mark and Tom performed a hymn during communion about the calling of the first disciples. The text is a poem by William Alexander Percy, and it describes how God called Peter, Andrew, James and John from the “peaceful” lives they had known as fishermen to a life where they knew a different kind of peace, “the peace of God that filled their hearts brimful, and broke them too,” [1] recounting the suffering they experienced as a result, even unto death. The final verse is a powerful summary of the cost of discipleship and the type of peace to which God calls us and offers us:
“The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife cast in the sod.
Yet let us pray for but one thing: the marvelous peace of God.”
When we vow to work for “justice and peace,” we acknowledge that one does not come without the other, and that working for peace sometimes brings no peace, but “strife cast in the sod.” We will encounter conflict and sometimes even violence directed at us as we strive for justice for all God’s creation.
The second part of the question asks,
“Will you respect the dignity of every human being?”
Including this question along with the question of striving for justice and peace again reminds us that the peace we seek is a peace that comes with justice. If peace comes at the cost of the dignity of our brothers and sisters, it is not a peace we can accept as Christians.
This week, our new President signed executive orders banning citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for the next 90 days and suspending the admission of all refugees for the next 120 days. He did this in the name of peace, in the name of making America safer. But these actions and the chaos that have resulted from them over the last several days have not brought true peace, nor will they, because they do not respect the dignity of every human being. The peace President Trump seeks comes at the cost of the dignity of our Muslim brothers and sisters, and the dignity of citizens of those countries or refugees who aren’t Muslim, but will also be denied entrance to our country by the so-called “Muslim ban.”
For me, this vow of our Baptismal Covenant is why I signed a petition against this ban and while I plan to continue to be a vocal critic of it. It’s why the Bishop’s Committee voted to accept John and Milene Rawlinson’s donation of a large banner that states, “Refugees and immigrants welcome,” with a depiction of the Holy Family fleeing into Egypt, which I’d love some help hanging up on the front of the church after the service today.
But this vow is also why I carried a sign in the Women’s March with quotes from Jesus and the Buddha about loving your enemies, and why I continue to use the lovingkindness meditation techniques I’ve learned from Buddhism to try to direct kindness and goodwill toward our new President, toward the members of ISIS, and toward any person or groups of people I have begun to nurture ill-will or hatred toward. Because respecting the dignity of every human being means EVERY human being, not just the ones I find it easy to respect. It means respecting the dignity of the oppressors as much as I respect the dignity of the oppressed.
And for me, that’s where it gets really hard. That’s where I’m reminded that it’s called “spiritual practice” for a reason – because in order to live it out, we need practice. We need training.
This week, Krista Tippet’s show On Being on NPR aired a repeat of an interview she did with Congressman John Lewis in 2013 where he talks about the training he got in nonviolent resistance during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s:
“It’s just not something that is natural,” Lewis said. “You have to be taught the way of peace, the way of love, the way of nonviolence… We, from time to time, would discuss - if you see someone attacking you, beating you, spitting on you, you have to think of that person — years ago, that person was an innocent child, innocent little baby. And so what happened? Did something go wrong? Was it the environment? Did someone teach that person to hate, to abuse others? So you try to appeal to the goodness of every human being. And you don’t give up. You NEVER give up - on anyone.” [2]
That’s what it means to “strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being” – to never give up, on anyone. And as with all our baptismal vows, we can commit to keep them only “with God’s help.” When we find ourselves starting to give up on someone, starting to hate, starting to hold a grudge, starting to think that peace for some is ok because peace for all is impossible, we must call out for help from God – from the God who calls us to never give up on anyone because he never gives up on us.
[1] Hymn #661 from The Hymnal 1982, Words: William Alexander Percy (1885-1942), alt. Music: Georgetown, David McKinley Williams (1887-1978)
[2] Congressman John Lewis, “Love in Action,” On Being with Krista Tippet, NPR, Jan. 26, 2017, http://onbeing.org/programs/john-lewis-love-action/ Accessed Jan. 28, 2017.
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