The Promise of the Resurrection

By Rev. Mike Woods

Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008

 Jeremiah 31:1-6

John 20:1-18

                 On Friday I got an email from my brother who lives in Alabama. It was an email that had been forwarded to him by a friend, who in turn, had received it from someone else, who had had it forwarded to them by yet another person. By the time my brother had forwarded it to me, it had probably been forwarded about 50 times.

                The intent of the email was to inform as many people as possible of some news that had recently been featured on Good Morning America. It said that Microsoft Corporation had teamed up with America Online to develop a beta version of an email tracking system for use on the internet. But in order to test this new software, Microsoft and AOL needed as many people as possible to forward a chain email letter to everyone they knew. And knowing that people routinely delete chain email that ends up in their mailbox, Bill Gates – who is the 2^nd richest person in the world now (he recently dropped out of first place according to Forbes magazine) – is willing to pay each sender of this email $240 for every person they send it to. There were even testimonials proclaiming: “This is not a hoax!”

                My brother, the entrepreneur that he is, forwarded this email to probably about 100 people. And I have to admit, that I was tempted myself to hit the “Send” button, and a bunch of you all would have gotten a copy.

                But it’s too bad that things like this are just too good to be true! I thought it sounded a little dubious, so I went to Google and did a search on this email and got back a long list of web pages describing that this was a hoax – there was no such software in existence, and that Bill Gates had more to do than send checks to people that forward silly chain letters on the internet.

                But I was, at least, heartened by the fact that when he discovered what he thought was an opportunity to make a lot of fast, easy money, my brother thought enough to pass the information along to me, so that his older brother didn’t miss out. Which goes to show you that he really is a good brother at heart – even if he is a little gullible at times. Although, when I looked at the list of the hundred some-odd names he forwarded the email to, I noticed that my name was somewhere near the bottom – I’m not sure what to make of that!

                 Something that’s too good to be true!

                When she realizes that the man standing in front of her is not the gardener – it seems too good to be true!

                When she runs to tell Peter and the other disciple that the stone has been rolled away from the tomb, they cannot believe her and they have to see for themselves. It seems to good to be true!

                Later, when the disciple Thomas is told of this, he refuses to believe unless he can touch the wounds with his own hands, because it sounds too good to be true.

                They have grown used to living in despair, they have grown used to being defeated. They are all used to being the little guy, the underdog, of always being at the bottom. They’re used to thinking: “It’s hopeless! What’s the point of trying? We’re all alone, God has forgotten us.”

                On Saturday, during the Sabbath, the reality of what had happened on Good Friday had begun to sink in. Jesus of Nazareth – the one they had hoped to be the Messiah, the one they had hoped would bring liberation to a people who lived under occupation by a foreign power – was tortured, humiliated, and crucified on a Roman cross.

On Saturday, the followers of this Jesus lived in hiding. On Saturday, Mary, Peter, and the rest of the disciples lived in fear for their very lives. On Saturday, they were afraid to go out, afraid to be spotted, afraid to speak to anyone about what had happened. And the Roman authorities and their collaborators in the Sanhedrin were hoping things would stay that way.

But Easter Sunday changed everything!

On Easter Sunday, Mary and the rest of the disciples realize they no longer have to hide, because God has raised this Jesus from the dead! On Easter Sunday, they no longer have to fear for their lives; and they can come out, they speak to others about Jesus, and they can spread hope to a world that is enslaved to sin.

And, on Easter Sunday, the Roman authorities and the Sanhedrin, as much as they would like, cannot ever make things go back to the way they were on Saturday!

            The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ on the Southside of Chicago, has come under fire recently for some remarks that he has made about the history of racism in this country. If you know of Reverend Wright, then you know that he has a tendency to speak rather bluntly and that he uses a lot of colorful language.

I am a little shocked – not by what he has said, my opinion is I think he spoke truthfully, even though I may not have put it in quite the same way as he did – but shocked by the response to what he has said. There are those who contend that it is not the place of the church to speak of so volatile a topic as race. Or of any topic that may be potentially politically charged – such as the war in Iraq, or torture, or immigration, or hunger and poverty, or even AIDS. They do not want the church to have any visibility on these issues. They would have us be silent and hidden. They would have us go back to Saturday!

I do not believe that the criticism of Reverend Wright is an attack on him personally, or just an attack on the liberal denomination of the United Church of Christ, or even an attack on a particular political candidate. It is an attack on the entire church of Jesus Christ, liberal moderate and conservative, to drive us all back to Saturday! They would destroy the hope of Easter Sunday! They would destroy the hope of the promise of resurrection! 

After Peter and the other disciple leave, unsure of what to make of the empty tomb, Mary remains at the tomb weeping, her whole world shattered, when Jesus comes to her and calls her by name, “Mary.” And when she realizes it is Jesus, her initial reaction is understandable – she wants to reach out and embrace him in her arms and never let him go, now that she knows he is alive again.

But Jesus says something to her that is very strange: “Do not cling to me, for I am not yet ascended to the Father.”

I think that’s the temptation that the church faces on Easter – to cling to Jesus. As individuals, when we discover the joy of the resurrected Christ – and the freedom from sin that is given to us, the promise of resurrection and the thought of never dying but living forever with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven – we want to grab hold of Christ and never let him go, believing that as long as we have our own personal relationship with him nothing else matters.

But Jesus tells us, “No, there is much more that matters. Instead, go and tell everyone the Good News!” Instead of living in fear and silence on Saturday, tell the gospel to all who will listen!

Instead of keeping Jesus all to yourself, let the whole world know about the promise of resurrection!

Instead of being fearful that some might criticize you for being “politically correct”, join your voice with the voices of those who stand for the cause of justice and peace.

Without Easter, there is no promise of resurrection, no hope for those who despair, no comfort for those who morn. Without Easter, the cross has the final word and the tomb remains sealed. Without Easter and the resurrection, then the Romans and their Sanhedrin collaborators of our own time can forever keep us behind locked doors, hidden from the world, and silent as if everyday were Saturday.

But instead, we are a people who have the hope of resurrection! Instead, we are a people who cannot be cowed or driven into silence! Instead, we are a people who gather here on Easter Sunday – with Saturday behind us – and marvel and are amazed at the glory and splendor of the Christ whose presence is among us; and who sends us forth into the world to give sight to the blind, comfort to those who despair, courage to those who fear, and to spread the hope of the promise of resurrection.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When Not Seeing Is Believing

by Rev. Mike Woods

March 30, 2008, 2^nd Sunday of Easter

Acts 2:14a, 22-32

John 20:19-31

                Last Sunday we left off with Mary telling the other disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” This Sunday, we discover that the disciples apparently weren’t immediately convinced of the truth of this good news. It is Easter Sunday and they are still living in fear and the doors of their house are shut tight and locked. The good news has been proclaimed to them by one who was an eye-witness to the event – who saw Jesus with her own eyes, who spoke with him and who heard him call her by name. Yet, they are still not quite able to believe.

                So into the middle of this locked room, Jesus suddenly appears among them and says, “Peace be among you - do not be afraid and do not worry any longer. Look at the wounds in my hands, my feet, in my side. See and believe.”

                See and believe.

                The Gospel of John talks a lot about seeing. Jesus, we are told at the beginning of the Gospel, was the light that came into the world to give light to everyone who lived in darkness. When John talks about seeing, he’s not just talking about physical sight, he’s talking about being able to see and understand who Jesus really is and to believe. To be able to see, as John understands and uses the word, is to know that Jesus is the Christ and that he is the son of God. Literally, then, for John seeing is believing.

                When the disciples see Jesus standing alive among them – the wounds in his hands and feet still fresh and looking very lethal – they understand Jesus for who he really is – the love of God come unto this Earth and inhabiting the body of a human being, who would take on the wounds of the world to heal the world of its own wounds, and become the sins of the world so that the world might be forgiven of its sins. They see and believe, and their seeing is believing.

                But poor Thomas doesn’t get to see any of this! Somehow, he has the misfortune of not being there when Jesus makes this miraculous appearance among the rest of the disciples! So they try to tell him: “Thomas, we have seen the Lord!” and he won’t believe them!

                Mary had said these very words to the disciples – I have seen the Lord – and they didn’t believe her. Now the tables are turned on the disciples and they are unable to convince Thomas of this unbelievable good news.

                “Unless I can see the wounds in his hands and his side and can touch them, I will not believe!”

                Good for you, Thomas!

                I like Thomas. I don’t label him as a “doubter” or a “skeptic.” He brings a healthy dose of rational thought and common sense to the situation. What his fellow disciples are asking him to believe is more than just that a man who had died has now come back to life. After all, they had all seen Lazarus come back to life – the resurrection of the dead is really nothing new to them! They are asking him to believe that because Jesus was raised from the dead, there is no more sin, no more death, and that the evil of this world has been forever defeated.

Unlike his fellow disciples, Thomas has not been cowering behind locked doors in hiding from the world. He’s been out there! And he’s seen with his own eyes, that:  no, people still die; no,  people still sin in abundance; and no, there is still as much evil in this world now as there was on Friday when Jesus was betrayed and falsely accused and hung to die a shameful death on the cross. He does not ask to see a Christ who has been healed of his wounds. He wants to see a Christ that still bleeds for the world!

“If you want me to believe that what I have seen with my own eyes is not the way the world really is, then you need to show me something else – show me the wounds in the hands and feet of a living breathing Christ, and I will believe.”

I can understand how Thomas feels. I feel the same way. I think we all do at times. This world seems to be as fallen as it ever was. Every one of us gathered here this morning is a sinner. Not one among us can raise their hand and say “I no longer sin.” When we say the prayer of confession near the beginning of the service, I am reminded of my own sins during the week – and line-by-line I say to myself, “Yes, I did do that. Yes, and I did that, too!”

Sin does not seem to be gone from my life, nor does it seem to be gone from our world where the death toll of American casualties has reached over 4,000 in Iraq, and the number of Iraqis who have died remains uncounted but is estimated in the hundreds of thousands.

Sin doesn’t seem to be gone from a world where there is global warming caused by the abuse of the environment by human beings. Sin doesn’t seem to be gone from a world where health care for underprivileged children is defeated in a congress afraid that funding for such care would hurt the tobacco industry – as it was explained to me recently in a conversation with an aide for one of our congressional representatives.[1]  And sin is not gone from our lives, as we all struggle with the temptation to sin on a personal level.

If Jesus is the Christ, if he is the love of God incarnate in the world, then why is there still so much sin and evil in the world? If God raised this Jesus from the dead, and in so doing defeated the powers of sin and death, then why, over 2000 years later, do people still die?

You can understand why Thomas demands to see the wounds of the risen Christ. So it ought to be understandable when a skeptical world – a world that continues to hurt and suffer from sin and death – wants to know: “Where is the proof of God’s love?”

About  a week later, after Thomas throws out his ultimatum “show me the wounds or I cannot believe,” Jesus does appear. And he says to Thomas: “Put your finger here and see my hands; reach out your hand and feel my side. Do not doubt but believe.” And Thomas doesn’t even need to feel the wounds. In fact, he doesn’t even seem to have to look very closely at all. He has only to be in the presence of Christ, and hear the invitation to believe to respond: “My Lord and my God.”  

Now he sees. Now he understands. His seeing is believing.

Then Jesus says to him, in words that I think are especially meant for our times: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Then blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

How does a world that sees only sin and death see the wounded, risen Christ, who still bleeds and suffers for this world? How do we believe in something we cannot see?

There was a time in my own life when I struggled with that very question. Though I grew up in the church I could not see how the world was any different 2000 years after Jesus died and rose again. I grew up in a time when the church was beginning to come out on the wrong side of many issues in our society. I heard many pastors and church members speak against the civil rights movement. I watched as many of my classmates were taken out of public schools and put into private schools out of fear of integration. And I watched as the so called “Moral Majority” was formed in opposition to an extension of the Voting Rights Act.

We say that Thomas doubted. I more than doubted – I was cynical!

Then one day I saw the risen Christ! He appeared to me in the form of the dead bodies of five nuns of the Carmelite Order. They were from the United States and they had traveled to Central America, to the country of El Salvador. (For those of you who know something of Spanish, you know that El Salvador is Spanish for savior.) And in this country named The Savior, they worked among the poor campesinos, the landless peasants who lived in poverty. And they taught them to read and write, and they helped them to form themselves into cooperatives so they could sell their produce and goods on the open market and earn a decent living. But the existence of the cooperatives was threatening to the owners of the large plantations who dominated the market. With the collusion of the Salvadoran government and its army, they had the nuns kidnapped late one evening as they were driving back from the capital of San Salvador, and had them raped and murdered.

I watched in shock with the rest of our nation as we saw the bodies of these women on TV carried out of the shallow graves that had been dug for them. And there for me, at least, was the beaten, broken body of Christ. Here were five women who so believed that our Lord had indeed risen and that sin and death were defeated, they gave of their own lives to continue to carry out the mission of Christ. And once again, my faith was renewed and I believed.

It is to the church – which the apostle Paul tells us is the body of Christ – that a skeptical and cynical world looks to see the risen but wounded Christ. If this world is to believe that Christ rose from the dead, then it can only do so if we who are members of the church, who are disciples of this Christ, become as Christ to them. It is to us, the church, that the world addresses the demand for proof: “Show me the wounds in your hands, let me feel your side. Let me know that Christ still bleeds for me, and then I will know that Christ does indeed live and I will believe in My Lord and My God.”

Thanks be to God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Word on the Streets

by Rev. Mike Woods

April 6, 2008

 3^rd Sunday of Easter

Acts 2:36-41

Luke 24:13-35

                The Word is out on the streets! That is – the Word with a capital W! 

                On Easter morning, two Sundays ago, we saw the disciples hiding behind locked doors, afraid to believe the word of Mary Magdalene, who saw Jesus with her own eyes, who heard him call her by her name. They are afraid to believe that the hope of the promise of resurrection is a real hope, and not an escapist fantasy to help them to forget about the real world and its troubles. They are afraid because hope calls them from out behind the safety of locked doors and to go out into a dangerous world to spread the good news of the hope offered by the resurrection of Christ.

                Last Sunday, we saw that Thomas, who was not there with the disciples when Jesus suddenly appeared among them, could not believe. But not because it seemed too good to be true, or because he was afraid – but because he had been out in the world and he had seen that there was still sin and death. He could not believe because he had yet to be able to experience the resurrection with his five senses and his skills of reasoning.

                And today, on this 3^rd Sunday of Easter, our Gospel reading which comes from the book of St. Luke, takes place again on that fateful morning of Easter Sunday. Two of Jesus’ disciples, Cleopas and a companion, are walking the seven mile journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus. The disciples in Jerusalem had been afraid, Thomas had been skeptical, but these two are disappointed. They had hoped that Jesus would be the one to lead Israel back to its former days of glory - to the days of Kings David and Solomon. What they got instead was a carpenter from Galilee who seems to have ended his life on a Roman cross.

                Have any of you ever been to see Ruby Falls? If you haven’t and you plan to go one day, don’t let my experience color your expectations. But if you do decide to go, don’t go on the Fourth of July – it’s their busiest day of the year. And don’t go in the middle of a drought like the one we’re having now – or there won’t be much of a waterfall to see. I went with my family when I was a teenager, one summer…on the Fourth of July…in the middle of a long dry spell. We stood in line in the hot sun for about an hour before we got inside to buy our tickets. Then the lady pointed us to another line to an elevator that would take us down into the mountain to the beginning of the cave. We stood in the elevator line for another hour, waiting on our turn. I guess we should have figured out then that we were just waiting in line to be disappointed – because the folks who were coming out of the elevator looked none too happy. In fact a few of them looked at all of us standing in line for the elevator and kind of just shook their heads in disbelief.

                When we finally got to the elevator and it took us down to the bottom of the mountain, we thought that we were finally making some progress. But when the elevator stopped and the doors opened, one of the tourists who was standing there waiting to go back up shook his head and told us, “y’all still got another thirty minutes of standing in line!”

                So, what could we do? We can’t get back on the elevator. It’s already taken us two hours to get this far and we only got thirty more minutes to go. Besides, the line to get back on the elevator runs all the way through the cave and we’re already standing at the back end of it!

                By the time we finally did get to see Ruby Falls, because of the drought, it was little more than a steady trickle of water. It didn’t look anything like the picture in the brochure we saw.

                So we didn’t buy any souvenirs in the souvenir shop. In fact, we just kind of wanted to forget about the whole thing. We wanted to put Ruby Falls behind us, go ahead and salvage the rest of our vacation, and get on with our lives.

                The kind of disappointment that Cleopas and his friend suffered is far greater than that. I’m not sure that I can adequately describe to you the depths of their disappointment. It’s more than just a feeling of sadness that things didn’t turn out with Jesus the way they wanted them too, they way they had hoped. They had lost faith in the dream They not only wanted to forget about Jesus, they wanted to forget about the rest of the disciples as well. They are on the street, walking away from Jerusalem, away from Mary and Peter and James and John, away from men and women they had lived with in community for the last three years.

                But Jesus calls them back to community. He calls Cleopas and his companion back to Mary and Peter and James and John. Jesus will not let them get away!  So he appears to them while they are walking on the street. Only they don’t know it’s him. Like Mary who thought Jesus was the gardener and Thomas who wouldn’t believe it was Jesus unless he could also see some nail holes in Jesus’ hands and feet, Cleopas and his friend think Jesus is just another traveler, and they ridicule Jesus a little bit because he appears to be the only one who does not know of what has taken place in Jerusalem over the weekend.

                That’s a little bit ironic, I think. They admonish this strange traveler for not having heard the word yet that Jesus had been crucified. But they are the ones who do not yet know that the Word is already on the streets – that is, the Word with a capital “w” that is on the street in the very presence of Jesus Christ, who stands before them in the guise of a stranger.

                But I don’t think that Cleopas and his friend have completely forgotten what Christ has taught them over this last three years. For the Gospel tells us:

²⁸ As they came near the village to which they were going, (Jesus) walked ahead as if he were going on. ²⁹ But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them. ³⁰ When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. ³¹ Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. ³² They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"

                As it was 2000 years ago, friends, so it is today! Christ is revealed to us in three ways according to this scripture: First, in the acts of benevolence we do to strangers. Does not Christ tell us in Matthew that “whatsoever you do to the least of these, so you have done to me”? While Cleopas and his friend believe that they are simply showing hospitality to a stranger, in fact they are welcoming Christ. Second, Christ is made known to us in the reading and the proclamation of the scriptures. Cleopas and his friend both remark: "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" And third, Christ is revealed to us in the breaking of bread, as we gather together as a community of believers at the Lord’s Table to be the church, to be the people of God who are called to not flee from the fellowship of others, but to boldly invite the stranger in. It is here in the church, where the Word of God is read and proclaimed, the sacrament of Holy Communion is observed, and we welcome the strangers in our midst that Christ is made known to us. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Practicing Resurrection

by Rev. Mike Woods

April 13, 2008

4th Sunday of Easter

Acts 2:42-47

John 10:1-10

            I probably should have told this joke last Sunday, because the verse it references was part of the lectionary reading then. An old woman who lived alone awoke in the middle of the night to find that a burglar had broken into her home and she could hear him as he crept into her bedroom. Now she was a very godly person and instead of fearing for her own life she wanted to encourage the young man to turn away from his life of crime so she screamed out one of her favorite Bible verses, and the guy just froze – he didn’t move a muscle. She the picked up the phone and dialed 911. The cops came, put the handcuffs on him and loaded him into the back of the patrol car.

            The investigating officer that came asked the old woman what she had said to cause the robber to freeze, and she told him: “I said to him what Peter said to the crowd at Pentecost, ‘Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and your sins will be forgiven!’ ” 

            The policeman asked her, “Really? And he just froze?”

            “Well, actually, in my excitement, I couldn’t remember exactly what all Peter said. So I hollered out the passage: Acts 2:38. But he must have known that verse, because he stopped dead in his tracks!”

            The officer then went outside and climbed into his patrol car to take the burglar to the station. But along the way his curiosity got the better of him so he asked the burglar, “I have to know. Why did you just stand there? All the old lady did was call out a Bible verse to you.”

            The burglar said, “What? A Bible verse?”

            And the officer said, “Yeah, all she said was: Acts 2:38.”

            And the burglar said, “Oh is that what she meant. I thought she was saying she was carrying an axe and two .38’s!”

            What Peter does say to the crowd that has gathered outside of the house where he is staying in Jerusalem has a similar but much more profound effect on them. Not only do they stop what they are doing, but they find they cannot go on with their lives as they had before. What Peter has said to them challenges everything about what they had thought to be true about the world they lived in. A man who had died has been raised to life by God. And the resurrection of this man offers new life to all those who will listen to the message, who will open their eyes to a new way of seeing, who will open their minds to a new way of understanding, and most importantly who will open their hearts to the compassionate love of a God who would become human and die upon a cross to drive out the evil and the sin and the injustice that prevails in this world.

            Peter’s message is: the world you think you understand is not as you understand it. Imagine, if you will, how this realization affects those who hear it!

            After two years of investigation, the Texas Rangers last week raided the religious compound of a fundamentalist sect of the church of latter day saints. This sect is not a part of the Mormon Church, which denounced polygamy over a century ago, but is rather a breakaway cult. But as the rangers came into the compound and began taking people away, starting with the children, what they found was a people that were so isolated from the rest of the world they knew no other way of life. They knew no other way of life than the system of arranged marriages at too young an age that was part of their life. They knew nothing of the world that went on around them, only what their leaders chose to let them know. And what their leaders told them of the world outside was twisted and distorted from the reality. So distorted was their perception of the world that it is unrecognizable to those of us who live in the outside world.

            In talking with some of you about this situation, it was pointed out that often when people are taken away from a cult setting like this, after a while they desperately want to go back. The new world that is opened to them is so shocking they experience culture shock, and they desperately need to go back to their old way of life.

            So it is surprising to me then, when the crowd that hears Peter turns away from their old life and chooses to embrace a new life. So powerful and compelling this new way of life must be. This is not a crowd that is always looking for the latest thing, or is willing to try on new philosophies or change old ways of thinking. This is a crowd that is suspicious of the new, one that venerates tradition.

            What Peter tells them of is a completely different culture – one they have never seen before; a culture that is so alien to the culture of the world they have known for so long, surely you would think they would protest being taken away and brought into it.

            What Peter tells them of the resurrection of Jesus Christ suggests a new culture – a culture of resurrection. This culture of resurrection contrasts with the cult of sin and evil and injustice that prevails in this world. The cult of sin is what we are used to, it is our way of looking at the world and thinking that things can never be different. It tells us that injustice is the order of the day. It tells us that peace has to be enforced with armies and guns and bombs. The cult of sin is our practice of evil in our lives, of substituting our own will in place of God’s, and of saying that “it’s a shame but this is the way things have to be.”

            After over 200 years of history as a diverse nation of immigrants, the people of the United States have been unable to solve the problem of racism in our country. We shake our heads about it and say, “it’s a shame but this is the way things are.” But God cannot live with the “the way we humans think things are.”  In raising Jesus from the dead, God gives to us a culture and a practice of resurrection. If God raised Jesus from the dead, then the cult of sin does not have the last word. If God raised Jesus from the dead, then there is something more powerful.

            The culture of resurrection, which gives us new life, calls us to a practice of new life. Luke tells us in the Book of Acts: “(The new believers) devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.” The culture of resurrection is centered on a practice of devotion to God’s word, of hearing the scriptures read and proclaimed. In this scripture we see the birth of the church within this culture of resurrection.

But most importantly, in this infant church, is the understanding of relationships the new believers now have. They are devoted to fellowship with each other, we are told, in the breaking of bread and in the practice of prayer. But not just to each other, this practice of community goes beyond boundaries and extends especially to the poor. Luke tells us: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to everyone as they had need.”

            When we read these verses today it causes us a lot of consternation. This sounds like communism! People owning possessions in common, giving to those who are poor!  

In the practice of resurrection there is an understanding among the believers that whatever they have – be it the talent of singing, of teaching or preaching, or even monetary wealth – it was given to them as a gift by God and as a blessing. And blessings were meant to be shared and not to be kept hidden under a bush. The culture of resurrection destroys a notion of ownership that intends to deprive other people of the resources they need to live and survive. It teaches us that the world is not divided into haves and have nots, Blacks and whites, Asians and Hispanics, Arabs and Jews. The world is peopled by human beings who are all part of God’s good creation. The culture of resurrection calls us to live our life in imitation of the one who was resurrected, Jesus Christ, who forgave sinners, sat in fellowship with the outcasts of society, healed the sick, fed the hungry, and freed those who were in prison.

This culture, this new way of seeing, hearing, understanding, and doing – this practice of new life – remains a challenge to the church and its followers, even 2000 years later. Like the children who were brought out of the fundamentalist compound last week, we are confronted by a new way of knowing and understanding the world, a way that seems completely alien to the way we think things are.

But God has rescued us from the cult of sin. As the people of God we belong to Christ’s culture of resurrection. A new life, a new way of seeing the world. A new way of living in the world.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Stones of Life, Stones of Death

First Presbyterian Church

Elberton, Georgia

by Rev. Mike Woods

April 20, 2008 , 5^th Sunday of Easter

Acts 7:54-60

1 Peter 2:1-10

            Jeffery Sachs, a professor at Columbia University, said that it was not only last week’s biggest news story, but it was the biggest and most important story going on in the world right now. Now, it might surprise you to learn that he wasn’t talking about Britney Spears’s latest escapade, or the attempt by the Dr. Phil Show to bail out one of the teenage girls who brutally beat up one of her classmates on a video posted on YouTube, or even who the winner was on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” And, as big and as important as the event was, he wasn’t even talking about the Pope’s arrival in the United States to embark on a tour and speak to the Catholics of this nation.

            In fact, this news story has gotten only scant news coverage at all. But if you have been to the super market lately, you have certainly gotten a glimpse of it – the cost of food is drastically going up, and the signs are that it will continue to rise.

            Over the last 12 months, we here in the U.S. have seen the price of bread go up almost 15% and the price of milk 13%. And as shocking as that may seem to us – and it is – the effect rising food prices have on the poor in other countries is even far greater. In the country of Bangladesh, for example, a two kilogram bag of rice (4.5 pounds) costs half a day’s income for the average family. The price of a loaf of bread has doubled in many other parts of the world where the poor often spend as much as 75% of their income on food.[1] 

            But the situation of the poor in this year’s food crisis only came to the attention of the news media last week after several days of rioting took place in Haiti, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Mozambique over the rising cost of food in those countries. And though the rioting seems to have run its course, for the time being, the situation remains grim for the poor of the world. The rising cost of oil and fuel needed to transport food from farms to the market, the diverting of wheat and corn from food production to ethanol production, and the impact of global climate change on agriculture – all these things point to the fact that the price of food will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. As it always is, the poor are the first to suffer and the ones to suffer the most.

On this Sunday before Earth Day, which is April 22, we are reminded that in our efforts to be good stewards of the Earth God has given to us, we not only care for nature, but we also care for the human beings of this world who are the most vulnerable in our society, the ones who have been neglected and rejected.

            Stephen, in his speech to the Sanhedrin, speaks of others who have been rejected. And the list he gives to the Priests and the Pharisees, in his own defense, is really quite an impressive list of names. He begins with Sarah and Abraham, a childless couple, who were rejected by society for that very reason. He goes on to speak of Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers; and of Moses, rejected by his own Hebrew people and the Egyptians who raised him. And the point that Stephen tries to get across to the priests and the Pharisees, who are sitting in judgment of him to decide his fate, is that in each of these instances the one who was rejected was the one chosen by God for salvation. The ones rejected by the world are the ones chosen by God for salvation. They are chosen not just for their own salvation, but for the salvation of the very ones who had rejected them. Such is the loving God that we have. Stephen goes on to point out that Christ too was rejected – rejected by his own people, rejected by the very ones he came to save.

            Peter, likewise in his letter, speaks of Christ as one who has been rejected, “a living stone rejected by human beings but chosen by God and precious to him…. ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.’ ” 

            I notice that we have a cornerstone, here at First Presbyterian Church. It’s right outside the front door where its easy to see. It’s there as a marker and a monument. It tells us the building was completed in 1909 – almost one hundred years ago, that Rev. Stacy was the pastor at the time, and it also tells us the names of the architect and the trustees of the church. But most importantly, it tells future generations that whatever purpose the building may be put to in the future, it was originally built to be the church building of First Presbyterian Church of Elberton, Georgia. The cornerstone tells why the building was built, its purpose, and who built it.

The cornerstone of the church universal, Peter and Stephen remind us, is Jesus Christ. And the cornerstone of this church universal – the man who gives it its purpose, who is the architect of its building, and who is its head and shepherd – is a man who was born into a poor family, a family that probably spent most of its income on food, a family that probably crossed the border illegally into Egypt early in Jesus’ life. And this cornerstone of our church, was himself rejected by the authorities of his day.

I think that Peter is intrigued by this image of stones. After all, the nickname Jesus gives to him, “Peter,” means rock. And Jesus tells him, “Upon this rock I will build my church” (Mtt. 16:18). So, it is natural then, that Peter sees Christ as the living cornerstone of the church. Christ is the founder of the church. Christ determines the direction and the orientation of the church. And the believers who are members of the church are themselves “living stones” which Christ uses to build the church. In this metaphor of “living stones,” Peter reminds us that the church is not a building – it is not this red brick structure we are gathered in this morning that was built in 1909 – but it is the community of faith whenever it gathers together to worship God, celebrate the sacraments, and carry out the mission of salvation God has given to us. We are the church, whether we meet here in this building, or in individual homes as the people in Peter’s day did.

But I believe that Peter gives us this talk about “living stones” not because it makes for a pretty metaphor to describe the church. Peter also means that we are “stones of life.”

We are stones of life because we have been given new life through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are stones of life because Christ has given to us his Spirit of life, which resides within us.

Before Christ came along, Peter tells us, we were stones of death – we did not know of God’s mercy. But now, we have received mercy and we are stones of life.

What has transformed us from stones of death to stones of life is God’s mercy, given to us through Jesus Christ. God’s mercy is life to us – without it we are stones of death. That same mercy that gives us new life infuses our very souls and radiates outward for all to see. Peter goes on a little later in his letter to encourage his readers to “live such good lives that when unbelievers see your good deeds, they will glorify God on the day Jesus returns.”

Stephen exemplifies Peter’s image of a stone of life. Originally chosen to care for the widows of the church, he began to preach the gospel to all who would listen. But his words so incensed the priests and the Pharisees of the Sanhedrin that they picked up literal stones of death and threw them at him. But even in his hour of death, Stephen does not curse those who are killing him, he does not attempt to retaliate in any way. He lifts up his eyes to heaven and says, “Lord, do not remember this sin against them.”

Mercy is life, is what Peter and Stephen are trying to say to us. Christ allowed himself to die upon a cross, so that we might know God’s mercy. Stephen becomes the first martyr of the Christian faith, not because he was a weak man, not because he was defenseless, but because he had been shown such mercy in his life he could not help but show the same mercy even to those who were trying to kill him.

And as he utters those words of forgiveness which resemble those of Christ, the Book of Acts tells us “he fell asleep.” I know this translation differs with what we read from Today’s English Version this morning, but the original Greek literally translates “he fell asleep.”  I don’t think it’s said this way as a nice way of putting it, i.e., as a euphemism for death. The belief of Christ and of the early members of the church is that those who have died are not really dead, they are merely asleep until Christ’s return to this earth. Then they shall be awakened and their bodies resurrected and they will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. The mercy they have been given and the mercy they gave gives them new life. So Stephen does not die, he only falls asleep.

The conclusion we can draw from all of this is simple: those who have been shown mercy through Christ, the Stone of Life, are able to show mercy. For those who don’t know of God’s mercy, the Stone of Life is a stumbling block and causes them to fall. How can anyone who has never been shown forgiveness ever forgive?

As the living stones of the church is it not then for us to live the lives of ones who have been forgiven, to live in gratefulness of that forgiveness, and so that all may know of God’s everlasting mercy?

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Living the Faith”

April 27, 2008,

6^th Sunday of Easter

Acts 17:22-31

John 14:15-24

            I lived in the City of Atlanta, on two different occasions of my life. The first time was in the 1980’s. Back then, Andrew Young was mayor, only the second African-American to be elected as mayor of that city at that time, and the population was almost equally divided between whites and African-Americans. The Midtown area had been largely abandoned with many of the more economically affluent families who moved out of the inner city for the outlying suburbs.

            When I moved back just a few years ago with my wife to go to seminary - it wasn’t the same city! The suburbs were still growing, but a lot of people were now moving back into the inner city, and in particular to the Midtown section where there are now high rise condominium buildings. The mayor is now Shirley Franklin, the first woman to be elected to that position, and the population had doubled to over four million people.

            But Atlanta had truly become more of an international city. Beginning in the 1990’s many Korean-Americans discovered economic opportunities for business in Atlanta, and many of them began to move into the northeast section of the city, especially into Gwinnett County. Shortly afterward, other Asian communities began to move into the area, as well. Hispanics found work in the growing construction boom, and people began to immigrate from the newly liberated Eastern Europe – from Bosnia, Russia, and Estonia.

One summer I worked as a chaplain for academic credit at Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville. The head chaplain there told me that Gwinnett County was the most diverse county in the entire United States. There are more cultures represented, more languages spoken, more nationalities present there than any other county else in the US.

But Atlanta, I think represents just a cross section of what is going on in the rest of the country. The children who are now living are going to grow up in a country that is far different from what it is now: that is even more diverse and cosmopolitan. And this change is not just happening in big cities like Atlanta – it’s happening in places like Elberton, Georgia. Even here, we have a growing Hispanic and Indian population, and I would expect that trend to continue.

These changes in our culture present challenges to the church and the mission God has given to it.

But the church was born in such an age of transition. Throughout the New Testament, we see Jesus and his disciples encounter, not just their own people of the Jewish race, but Romans, Meades, Persians, Ethiopians, and people from all known parts of the world. The growth of the Roman Empire brought commerce and travelers from all the surrounding area to the once culturally homogenous Jerusalem. These were people who spoke many different languages, who had different customs than the Jews, and ate things like pork and shrimp – things the Jews considered to be unclean.

And this immigration of non-Jews from different parts of the world caused great concern for the people of Judea. How are they to preserve their Jewish culture, their traditions, and their language? They worried their young people will be adversely influenced by these different cultures? What they want to know is: How can we live our faith in the midst of such change?

One answer to this question is posed by the Pharisees and the priests of the Temple. They maintain that the outsiders are to be shunned, Jews should not even go into the homes of these new immigrants.

But Jesus speaks of a different way. Jesus wants to enter into a conversation with these people. Jesus even wants to sit down with them at table and eat with them.

            In this week’s reading from the Book of Acts, we encounter a young man who also wants to enter into a conversation with those of a different culture than he. Keep in mind, now, this is the same young man we read about last week who went by the name of Saul. You recall he was there at the stoning of Stephen –he was the young man who kept the cloaks of those who threw stones at Stephen. Later he even approves of the of the murder of Stephen.

The lectionary reading for this Sunday skips over a good deal. Step-by-step, Saul’s hostility to the believers of the way increases to the point of his own personal involvement in attacks and persecution. In today’s reading, however, we see a completely different person. He even has a new name – he is no longer Saul, a Hebrew name that harkens back to the days of King Saul, the first king of Israel, he is now known by a Greek name, Paul. And his new name belies a new attitude about the people who call themselves “Christians” as followers of the Christ. He has turned 180 degrees – no longer does he persecute the church, he is now a follower, himself. But not only is he a follower, he has become a leader and with the help of two friends, he is taking the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the rest of the world. Paul goes from being a Pharisee, one of those groups that wants to shun the outsiders, to being part of the movement that seeks to embrace them in the love and compassion of Jesus Christ.

Gradually, the Holy Spirit has been leading the church outward from Jerusalem, expanding its geographical boundaries north into Damascus and Antioch, and south towards Egypt and Ethiopia, and east as far away as India. The church is growing, encountering new cultures, new peoples, new languages, and different ways of viewing and looking at the world.

I do not think that God could have picked a better person than Paul to take the gospel westward. Having grown up – not in Jerusalem – but in Tarsus in the southern part of the nation we now know as Turkey, Paul knows the Greek culture. He understands it, he grew up with it. As a boy, he probably learned to speak Greek and to read the Greek philosophers.

In today’s lectionary reading, we see him in the city of Athens, arguably the center of Greek culture. And here, I think Paul is in his element. He knows these people, he understands these people. Most importantly: He knows how to talk to these people – and I don’t mean just that he knows the Greek language, I mean he knows how to talk to them, he knows how to get across to them.

He does this in a really wonderful way: First of all, he doesn’t insult them. When he first came into the city, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. Now Paul’s immediate reaction to this situation could’ve been to just ‘go ballistic’, start smashing idols left and right and calling the Athenians ‘heathens’ and ‘pagans’. But he doesn’t.

The Rev. John Hagee made the news when he suggested that the people of New Orleans were themselves to blame for the Katrina disaster. The breaking of the levees, the severe flooding, the loss of homes and lives were God’s retribution for what, he said, were the sinful lifestyles of the city. In saying so, he insulted the people of New Orleans, many of whom are good people, who live righteously, and who did not deserve the calamity that befell them. To be truthful, there is sin in New Orleans, but no more so than in any other place in America. Had Paul said or done anything similar to what Pastor Hagee said and did, he would have been vilified in the same way that Hagee is being vilified (and rightfully so).

So, Paul instead tries to reason with the Athenians. Reason is a hallmark of Greek philosophy. He quotes their philosophers to them during his speech at the Areopagus, where the city council meets, to prove to them that we are the children of God and that God dwells within us. He uses the shrine erected ‘to an unknown god’ as an opportunity to tell them about a God that they do not know about. And he knows that the Athenians love to hear about the latest thing or the newest philosophy, and he pricks their interest in the new gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul is sensitive to the Athenians’ culture, he honors it when he quotes their philosophers. And although he speaks to them using a pagan idol as a starting point and pagan philosophers to end his point, through it all he preaches Jesus Christ and he never compromises the integrity of the gospel.

That much hasn’t changed over the last two thousand years. The church has thrived wherever it has encountered other cultures and displayed the sensitivity, honor and integrity that Paul displayed in Athens.

We are faced with the same challenge here in the US and even here in Elberton, Georgia. Do we shun those whom God has brought to this great nation and deny them access to the law, to social services and to education, as the Pharisees and priests of Jesus’ time. Or do we reach out to them in the love and compassion of Jesus Christ, who went into the homes of foreigners, sat at table with them, who blessed them with his presence, and who healed and forgave them? Do we tell them of God’s love for them, as Paul did, noting that we are all the children of God, whether we are Jew or gentile, black or white, Asian or Caucasian?

I believe that living the faith in this part of American history requires that we study the wholeness of a stained glass window, like these windows. They are made up of many different individual pieces, of many sizes, shapes and colors. But although they are each very different, their differences complement one another, and fit together to create something beautiful.

What a wonderful way of thinking about the great nation in which we live. What a wonderful way of thinking about the church, which gathers together all believers in every time and place – people of different cultures, who speak thousands of different languages – but  who all live the faith of Jesus Christ by loving as Christ loved us.

In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Speaking the Language of Flame

by Rev. Mike Woods

Elberton First Presbyterian Church

May 11, 2008

Mother’s Day & Pentecost Sunday

Numbers 11:24-30

Acts 2:1-21

            I don’t mind telling you all that I was a little anxious when I discovered last month that Pentecost and Mother’s Day fell on the same Sunday this year. I knew I could write a Mother’s Day sermon or a Pentecost sermon that would each stand alone, but how are you to combine these two topics together?

            But then I got to thinking: there is something of a connection. On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends upon the disciples and gives to them – among other things – the gift of prophesy. And the gift of prophesy is the ability to speak on behalf of God and to point out to others what it is they are doing wrong and the consequences of their sinful actions. Don’t mothers have that same vocational calling?

            “Michael Wayne Woods!” I used to hate to hear my mother call me by my full name. I knew I was about to hear some prophesy: I was about to hear what I had done wrong, and I knew that my mother wasn’t content to wait for judgment day for me to experience the consequences of my sins – she thought it best for my sake that I get a little taste of what was in store for me, immediately right then and there!

            But the calling of motherhood, like the prophetic calling, isn’t just about instilling discipline in children. It is also a call to nurture and care for the children or people God has called you to serve.

            We see some of this in the excerpt we read this morning from the Book of Numbers. The children of Israel have been wandering in the desert for quite some time. Food is scarce and they complain to Moses: “Have you brought us out to the desert to starve to death?” Moses tells God of the people’s complaints, and God sends manna for them to eat.

            Now when I first read this story as a child in a Bible Story book, for some reason I had it in my mind that manna was like bread. And I envisioned the children of Israel going out each morning with picnic baskets picking up freshly baked loaves of bread that had fallen from heaven onto the ground. I don’t know where I got this picture from. If you read the account in the Book of Numbers it says that “the manna was like coriander seed,” with the “color of gum resin.” The people would beat it or grind it, boil it in a pot and make a pancake out of it (11:7-9).

            This doesn’t sound very appetizing. It reminds me of dirt cookies. If you’ve been following the news about the current food shortage being experienced around the world, you’ve probably heard that food has gotten so scarce and expensive in Haiti, people have taken to eating dirt cookies. Basically, they take some flour, mix it with some water and dirt, make a pancake out of it, and cook it on a stove. You can imagine this doesn’t taste very good, and a lot of Haitians are experiencing gastrointestinal problems. Some have died from eating too many dirt cookies.

            The manna the children of Israel eat is probably only a little bit better than a dirt cookie.  But when you’re hungry, you’ll eat anything! You’ll eat manna. You’ll eat dirt cookies.

            But after a while, you get tired of eating manna. You get tired of dirt cookies. And the people are in a such state that they are ready to riot. And Moses doesn’t know what to do about it. So he asks God, “Why did you give me the burden of caring for all these people? Did I give birth to them that you could say to me: ‘Carry these people in your bosom, as a nurse carries an infant, and take them to the new land.’ They need meat, they need protein. How am I to take care of them?” (11:12-13)

            Moses likens his prophetic calling to that of motherhood. “Did I conceive this people? Did I give birth to them?” He is alone in this task, with no one to help him. The tone that he takes with God when they converse even becomes a little sarcastic: “What did I ever do to you, that you would give me these people to carry?” For those of you, men and women, who have faced the task of having to raise a child on your own, without the help of a spouse or family, you can sympathize with the burden Moses faces caring for an entire nation of people. It is a lonely task, one that takes up all of your physical, mental and emotional resources.

            There is an ancient saying among the peoples of Africa that has caught on recently in the West: “It takes only one woman to give birth to a child, but it takes a whole village to raise it.”

            “You need help,” is how God replies to Moses. “You cannot nurture and carry this people on your own.” And God tells Moses to gather 70 of the elders of Israel together and bring them into the tent of meeting and there God says, “I will take some of my Spirit which I have put in you, and put it into them. They will help you to nurture and carry this people. You cannot do it all on your own.”

            And these 70 elders are brought into the tent, the Spirit of the Lord descends upon them, and they begin to prophesy. 70 elders to speak the word of the Lord to the people! Words of comfort when they need comfort. Words of challenge when challenge is needed.  I’m sure Moses is excited to see that he now has all this help!

            But then a curious thing happens in the story. They stop! It’s like they ran out of breath or something. And they never prophesy again. They never speak on behalf of the Lord again. They only do so one time in their lives; there in the tent of meeting, away from the people living in the camp. And the words they spoke, the words given to them by the Lord, are never heard by the people for whom they are intended.

            The words of this book – the Bible, which testifies to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ – are useless if they remain here within this building, if we never utter them beyond those doors. The love and compassion that God has for this world cannot remain a secret locked within our hearts. The bread of life, richer than the manna from heaven, cannot be withheld from those who subsist on a diet of dirt cookies. And the resources and capabilities God has blessed us with that are more than sufficient to provide enough food for all the people of the world should not be restrained by economic concerns, political squabbling, national boundaries, or other petty concerns of human beings, while people die from hunger and starvation. Witness what is happening in Haiti, witness what is happening in Myanmar.

            We reject the Spirit of God if we elect to speak about God’s love within the confines of these walls only. Indeed, we even strangle the breath of God within us, if we do not show God’s love and care and concern to those we encounter in our daily lives during the rest of the week.  

            So those seventy elders turned out to be somewhat useless – or 68, as it turns out. For a couple of the original 70, a pair by the names of Eldad and Medad, weren’t in the tent when the Spirit of the Lord came down. Maybe it was too crowded or they were running late, but whatever the reason, they received the Spirit while standing out in the camp, while they were still among the people. And apparently they didn’t get the memo from the other 68 that told everyone that what they were doing was just for show – they were to just accept what was being done to them as just an honor that was being bestowed upon them, and not to worry because everyone anticipated that Moses would still be responsible for the carrying the burden of being the resident prophet. But Eldad and Medad are so overcome by the Spirit of God, by the breath of God (those of you who have been taking the one of the two Bible studies we are offering may recall in our study of the Creation story in the Book of Genesis that the Hebrew word for spirit also can mean breath, breath and spirit are the same), that they cannot stop prophesying to the people. The breath of God that gives them life also gives them the Word of God to speak to the people.

            “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them,” Moses says when some people are a little put off by what Eldad and Medad have to say.

            Would that we were all prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit on us. This is first expressed by Moses as a hope – a prayer that God apparently hears and responds to. Later, the prophet Joel would express this as a promise from the Lord who says, “In the last days, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy…. Even to slaves, both men and women, I will give my Spirit and they shall prophesy…. And everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

            And then, according to the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost, this promise is fulfilled – the prayer of Moses is answered. For the Holy Spirit descends upon the disciples and they prophesy. Even today, everyone of us gathered here this morning is called to speak the word of God as a result of the Spirit that has been given to us in our baptism. As disciples of Christ then, every breath we take should reflect the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who loved those who hated him, who healed the sick and sat down with the sinners and outcasts of his day, and who died upon a cross in order to rise again so that all might have life and have it in abundance. This is not just an anticipated hope for something that will come to pass in some far distant future. Peter tells us it has already come to pass. The spirit of God awaits your acceptance, it awaits you to simply inhale and receive God’s mercies, and then to exhale and breathe God’s mercies on all those who surround you. Breathe in God’s mercies, breathe out God’s mercies.

            The disciples who gather at Pentecost, unlike the 68 in the tent of meeting, can’t put a stop to their own prophesying. They are so full of God’s Holy Spirit, it burns within them with passion, and it burns above their heads as a tongue of flame – or a “language of flame” which would be the literal translation of the Greek, glossai. In other words, the disciples speak with passion about the powerful love of God for the world made known in Jesus Christ. And each disciple is given the gift of a different language of flame. And the word of God pours out from them with such strength that they cannot keep it within the confines of the house where they are staying. And people walking by outside on the streets of Jerusalem, people from all different parts of the world, can hear them. And they can hear the word of God being proclaimed to them in their own native languages: Syrian, Arabic, Persian, Latin and Greek. The language of flame that Luke describes in the Book of Acts is the message of God’s love for a broken and fallen world – a world filled with violence and bloodshed, a world where the poor go hungry and have nothing to eat but dirt cookies only ninety miles away from a nation that suffers from an epidemic of obesity and throws enough food away in one day to feed all of Haiti; and millions starve in the aftermath of a cyclone even though planes loaded with food sit on nearby runways. 

            It is more than appropriate then that Mother’s Day be observed on the same day as Pentecost. This language of flame was spoken in 1858 (150 years ago) in West Virginian by Anna Reeves Jarvis when she started Mothers’ Work Days to draw attention to the living conditions of impoverished mothers; and then again in 1870 by Julia Ward Howe who founded the Mother’s Day of Peace and urged mothers all across the world to speak out against war, to beg nations to settle their differences by diplomatic means and international tribunals, and to so love their sons and daughters that they would never inflict violence on another human being.

            My mother, who passed away over a year and a half ago, I believe felt this same flame in her heart, and that is why she would call me by my full name whenever I had done something wrong: to remind me of who I was, that I was her son, and she loved me so much that sh