Fourth Sunday of Easter

Today's text is John 10:1-10, read by Shannon Smith. This morning's sermon was delivered by the Rev. Dr. Phil Snider and Rev. Emily Bowen-Marler.

Lead Pastor: Rev. Dr. Phil Snider (he/him)

Associate Pastor: Rev. Emily Bowen-Marler (she/her)

Youth Director: Paije Luth (she/her)

Children’s Church Coordinator: Valerie Bush (she/her)

Executive Assistant: Wacey Rivale (she/her)

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Reading is John chapter 10, verses 1 through 10. Jesus said to them, Very truly I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate, but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers. Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again, Jesus said to them, Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. May we hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

I'll go ahead and just share with you all. There's been a lot of exchanges in recent weeks between uh the Pope and the current administration related to the war in Iran. And we kind of wanted to unpack a little bit of what is just war theory because we're hearing a lot of different folks talking about it, including folks like J.D. Vance or or um uh Mike Johnson, um, in in a lot of kind of like uh heated exchanges with the Pope, who obviously is speaking out of a deep tradition of Catholic uh social moral theory. So we want to unpack some of that. Um but we're also mindful of what happened last night uh in DC with uh the the gunfire um and what looks to be attempted um assassination. Um and we reckon we just recognize the gravity of that, and and we want to um address some of that too. Uh so so we will say a bit about that in in relationship to our conversations this morning really uh on violence. Um so so if we were to to look at like the classical teaching of just war theory, um the the Pope as a representative of the Catholic Church works out of a out of a tradition that goes back even further than St. Augustine. St. Augustine was an early uh leader uh in what is now known as you know Christianity. Um and whenever the concepts of just war theory were developed and they've been shaped over the years, you know, it didn't just begin with Christian thinkers. Augustine was in conversation, for example, with like Cicero uh before even Christianity was a thing. Um but some some kind of basics that that describe when a war is just, in other words, when it's appropriate to use violence. Um and they're kind of like four things that time and again people will name. So so the first of those is that it has to be a last resort. All other peaceful means uh to resolve whatever situation you're in have to be exhausted. So it has to be a last resort, that's principle number one. Um secondly, um, it has to be self-defense. In other words, do not initiate, do not start the violence. Uh it has to be self-defense. Uh third has to do with proportionality. Like if someone has harmed you, then you can only respond to the degree that is in proportion to the harm that was caused. This is where that idea of like an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth come into play. So you might remember from the Hebrew Bible, uh, Jewish scripture, there's that idea like, you know, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, that means like if somebody takes your eye, you only take the eye of the other. You you don't take also their tooth, their arm, you don't kill their life. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. In other words, proportionality to the harm inflicted. Uh, you know, your one's response should never exceed the harm that's been inflicted. Um then, and fourth, you know, there has to be like a reasonable chance for success. In other words, don't just cause bloodshed if there's not a reasonable chance for some sort of resolution. So those are like the four principles of classic just war theory. Um, but I think it's important to point out that even those who are advocating for just war or will talk about just war from the classical kind of of approach, it's never viewed as a good. It is never viewed as a good. It is viewed as a last resort and the least bad of all bad options. Um and and so St. Augustine, for example, was quick to point out that with war being the least bad option, human beings should never celebrate it. Human beings should never celebrate it. Um and so that's that's kind of like just war in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

I don't think war is just ever. So I'm just going to lay out my reasoning for thinking that. I know these pestools were not made for someone wearing a boot. Anyway, I cannot find a way to get comfortable in here, but anyway. Um I war is an unimaginative response to conflicts and injustices that are being faced in the world. And I I know a lot of people go to World War II as the prime example of a just war. Like, well, we had to go into World War II. Look at what was happening in Germany, look at what they had done with the Jewish people that were living in Germany. Clearly, this was a just war, and this was a war that we needed to go into. And that presupposes, presupposes that there was never a point before that that something different could have been done. And so I think it's important for us to look at history and remember that the that Hitler and the Nazi Party did not start with concentration camps and death camps, they started with stripping Jewish people of their rights. And these were things that happened over the course of several years. So we had people who the Jewish people were no longer allowed to participate in German public life. Then we had businesses that were taken over. There was they called it the Arianization or Arian, I think of Arianization of businesses. So Jewish-owned businesses had to be turned over to non-Jewish control. We had Jewish people expelled from the schools. We had Jewish people required to carry their paperwork with them, and their passports were stamped with a J to indicate that they were Jewish. Then we had Jewish people who were required to wear the Star of David on armbands or on their clothing in some way. And then we had Jewish people rounded up and put into ghettos. And all of those things happened over the course of several years before concentration camps were opened. It just seems to me that there were a whole lot of opportunities that the world had to take action in a way that didn't require bombing. And I can't help but think that we just don't want to make the effort or do the hard work that is required to avoid war. I think sometimes war is the easy option.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Let me ask you about that. Um Gandhi has a quote, and you might remember Gandhi like Martin Luther King Jr. uh drawing on these principles of like soul force or life force. Uh this uh has a lot to do with the teachings of Jesus as a nonviolent resistor, uh, to where um the choice to confront problematic situations was not to back down, uh, but to confront them nonviolently, to resist them nonviolently. And and Gandhi, you know, one time said that um, you know, if if there is going to be a level of cowardice, if you're gonna be a coward, then you might as well fight. Because true courage uh has to do in finding, you know, solutions, options that are not violent.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Um, I mean, if you look at like some of the nonviolent uh movements that we have witnessed, um, either through history or things that we've witnessed with our own eyes, those were not movements that lacked in courage. I mean, it took an incredible amount of courage to face people who were willing to use violent means to oppose you, and yet you are committed to nonviolent means in order to make change and in order to get them to stop doing what they're doing. I mean, that's a tremendous amount of courage that's required.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

And sometimes I wonder like, what if we put the same amount of effort and time and resources into peacemaking as we do in bomb making? Well, and how much that could change things.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

And we act like I mean, I think it takes peacemaking takes a lot of time, and nonviolent resistance takes a lot of time. They aren't quick, it's not a quick solution. But bombing feels like a quick solution, but then what's left afterwards? Like how much time, how many decades does it take for countries to I feel really strongly about this, I'm sorry. Anyway, but how many decades does it take for for for places to rebuild? How much harm have we we are not made safer by engaging in war. We create more enemies. Like when we go and we kill people whose family members are still alive, well now they have another reason to have anger and hatred directed at those who killed their family members. And I mean, not everyone turns to anger and hatred in the face of Allah like that, but some do. And I think you if we really want to be a force for good in the world, we need to do the things that we can that foster peace, that foster relationship, that foster communication, that foster healing and wholeness. And I just don't see any way that warfare can do that. I just don't see any way that it can do it.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Um there's like a lot of conversation about the desire for like world peace and for things, you know, to build a world where there is no war, um, to imagine the world like that and to try to live in to a world like that. Um you have folks like William Sloan Coffin, uh, he was a uh civil rights leader in the 20th century pastor, uh, since passed away. But he talked about how while at times force may be necessary, what is wrong, what is always wrong is the desire to use it. Um and so I want to ask, like, in the sense of people in the rhetoric about wanting there to be peace on the world, why does it feel like so many people are like just itching to pull the trigger?

SPEAKER_02 12:19

I think a lot of it is power. Um you know, I just keep thinking of uh the ways people talk about those. I'm not gonna have the quote correct. Um but when people talk about those who who are convincing others by their words, and they'll they'll use words to like they're a deceiver, or like we shouldn't be, we shouldn't be um deceived by those who are using words to convince us. And so I think people try to paint those who talk their way to peace or are doing more nonviolent ways to achieve goals, they get painted as having some sort of subversive or or um or um maybe evil even intent behind it to undermine our power or to take away our power. And I we have a lot of people that are in positions of power right now that are really um they get high off of the power that they have, and they um are really excited by the ways that they can wield their power, and they're really excited about the ways that they can engage in warfare. The first, I mean, there were lots of clues and lots of hints to this, but one of the early ones was changing the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Um that pretty clearly states your intentions and that that's you you're not you are not looking at our military infrastructure to be a means of protecting us and a means of defense. You are meaning it as a means of of engaging and acting in the world in a warlike manner. The change of calling our service members um, you know, people in uniform or the military, we're calling them warriors now. Um there's just there are these changes in language that are happening across the board. The way that rhetoric is used that indicates, and and these are not things, and I I want to be clear, I am not I am, I am not saying these things to drag our service members through the mud. That is not at all what I am doing, and that is not my intention. I'm talking about the people in power. And I know that there are a lot of military leaders that are, I I cannot come up with a strong enough word, horrified by the language that Pete Hegsath is using. Just horrified by it. There are people that are serving in our military that cannot believe that we have leaders speaking like this, that we have leaders who are talking so cavalierly about bombing places, about bombing all civilian infrastructure, about bombing civilizations out of existence. That is not, I mean, not only is that not the way we talk, but the fact that those words are even coming out of a person's mouth betrays the way that they look at other human beings, that they do not value those other human beings as worthy of life. And so we just, and I don't, I don't know what it is that drives that impulse. I mean, there, gosh, there are so many things. If I were to do a psychological study of what is behind this, I mean, just when you hear the rhetoric of talking about like they, like that we've got people that are in positions of power that feel like men are being demeaned because they don't recognize that you can have other people who are not men have equitable access without taking away access from men, but that's not the way, that's not the way they perceive it. And so we have a whole lot of people wanting to, I don't know, gin up their testosterone and act out of that and and just swing their power around in ways that that make everyone know that they're in charge and they're the ones that we should listen to. And they want to scare people, they want to strike terror on people's hearts and and control people by those means. And I I mean, it's just completely 100% against the things that I have learned when as a person of faith. The other thing that's so troubling to me is the way it's getting cloaked in religious language. I know the Secretary of Defense is using religious language to talk about the actions that are being taken. Um, I, and then and then when we have religious leaders who speak out against that, they say, oh, they shouldn't be talking about, they shouldn't be getting into politics. What? The Pope has the authority to say with theological conviction that war is wrong, and that is a sin. I, as an ordained minister and the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, with a master of divinity who studied these things. When I went to seminary, it was when we were fighting the Iraq War. The focus of my seminary degree was nonviolence because of that. So I spent a lot of time digging into nonviolent movements and recognizing the ways that it was rooted in Jesus. You know where Gandhi got some of the ideas that he had for this nonviolent movement in India? From Jesus. I mean, so Jesus was rooted in living and acting in nonviolence. So to hear people taking religious texts to bless the violence that was happening, people that are that are, you know, want to take the name Christian, using that language to bless violence and bless warfare just makes my skin crawl.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

I will never understand how, like, you can use all the religious language you want to try to justify your warfare, but as soon as a religious figure like the Pope steps in and says, no, we'll leave your religion out of politics. I don't know how those two things go together.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

And you know, I I don't know if this is where I should share this story or not, but we so we're talking about things that are I I I really think a lot of it is a lack of imagination and uh and a and an unwillingness to put the hard work in of um of really uh trying to engage in in peace and in negotiation. I mean, let's have a conversation about the fact that we also pulled out of an agreement that was supposed to ensure that Iran didn't get a nuclear weapon. So I just I feel like like they didn't even, like there wasn't even an interest in pursuing a peaceful option or a negotiated option. War was the option they wanted to turn to. I don't know if any of you watch the daily show, and I shared this on my Facebook page a couple of days ago, but um John Stewart interviewed um Aziz Abu Sarah and Mao's Anon. So Aziz is a Palestinian who has his brother was killed and was beaten and um detained and ultimately died from his injuries by uh Israeli soldiers. And um uh Maoz was his parents were killed in the October 7th attacks. They were some of the first people killed in those attacks. And these two men have joined together to start an organization for peace in the midst of this. So these are two men that have lost incredibly and they are pursuing peace. They don't um I was talked about how the the they were um sitting Shiva after his parents' death, his he and his siblings, and on the second or third day, his youngest brother said, We need to commit as a family to not act in revenge and to act in peace and to live our lives that way and not seek revenge in the face of this. And so they talk about some of the work they did, and Aziz tells this story. So they had a parents meeting or a parents committee that came out of the organization, and um, his father invited him to come to one of these peace meetings, and he was really opposed to what Aziz was doing because his one of his sons had been killed and and just was worried that somehow Aziz was gonna be arrested and detained, and the same thing might happen to him. And so they're at this meeting. We have Israelis and we have Palestinians, and Aziz or Aziz's father raises his hand and says, Um, so I have a question. This Holocaust thing that you guys talk about, did it really happen? And the air just got sucked out of the room, and Aziz is like, they're gonna fire me. Like they are not gonna want me to lead this work because clearly my father doesn't understand. And there was another man who was in the room that was a friend of Aziz that said, My father was in Auschwitz. I don't expect you to believe something that you have never learned about. So I want to take you to the Holocaust memorial so that we can learn about this and you can decide for yourself. And so he took Aziz's father, and 70 other Palestinians decided to go as well. And so they went and visited the Holocaust memorial. It was an entire day that they spent here. Lots of tears, lots of hurt and anger and difficult things, difficult conversations that were happening in the midst of this. It was really, really hard. And then two weeks later, the Israelis that were in that group said to the Palestinians, We want to understand your story. Can you take us to a village that was flattened in 1948 and tell us your story so that we can learn this from your perspective? Recognizing that we come from things with different narratives and different stories that don't align at all, and we don't know how to make those two opposing narratives make sense. This is the only way to do it. But it is hard work and it breaks our hearts. And that's why so few people are willing to do it. But it is necessary work.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

The tradition that that goes back to Jesus. Also embodied by figures like Gandhi and King, an unequivocal commitment to nonviolence. I think it's important to say that unequivocal commitment to nonviolence should be shared by all sides. You know, for as much as I've for all I disagreed with so much of what Charlie Kirk ever said, and for all the differences that I have with this current administration, to try to respond violently to that is unequivocally wrong. Violence is not the answer. Dr. King talked about how darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. And commitments to nonviolent resistance. We're sitting here, we're gathered in the shadow of a cross. A symbol of one who nonviolently resisted. It's hard and it's messy, but it's also the call of the gospel according to Jesus. We don't have time to unpack the passage from John 10. Um Jesus talks about I could do a quick recap. We gotta do a super quick recap.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

You can do that, and I'll do a super quick recap.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Okay, well, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Just to contextualize.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you you you go ahead and share, just mindful of time.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Yeah, I so the John 10 passage that we heard Shannon read, that passage doesn't make full sense if you haven't also read John 9. So I just want to give you a quick encapsulation of what happens in John 9 because Jesus is responding to something that happened. There was a person who was born blind, and Jesus healed him. And word got out that Jesus had healed this person. Every like the whole chapter is talking about the deliberation over whether or not this was the guy who was healed. Yes, I'm the one that was healed. And then we have some of the religious leaders that are like, oh, you know, we don't like that this happened, oh, it happened on the Sabbath. But then you have other religious leaders that are like, well, clearly this man talking about Jesus has some power, and there's something within him if he was able to heal like this. So you have disagreement among the religious authorities about how this should be handled. But ultimately, the ones who were feeling the most threatened, feeling their power most threatened, they chose to expel this man who had been healed from the community because they didn't want him to be like a testament to what Jesus had done. And so Jesus, that's what happened right before Jesus says what he says in chapter 10 when he's talking about the the sheep will hear the shepherd's voice, and you must come through the gate, and the thieves and the bandits that come in through another way, that's you know, they're they're here to lie and steal. He's talking directly about people in power that are using their religious knowledge or their religious authority to abuse people and to keep people out and to shut them out from inclusion. And Jesus is coming to say, no, that's not where the true power lies. It lies with the one that is willing to give access, the one who is willing to give life and give it abundantly. And so Jesus is showing another way where the way of God isn't a way that shuts people. He's trying to show that this is a way that is open to people and more people are able to be part of the fold. And it's a way that gives life, not a way that gives death, not a way that harms. And so he was he was kind of interjecting right there in the middle of a discussion that was happening among religious authorities that didn't all agree because we like to paint a lot of times. The gospels will paint the religious authorities with one broad brush as though they all thought a certain way, and that's where a lot of our anti-Semitic um teachings and actions come from. That's not that's not what was happening. There was disagreement among the religious authorities. You just sometimes have the people that were focused on power were the ones that that were able to wield it more.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Part of what Jesus did that should give us all pause, when when he would call people out, the people Jesus called out in the gospels were those who were speaking in the name of religion to justify their power in ways that harmed and exploited others. That's who he reserved his criticism for. Folks who take life that don't give life. And so anytime we see folks trying to justify problematic things in the name of God, it should give us pause because that's the kind of stuff that Jesus called out as saying it's unacceptable. Um, so to kind of like we we've we've got to wrap up. There's a paragraph that that kind of like summarizes, it's kind of like you write an essay, it's nice to have a summary, you know. And so kind of like like I guess something that that kind of summarizes our thoughts. Like if you could compare like warfare, whether it's just or not, to like the idea of soul force or life force, the nonviolent resistance that Jesus embodied, that Gandhi and King were about. Okay, when you compare those kinds of things, they're doing very different work. War seeks to destroy someone. War seeks to destroy an enemy. Whether it's just or not, war seeks to destroy to kill. Like we hear about in John 10. Destroying and killing. Soul force, life force, it's about trying to bring life. Not to destroy your enemy, but to transform or to be reconciled with your enemy. It's harder work. But according to Jesus, it's the work that brings life. And people may say that the way of nonviolent resistance is unrealistic, hopelessly naive. But really, is it any less realistic than the fantasy that one more war will put an end to all wars and eradicate evil once and for all? May we be people who don't want to seek ways to destroy life, but to heal life, to find reconciliation and wholeness with neighbor, stranger, even enemy.