The dynamic between liturgy and mission creates a trajectory. As such, it is meant to form our worship into ever widening communion, to equip and impel us “to restore all people to unity with God and each other . . . to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world.” To the extent that we fail to make the connection between liturgy and mission, we eviscerate the liturgy of its intent and end. That is, for liturgy to be doing its job, it must effect a change in the way we live and the way we live together. Supremely, our worship must make a difference in the most difficult and conflictual times of life. It is this assumption about the essential dynamic of liturgy and mission which informed Associated Parishes Council as we met in Sorrento. My own sense of our deliberative process was that it was prayerful discernment which issued in a statement reflective of our common heart and mind, as we took seriously the events which so distressed us and the demands of the gospel in relation to them. The initial discrepancy we had to confront was the dissonance between the joy of the paschal season and the depths of our despair over a world in the grips of violence. The terror of it had been brought close to us, by the struggle of the Anglican Church in Canada to make amends for child abuse in the residential schools, by the events of September 11th and U. S. retaliation since, by the escalating bloodshed in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. We had to dare enough together to imagine an alternative to counter-violence in these circumstances. We had to hope enough together in the example of Jesus, who proposed such an alternative in his life and death, and which we the church claim has triumphed over sin and evil once for all.
We all know that the cycle of violence and terror must stop. Do we honestly expect the most deprived and desperate of the earth to exhibit more restraint than the most privileged and civilized nations? Do we as Christians and/or North Americans expect more of our enemies than of ourselves? Who will exhibit the way of peace if not Christians, we who profess it in our worship, we who request grace to manifest it in our lives? Here’s who: In a recent act of civil disobedience, a growing number of Israeli soldiers are refusing to serve in the occupied territories. Imprisoned for their witness to what they believe is an unjust war against Palestinians, several were interviewed by Sixty Minutes, which aired the story on Sunday, May 5th. Their costly decision to resort to nonviolent resistance demonstrates the way of peace, the way of shalom. They know better. They can imagine a different ending.
Both nations and religions are capable of extremism, of an ideological fundamentalism which is the enemy of the freedom and tolerance so necessary in a pluralist world. The San Francisco Chronicle carried an article on the recent resurgence of the peace movement in the Bay area as the conflict has intensified in the Middle East. “The surge of patriotism right after September 11th was followed by government admonitions to stay either united or in line, depending on the interpretation...as when White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer warned that Americans ‘need to watch what they say’... In the current climate, it’s still hard...to explain how you can oppose attacking the enemies of America while still feeling patriotically supportive of the country.... The basic argument...is that nonviolent solutions will be more effective in the long run than military ones. It’s harder to explain the nuances of that than it is simply to rail against either the Israelis or the Palestinians–but then the peace movement has always been about complex thought.”
Although the separation of church and state, as provided by the U. S. Constitution, was intended to protect the free exercise of religion in a nation characterized by religious pluralism, another useful effect of the separation has been to provide another check and balance in society. Free speech and religious freedom have served the nation well, providing an arena of public debate for controversial policies. Abolitionist initiative by Quakers at the time of the Civil War is an example. Ideally, religion is engaged in a dialectic with government for the sake of the commonweal. Extremism in government or religion seeks to stifle free debate on grounds of patriotism or orthodoxy. When public debate is stifled in church or state, corporate discernment becomes impossible. Options narrow.
It is easier for us to consider the alternative proposal put forward in the Sorrento Statement by using the example of the Israelis and Palestinians, because we are so embroiled in our own conflicts as Anglican Canadians and as U. S. Episcopalians. Still, we must not flinch to contemplate Christ’s example in comparison and contrast to our own. We must admit the truth about ourselves, our churches, our nations as best we can, in love and humility, even and especially when it convicts us of falling short. Jesus refrained from retaliation and so broke the cycle. His restraint is not simply coincidental. Rather, it is itself the mechanism of redemption. When we do not restrain ourselves from violence, we conspire to defeat the possibility of redemption. In our sinfulness, we become the stumbling block.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam cannot undo the centuries of violence and terror perpetrated under their various religious auspices. We say we abhor it. Yet we can only do so authentically, with integrity, by refusing to perpetuate it in our own day and time and circumstances, precisely despite provocation. Thomas Friedman quotes Richard Day, a psychologist at American University in Beirut: “When will we have peace in Lebanon?.... When the Lebanese start to love their children more than they hate each other.” The same can be said for Jews, Christians and Muslims, for Israelis and Palestinians, for the U. S. and its enemies, for Republicans and Democrats, for the enmity of clans, tribes and races, for contentious Christian denominations and the world’s warring religions.
If we do not hold ourselves accountable for the collective messes we’ve made, accountable to the gospel standard, then we are saying that these conflicts are beyond the reach of the gospel, that its power is of no effect upon us or the abysmal situations we have created. And that, I believe, is indeed heresy. It flies in the face of the paschal victory. We deny ourselves and the world our possible resurrection, proffered so generously by God in Christ. If we refuse to relate the gospel to the violence and terror, our worship remains unconsummated and barren of its intended fruitfulness. The church’s mission is stillborn. What a shame, not to dare the way of peace for Christ’s sake!
Thomas Friedman quotes Rabbi Tzvi Marx concerning the passage in Isaiah “You are my witnesses, I am the Lord”: “second century rabbinic commentators interpreted that verse to be saying, ‘If you are my witnesses, then I am the Lord. And if you are not my witnesses, I am not the Lord’.... We are responsible for making God’s presence manifest by what we do.” The interpretive task and the missiological imperative call us into the struggle to walk the costly way of peace with as much grace as we are given. And however costly, it is more worth the price than is the rising cost of violence and terror.
We have the resources to address the root causes of the desperation which breeds terror. We can redirect our resources from attempting to police the world’s rapidly replicating anarchists and instead to invest in the civilizing effects of health, education and welfare, which build commerce, community and compassion. Those who have an increasing stake in their present and in the future for their descendents will be less likely to succumb to extremism, to ideological fundamentalism, whether it masquerades under the banner of nationalism or religious zeal.