Pentecost XVI - C September 16th, SD 2007

Meadowvale Lutheran Church, Mississauga

Pastor Peter Lisinski

"THE GOSPEL TRUTH^”

One of the sentiments frequently expressed ever since September 11th, 2001 -- and one echoed often during this past week's 6th anniversary reflections -- laments how much the world changed on that terrible day.  But I'm not so sure our world is all that different.  Our post-9/11 world continues to need peace just as desperately as it did before 9/11; and we human beings keep trying to establish peace through the same old strategies of war and violence.  All the while our political leaders continue to voice the tired -- and tiresome -- clichés of self-righteousness. 

In his speech the other night, President Bush used a letter writ­ten by the grieving parents of one of the thousands of U.S. sol­diers killed in Iraq to perpetuate his administration^’s mythology that this is a just war of good versus evil; and -- as the latest Osama bin Laden video demonstrates -- our society's self-declared enemies engage in the same kind of self-righteous justification! And that is certainly nothing new or different in the history of our world. 

As we see in the grumbling of the Pharisees in today’s Gospel, it is tempting to try and divide the world into two basic categories of "good guys" and "bad guys”  "This fellow welcomes sinners," they scornfully accuse Jesus.  But, as Jesus' parables teach us, the so-called bad guys are not always the biggest obstacles to the fulfillment of God's will.  Sometimes it's those who consider themselves to be the good guys -- the ones who believe they are on God's side; or who believe God is on their side -- whom Jesus suggests may be the biggest obstacles to God's will! 

The Gospel truth is that each and every human being is a moral mixture of good and evil; and that collective moral mixture has produced a world of fear, hatred and greed which breeds violence. Whether it be domestic violence in our homes; gang violence in our schools; gun violence in our streets; terrorist violence of suicide bombers; or military violence of armed forces, violence is rooted in our natural human tendency to blame others for what is wrong in our world, or in our lives.  And if that literally vicious cycle of violence is ever to be stopped, we need to hear the Gospel truth proclaimed by the most faithful and insightful preacher of the Gospel the world has ever known -- with the exception, of course, of Jesus Christ himself!

 Any idea who that might be?  I'll give you a hint, it's not Billy Graham; and it's not Pope Benedict XYI; it's not Martin Luther, or even Martin Luther King!  I'll give you another hint. It’s someone who could have been -- though he probably wasn't --one of the Pharisees listening to Jesus in today's Gospel!  It's the former Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus_, whom Christian history has come to know as the Apostle Paul.

 In today's appointed reading from his first letter to his pas­toral protégé, Timothy, St. Paul proclaims the very heart of the Gospel truth revealed to him by Jesus Christ personally.  "The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners -- of whom I am chief'." (I Tim  1:15).  And the personal sinfulness Paul confesses in his letter to Timothy_, his letter to the Romans teaches us to be true of all human beings:  “There is no one who is righteous, not even one...All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:10, 23).

Establishing peace in the world -- peace among nations; peace between religions; peace with our neighbours; peace within our homes; peace in our hearts -- begins not by pointing the self-righteous finger of blame at others; but by shining the light of Sod's righteousness on ourselves, and inspiring joy in heaven by repenting!  As the popular song puts it, "Let there be peace on earth; and let it begin with me."

 That is the call our Peace Pole hopes to send to all who will read its inscription -- and who, by reading its inscription, will add their voices to our world's desperate need for the fulfillment of its simple, but urgent prayer:  "May peace prevail on earth"!