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DUAL CITIZENSHIP #4
“PEACE AT ALL COSTS” IS TOO EXPENSIVE
Things were going just great at the First Fictional
Adventist Church of Anytown, U.S.A. The pastor and the congregation alike
were committed to growth, to unity, to having peace and keeping the peace.
The minister regularly worked the concept of harmony into his sermons,
quoting from Matthew 5, and the Sabbath School classes discussed the issue
in their study sessions.
And then the news slowly began to buzz its way around the church’s Internet
mailing list. One of the church elders, Mr. X, was having an affair. And
not only that, it was with a relative. If that wasn’t complicated enough,
there was a sizable contingent in that church – maybe 30 people – who
were actually content to say: “So what?” “Live and let live. If it doesn’t
bother anyone else, it doesn’t bother me. What a guy does in his own bedroom
is nobody’s business.” Etc.
Well, as you might suspect, this actually isn’t from a fictional church
but a real one. If we go over to the New Testament writings of Paul, we
discover that this was happening for real at the First Assembly of God
Church of Corinth . . . and I’m not talking about the present “A of G”
denomination, which has as much biblical integrity in this arena as anyone.
But this was literally the first and only Christian church in town. When
you looked in the Yellow Pages, there was one listing and it was right
here! And in this one-and-only church, there was one ordained deacon who
was blatantly living with his stepmother. Apparently one third of the
church was saying, “Blessed be the peacemakers,” another third was saying,
“Peace at all costs; let’s just keep on with the building program and
pretend this isn’t happening,” and a third third was reading the writings
of the Apostle Paul and saying: “We’re saved by grace, not by works. Commandment-keeping
availeth nothing. By the works of the law shall no man be saved.” For
them, grace hadn’t just become cheap, it had become a joke.
And what does Paul do, the preacher who spends almost the entire epistle
to the Ephesians writing about unity and the one body and how Jesus came
to tear down the walls of judgmentalism and hostility between us? Paul’s
answer is essentially six words long: “Get that guy out of here!” And
it appears that Paul’s spiritual slogan was “Peace at A cost,” but not
“Peace at ALL costs.” “Drive him out,” he shouts in verse 13. “Expel the
wicked man from among you.”
Interestingly, the NIV text notes for this verse take us back to the Old
Testament – which admittedly is bloodier and more militant-sounding than
the New – where God’s people are told to pick up sticks and stones and
either drive rebels out of town or sometimes drive them into a hole six
feet down in the ground.
“You must purge the evil from among you,” Moses writes in Deuteronomy
17.
We bring these vigilante-like passages to the table
today because our topic for the week is DUAL CITIZENSHIP. Tomorrow even
Christians will light red-white-and-blue sparklers and thank God for this
country down here below, the United States of America. But consider some
of the recent military goings-on of my country and others, where evil
men were driven to cover by Bradleys, Humvees, Chinook helicopters, and
laser-guided cluster bombs. Is it compatible with Christianity for people
to pull those triggers and kill their fellow human beings?
One Internet scholar who posted a treatise on all this right about that
time reminded his subscribers that the Bible paints a realistic picture.
Is peace always possible? No. Can we be peacemakers with people who refuse
to adhere to guidelines set forth by the peacemakers? Sometimes no. Even
that great challenge found in Romans 12:18 has a caveat right up front:
“IF IT IS POSSIBLE, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”
“If it be possible, as much as lieth in you” says the King James.
We often quote the peace-making guidelines of Matthew
18, which advise a concerned citizen to “go to his brother alone.” But
the fact is that some brothers will not listen. There are people in the
church, and there are tyrants in the world, who are going to continue
persecuting others and stockpiling sinful things, things designed to blow
up churches and cities and the people in those churches and cities. So
“if it is possible,” you live in peace. If it is not possible, then sometimes
God’s people are to join with others to do what is necessary.
This Internet writer, Samuele Bacchiocchi, concludes:
“We must do whatever we can to promote peace by avoiding conflicts and
violence. But the phrase ‘if possible’ suggests that sometimes peace is
not possible. There are situations when peace can only be maintained through
armed conflicts designed to ward off aggressors. If we are aware of evil
intentions by an individual or a nation to harm others, we would hardly
keep the ‘peace’ by giving in to their demands. It would be morally irresponsible
to turn over one’s wife to a rapist just to ‘keep peace.’”
That borrows from yesterday’s story.
And in this imperfect world we live in, there are times when the Christian
man or woman has to rise up and protect innocent parties. For the sake
of the innocent Body of Christ, the serial adulterer has to be expelled.
An embezzler can certainly be forgiven, but restitution must be made,
and a permanent firewall has to be erected between them and the church’s
books. On Law & Order TV episodes, a pedophile is sometimes quietly
transferred from one church or parish to the next one, leaving countless
victims in his wake. And in the final scene, district attorney Sam Waterston
usually does the right thing and puts that person behind bars where he
belongs. The New York Times, when one of its reporters turns out to be
a chronic con artist and plagiarist, has no choice but to protect its
reputation by severing its ties with the offender.
Here in the grace-oriented New Testament, Paul digs up an unfortunate
scenario where an able-bodied man is simply unwilling to punch a time
clock and put in a 40-hour week to care for his family. He expects the
deacons and elders to bring care packages and Thanksgiving fruit baskets
over to his house; in other words, he wants to sleep in till noon and
live off the largesse of the church. Shouldn’t the congregation care for
the needy and feed him? And the answer is no. “No work, no wienerschnitzel.”
“For even when we were with you,” Paul writes, “we gave you this rule:
‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’”
The same Bacchiocchi essay has a timely quotation from
a Gleason Archer, writing in the book, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.
Notice:
“Is it really a manifestation of goodness to furnish no opposition to
evil?” he asks. “Can we say that a truly good surgeon should do nothing
to cut away cancerous tissue from his patient and simply allow him to
go on suffering until finally he dies? Can we praise a police force that
stands idly by and offers no slightest resistance to the armed robber,
the rapist, the arsonist, or any other criminal who preys on society?
How could God be called ‘good’ if He forbade His people to protect their
wives from ravishment and strangulation by drunken marauders, or to resist
invaders who have come to pick up their children and dash out their brains
against the wall?”
There was a tough little story in the L.A. Times during
the tragically “Wild West” days of lawless abandon following the successful
war in Iraq. Looters and killers and former Baath Party politicians were
having their way, largely because there weren’t very many policemen available
to stand up and say: “Thus far and no farther.” And in order to protect
their young girls from rapists, Iraqi fathers were having to spend most
of their day personally escorting their daughters to classes and then
bringing them home again. One devoted dad had three pretty girls, each
attending a different school, and this was pretty much all the man did:
deliver them and pick them up . . . just to make sure no one ELSE picked
them up. That is what a good dad does, and if he needs to carry a big
stick, well, the bigger the better. Is it any different with OUR heavenly
Father? Author Gleason Archer finishes his thought:
“No nation could retain its liberty or preserve the lives of its citizens
if it were prevented from maintaining any sort of army for its defense.
It is therefore incumbent on a ‘good God’ to include the right of self-defense
as the prerogative of His people. He would not be good at all if He were
to turn the world over to the horrors of unbridled cruelty perpetrated
by violent and bloody criminals or unchecked aggression of invading armies.”
But friend, let’s close with the reality that God’s
Word, while encouraging a sturdy defense of the weak among us, and a united
front against destructive sin, also preaches relentless redemption. That
serial adulterer was to be sent out of the church in the explicit hope
that he would come to his senses and be restored. “His spirit saved on
the day of the Lord” is how Paul puts it. Wise forgiveness and lasting
reconciliation are always the way of the Christian, who should be eternally
eager to lay down arms and embrace his former enemy.
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