THE WAR HAS BEGUN
A meditation for a special service of prayer scheduled to be held at 7 PM on the day following the day America attacks Iraq.
Psalm 27:1-14
1 The LORD is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life-- of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall.
3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.
4 One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.
6 Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD.
7 Hear my voice when I call, O LORD; be merciful to me and answer me.
8 My heart says of you, "Seek his face!" Your face, LORD, I will seek.
9 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Savior.
10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.
11 Teach me your way, O LORD; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors.
12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing out violence.
13 I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.
(NIV)
The war has begun.
We gather here as people of God who have been expecting this, dreading this, but praying earnestly for peace.
We gather together and in many ways we are a fragmented people with different opinions and different views.
Some here have been marching for peace, holding signs that say, “give peace a chance” as traffic would drive by.
Some here have emailed and written and telephoned political leaders asking them to avoid war.
Some here feel the war is unjust and inappropriate. Others feel the war is just and noble.
Some here have prayed that this day would come, eagerly wanting American to change the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Some here have families or friends who are in the military. For them the war has a face, and it is the face of a loved one.
Some here are in the military, or in the reserves, and there is an uncertainty of what will happen to their units, or to their colleagues in other units.
You may feel sad or frustrated, joyful or angry, excited or frightened. You may well feel a lot of different emotions.
But whatever our feelings we are all united in the fact that we are children of God and we gather to seek God’s intervention and participation in human history and in current events.
And so we gather in the Lord’s House together – feeling different things, but all seeking God’s will and praying for God’s action.
As we gather, I cannot help but believe that some of us are ill-prepared for this day.
I don’t mean, have you gone to Home Depot and bought all of plastic sheeting for all of your windows and duct tape.
I don’t mean, have you ordered your Israeli Army Surplus gas mask and your chemical suit.
I firmly believe we should be prepared for the worst. Most of us are good at that, living as we do here in Florida we know all about hurricane preparations. Some of the preparations I’ve heard about I’ve laughed at, thinking about how useless they are. Some of the preparations I take very seriously.
I’m talking about preparation that I have not seen described in the newspapers or in the Homeland Defense web pages.
I’m talking about spiritual preparation.
I meet people all the time who fail to make the kind of spiritual preparations they need for life.
A lot of people think that spiritual preparations are for the AFTER-life, but we need to make spiritual preparations for this life – the here and now.
I met a woman recently at Jackson Memorial Hospital who had never given any thought to spiritual preparations. Now she suddenly found herself in a crisis and she was without the preparations she needed.
We met in the elevator at the hospital. I was dressed in my clerical collar, so there was no way to avoid letting people know that I was in the ministry. She was dressed in a hospital gown and robe – she was holding onto one of those portable poles with an IV attached to her arm.
The woman noticed I was a minister and said to me, “I’m glad I ran into you. I’ve just found out I have cancer. It’s very aggressive. Apparently I’ve had it for a while and didn’t know it and now there is not much hope left. I’ve never been to church. I’ve never read the Bible. I’ve never prayed a single prayer. But now that I’m facing God and death, I need you to tell me about God. Why would he do this? What does he want from me? What will he do to me? Can I convince God to heal me?”
I invited her to join me on one of the benches outside the main entrance, but she said she didn’t have time. “I’ve got to go back to my room and wait for my doctor to come by and talk to me. I can give you about two minutes, but I need your answers now.”
That’s ridiculous.
Even if I told her the answers to her questions, she would not have understood them.
This is what I often call “asking the PhD level questions of life, while having nothing more than a preschool education.”
There are some questions in which the answers can only be understood if you have a strong foundation.
If a Kindergartener asks, “what is light,” the best answer to give is, “it’s stuff from the sun that helps you see things.”
But if someone who is older and who has been at school building a foundation of knowledge asks that question, “what is light,” then your answer can be, It is that part of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation that extends from a frequency of about 4 times 10 to the 14th power hertz to a frequency of about 8 times 10 to the 14th power hertz..” All of which is common knowledge to most of us…
My car broke down this week. I had to call someone to come out and tow it to a mechanic who fixed it.
When I asked what was wrong with the car, the mechanic spoke in tongues. It must have been Latin or something – I don’t know. I stood there for a moment while the mechanic talked about the discombobulator chord is connected to the hyperdrive unit and the PFL belt broke away from the this and that pulley – or he said something like that.
I didn’t have the foundation of knowledge and experience to understand the answer.
So I asked two other questions I could understand.
“Can you fix it?”
“How much is it going to cost?”
We do that with life.
Be nurtured in the faith
If you want to be spiritually prepared to deal with war, terrorists, or any of life’s uncertainties, the fist step is to be nurtured in the faith.
In the Old Testament, the Psalmist said, “The LORD is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life-- of whom shall I be afraid?”
That Psalmist didn’t get there in an instant, at the moment of the crisis.
That Psalmist got there by living out a lifetime of faith and practice.
That Psalmist got to the point of courage by being nurtured in the faith over a long period of time.
On Tuesday, part of our church staff had the opportunity to attend a seminar in which one of the speakers was Mayor Rudolph Guiliani.
What a great speaker!
We all know this man as the former mayor of New York, who during his last days in office had to contend with the ultimate crisis – the attacks on New York City on September 11th.
In describing the characteristics successful leaders need to have, Guiliani said, “The first and most important characteristic you need is to have strong beliefs. You need to spend your life knowing what you believe. You can’t figure it out in a crisis. You need to know it before the emergency arises."
In this Psalm, the writer says, “My heart says of you, "Seek his face!" Your face, LORD, I will seek .. Teach me your way, O LORD.”
Here is a person who is nurturing his or her faith.
The Psalmist knows what Mayor Guiliani was telling his audience a few days ago. You have to spend your life knowing what you believe. You can’t figure it out in a crisis. You need to know it before the emergency arises.”
How absolutely true that is.
The problem with many people is that they don’t know what they believe, so when a crisis comes they don’t know how to handle it.
If you are nurtured in your faith, if you know what you believe, you will be better prepared for war or peace, cancer or health, joy or sorrows.
Worship And Pray To God
The next thing we see in this Psalm is the very thing we are doing right now – worshipping God. Time and again we see this in our Old Testament lesson:
“One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.”
The plan for this worship service was established back in January. We have known that long that this day would probably come. Our elders knew that our church is a praying church and would want to gather together in prayer and worship in a time of crisis.
The only thing wrong with doing this is that many people will turn to God only in a time of crisis. Like that woman I met on the elevator at the Jackson Memorial Hospital, she had never prayed to God, never worshipped God, never read the Word of God, but in a moment of personal crisis, then and only then did she turn to God.
I’m glad she did.
But my concern is that when the crisis was over, she would then turn away from God.
We need to look to God not only in a time of crisis, but after the crisis and before the next crisis.
We need to always be a people of worship and prayer.
That is the way the Psalmist was able to reach the point in life in which he or she could say, “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?”
We gather in worship and prayer tonight.
We need to also gather in worship and prayer on Sunday.
We need to gather in worship and prayer when this war continues, and when it ends, and in the days after the war when we become complacent and forgetful of the current crisis.
War has begun.
Let us be nurtured by our faith in God.
Let us continue to be a people of worship and prayer.
