I suggested that the sermon I preached on the life and ministry of Dr. Tom Dooley was begun more than twenty years before it was actually preached and had no real starting point. This message has a more recent and specific beginning.
This sermon was begun on Tuesday, August 10, 1976, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. On that day and in that place Anne Maguire went for a walk.
With her was her daughter, Joanna, aged eight years, who preceded her mother, pushing her infant brother Andrew, aged six weeks, in a baby carriage. Mrs. Maguire held the hand of her other son, John, aged two and one half. Mrs. Pat O’Connor and her children accompanied her sister, Anne Maguire.
The city noises were broken by the sound of gunfire, a disturbing but not unexpected experience in strife-ridden Belfast.
Within moments after the women heard the gunshots, a blue Ford sedan sped around the street corner, chased by two British Army Jeeps. The driver of the car lost control and swerved onto the sidewalk where Mrs. Maguire and Mrs. O’Connor strolled peacefully with their families.
Before the car came to a stop it struck Mrs. Maguire and her family, inflicting grave and fatal injuries.
Mrs. Maguire had both legs and her pelvis broken.
Joanna, aged eight years, was killed instantly.
Andrew, aged six weeks, was killed instantly.
John, aged two and one half years, sustained multiple fractures, and died the next day.
Although we live in a world which is so violent that we have become almost impervious to human
suffering, we cannot help but be revolted by the recital of these events.
Any revulsion you may feel is as nothing when compared to the anger which flared in the streets of Belfast when word spread of the disaster.
Within hours of the tragedy, fifty mothers marched to the hospital, pushing baby carriages before them. They were to serve as a nucleus for a great rally which spontaneously developed beneath the windows of the hospital where young John Maguire fought a losing battle for his life.
As the light of that tragic day faded, candles were lit, hymns sung, and prayers offered. The anger of those gathered outside the hospital was real and deep, but lacking indirection.
Running through the gathering was the intense feeling that somehow, something must be done to end the violence which characterized the hopelessly divided people of Northern Ireland.
Even as the rally - it could more properly be called a service of worship - was being held, two events were occurring concurrently which were to launch a new era in the history of the Irish people.
First, the aunt of the children, Mairead Corrigan, while being interviewed on a television program, was so overcome by the deaths of her niece and nephews and the crippling of her sister, that she broke down and cried inconsolably even as she decried the violence.
Second, unknown to Mairead Corrigan, a woman named Betty Williams equally repulsed by the violence put out a call among her neighbors asking: "Do you want peace?"
Within forty-eight hours a resounding affirmative response came to her question. A petition bearing six thousand names called for peace and a halt to the IRA’s (Irish Republican Army) military campaign.
The funeral of the Maguire children provided a meeting ground for Mairead Corrigan, Betty Williams, and a journalist, Ciaran McKeown. The latter was to labor almost anonymously in the peace campaign, but was to be invaluable to Betty, Mairead, and the others who were to join the crusade.
The tragic deaths of the Maguire children served as catalysts for the beginning of a movement to bring peace to Northern Ireland, so that the hatred and religious bigotry, which had festered like a suppurating wound, could be excised. The deaths of the children would not be in vain. Because of their deaths, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan met each other. More importantly, they met the Master, and they took seriously the injunction of that Master who is called the Prince of Peace that they should become peacemakers.
On August 21, 1976, the first of what was to become many peace rallies was held.
The rally brought together Protestants and Roman Catholics as Christians in peace. So often the opposing sides had marched at each other, screaming epithets, waving hate-tinged placards, throwing stones, and preparing to bloody the "enemy."
On August 21, 1976, the scene was transformed. On that day they marched together for the cause of peace.
Whereas tears of pain had previously fallen, on this date, tears of joyful reconciliation flowed.
Whereas Protestants and Roman Catholics had previously screamed insults at each other, now they sang - together - hymns of praise to the one God and Father of all.
This was made possible because Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan had met the Master.
In other times, Protestants and Roman Catholics had carried placards bearing slogans of hatred, but on this occasion their signs were ones of peace and goodwill.
This was made possible because Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan had met the Master.
Prior to these events, many people in Northern Ireland were distressed by the continuing and escalating violence. So many had wanted to do something, but no one knew what to do or how to do it.
But Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan met the Master, and with the Master leading them, they showed the way to a beginning of a return to sanity and an end to violence.
We had in our congregation, as a speaker, Dr. H. Margaret Zassenhaus, Nobel Prize Nominee, physician, and humanitarian. Dr. Zassenhaus had resisted the demonic authority of Naziism and saved thousands of lives through her resistance.
The theme of Dr. Zassenhaus’ talk was the necessity for getting involved, for translating righteous indignation into positive action which will eliminate evil.2
The quotation from Edmund Burke is so familiar that it has become almost trite. Yet it is appropriate.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
The deaths of three innocent children finally were sufficiently horrendous to move good men to do something. In this case it happened to be two good women - two good women who met the Master, and knew that he was calling them to be peacemakers.
John Donne has given us the haunting lines which say:
Ask not for whom the bell tolls,
The bell tolls for thee.3
Just as surely as the shepherds heard angels singing of peace and goodwill on the night Jesus was
born, so did Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan hear the voice of the Master calling them to be agents of that heralded but unfulfilled longing for peace and goodwill.
At the first such rally a boy was heard asking his mother, "Momma, what kind of people are the Protestants?"4
The question could have been asked by a Protestant child about Roman Catholics. The answer could have been the same for both. Protestants ... Roman Catholics ... they are the same. They are all children of God.
Within this circumstance lies the reality that prejudice can best be overcome when people enter into relationship with each other, and conversely, prejudice can never be overcome when we do not enter into interpersonal relationships.
The people who gathered in peace rallies and marches gathered not as Protestants or Roman Catholics, but as Christian people searching for an end to violence.
It is essential that we learn to put our parochial, denominationalism in its proper perspective, that is, that sectarianism is ludicrous since God doesn’t recognize our divisions.
God doesn’t recognize people as Methodists, or Baptists, or Lutherans or Orthodox Christians or Roman Catholics. The only way he recognizes us is as children of God. Protestants and Roman Catholics came together not in conflict but out of necessity.
Just as God recognizes no sect, the people were to learn that death, brutality, and terror also struck impartially at Protestants and Roman Catholics. The people of Northern Ireland had lived in fear. They had lived in fear of the brutality which produced maimed bodies and deranged minds. They had been impotent in the face of the seemingly unending civil strife. The deaths of the Maguire children were seemingly the final unendurable atrocity.
With Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan as their leaders, tens of thousands of citizens of Northern Ireland cried out:
Enough!
No more violence!
No more killing!
This was a spontaneous movement. The clergy, who should have led the way to peace, found that the sheep were out-distancing the shepherds.
This was a movement of the laity. Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams were neither professional religion ists nor professional peace-makers. They were just individual Christians who had met the Master and had heard his invitation to bring peace where there was hatred.
Several years ago I heard a Scottish preacher share a parable from his homeland. He said that it was a tradition that after Jesus had died on Good Friday and had descended into Hell to set free the sinners therein, he was met by the Devil.
The latter said to Jesus, "Now that you’ve left the earth, what plans do you have for your work." The legend says that Jesus responded, "Why I’ve left Peter, and James, and John, and a host of others to carry on my work." To which the Devil replied, "... and if they should fail, what other plans do you have?" Jesus then said, "I have no other plans; I’m counting on them."
All else had failed. Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan knew that they were successors to those earlier disciples - those to whom the Master had given the responsibility for the declaration of the faith. Jesus was counting on them.
Like those earlier disciples, the ministries of Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan were not without problems. They were called traitors. Their lives were threatened. They were condemned by both sides. They were accosted and beaten by the IRA. The British Army arrested and interrogated them.
These women, whose motives were of the best, were suspected by everyone. Yet like St. Paul they were truly able to say that they were:
... troubled but not distressed,
perplexed but not in despair,
persecuted but not forsaken,
cast down but not destroyed.5
Perhaps the most insidious of problems which beset the peace movement was the criticism that the ladies were leading this movement for self-aggrandizement. This charge became especially prevalent after Betty and Mairead were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with its attendant, large monetary grant. The women responded by placing the money they received into trust funds, the proceeds of which were to be used for the peace movement.
We see in this criticism an excellent if unfortunate example of the truth that for all too many people ...
it is easier to criticize someone else than it is to work ourselves;
It is easier to tear down than it is to build up.
Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams do not need me to defend them, but a word of defense is nonetheless appropriate.
First, their actions speak for themselves. With little concern for personal safety or well-being, these two women rose to the challenge of bringing peace to Northern Ireland. Their movement may not have been the movement others would have led, but they were the only ones willing to place their lives and destinies on the altar of selfless concern.
The criticism of Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan was reminiscent of the criticism, earlier noted, directed against Albert Schweitzer and Tom Dooley. Those who were not in Africa and Asia were critical of those who were there.
Those who had not discomforted themselves in the course of peace were critical of the peacemakers.
A second defense of the leaders of the peace movement rests upon the travail they experienced in seeking to end the hate-inspired strife in Northern Ireland.
If Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams did create the peace movement for personal gain or glory, they paid a terrible price. We’ve already cited the treatment to which they were subjected for their prophetic roles. Only a sadist would have been willing to endure what they endured in the hope of personal achievement.
James and John wanted to sit beside the Lord’s throne when he came into his kingdom, not realizing the price demanded for such a reign.
What we see in the lives of Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan is a beautiful example of what can happen when people meet the Master.
Their meeting is all the more meaningful because it has taken place in the last quarter of what has become a cynical century.
When those of goodwill see little hope in this world, they can be encouraged by the examples of people such as Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan who meet the Master - even today.
Mairead Corrigan had felt that she had already met the Master. She had volunteered to go to South America as a missionary. Her offer had been rejected. For those who believe in an orderly universe, controlled by God, we can see a purpose for that rejection.
While Mairead was undoubtedly needed in South America, Northern Ireland needed her more.
She - along with Betty Williams - met the Master and, like the fishermen by the Galilee See, followed him. Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams took seriously the injunction of the contemporary hymn:
Let there be peace on earth,
And let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on earth,
The peace that was meant to be.
With God as our Father,
Brothers all are we.
Let me walk with my brother
In perfect harmony.
Let peace begin with me;
Let this be the moment now.
With every step I take,
Let this be my solemn vow;
To take each moment, and live each
moment in peace eternally!
Let there be peace on earth,
And let it begin with me.6
1. Richard Deutsch, Mairead Corrigan/Betty Williams, (New York: Barrons-Woodberry, 1977) p. 166.
2. See a subsequent sermon for a further elaboration of Dr. Zassenhaus’ own meeting with the Master.
3. This familiar quotation is from Devotions of John Donne.
4. Deutsch, p. 93.
5. cf. 2 Corinthians 4:8-10.
6. Paragon Associates, Hymns for the Family of God, #681, © 1955 by Jan-Lee Music. Used by permission.
