A sociology professor every year begins his course on "The Family" by reading to his class a letter, from a parent, written to a government official. In the letter the parent complains that his son, once obedient and well motivated, has become involved with some weird new religious cult. The father complains that the cult has taken over the boy's life, has forced him to forsake all of his old friends, and has turned him against his family.

After reading the letter, the professor asks the class to speculate what the father is talking about. Almost without exception, the class immediately assumes that the subject of the letter is a child mixed up with the "Moonies," or some other controversial group. After the class puts out all of the possible conclusions they can think of, the professor surprises them by revealing that the letter, was written by a third century father in Rome, the governor of his province, complaining about this weird religious group called "The Christians."

I have a favorite quotation which is above my desk in my study. The years have passed, and the paper on which this quotation was written has become old, brown and brittle. I borrowed this quotation from Dietrich Bonhoeffer years ago. Bonhoeffer says in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, "True disciples are always few in number. Do not put your hopes in large numbers for true disciples will always be few." Every once in a while as a pastor, when I get caught up by sin and want to see large crowds on Sunday morning which imply (to the eyes of the world and worldly church) that I am a "successful pastor," I remember that Jesus ultimately found power in a small number of transformed lives rather than in the fickle crowds.

I have been thinking about people who have been obsessed with mission. Scott Carpenter was one of the great citizens of the United States of America. He was one of our seven first astronauts. He was truly a great man. Scott Carpenter was a man who had a sense of mission. Let me read what Scott Carpenter had to say, "This project of being an astronaut and going to the moon, gives me the possibility of using all of my capabilities and all of my interests and gifts at once. This is something that I would be willing to give my life for.  I think a person is fortunate to have something that you care that much about that you would give your life for. There are risks involved, that's for sure." Then Scott Carpenter went on to say in the following words in a letter to his wife, "My dear, if this comes to a fatal, screaming fiery end for me, I will have three main regrets. I will have lost the opportunity to prepare for my children's life here on this planet. I will miss the pleasure of seeing you and loving you when you are a grandmother. And will have never learned to play the guitar." Signed, Scott. He cared for his wife. He cared for his children. He wanted to play the guitar. But more than that, more than his love for his wife and children, more than his wanting to learn to play the guitar, Scott Carpenter was willing to give his life for the mission to go to the moon.

What does it mean to give your life for THE mission of Jesus Christ?

There was this amateur naturalist who saw a cocoon. This amateur naturalist saw a butterfly struggling to get out of that cocoon. The butterfly was struggling to get out of the cocoon and was just about ready to break out of that cocoon. The amateur naturalist was closely watching as this miracle unfolded. Then, the amateur naturalist did a very dumb thing. He took out his pocket knife and he slit the cocoon so that the butterfly did not have to struggle. The butterfly came out and flew around but it was a very weak butterfly because the butterfly never had to struggle in its own birth.

Many parents make the same mistake in parenting, where the parents cut the cocoon and make it easier for the children to grow up, protecting their children from difficult struggles, and thereby the children never develop the inner strength that is learned through struggle.

So it is with Christianity. Christianity always involves struggle, whereby a person becomes a strong disciple. It is only through struggles that a person becomes strong spiritually or strong emotionally.

To love people as Jesus did is to stand for something. G. K. Chesterton observed that tolerance is the easy virtue of people who do not believe anything. Some unknown bard has put the observation poetically.

Popularity was his middle name.
Its prod was pride, its price was pain.
He never learned the word called, "no."
They spoke of him as "good old Joe."

His life was one long laughing spell,
and how he felt you couldn't tell.
His favorite words were "yes," and "sure."
Yes, good old Joe was Simon Pure.

So when he died they wrote these lines,
and laid him down midst whispering pines.
"Here lies a man - his name was Joe.
But what he stood for, we'll never know."

You couldn't have said that about Jesus. If you listened you knew what he beleived.

Surely the reader of this text must be completely distressed!  It seems to fly in the face of everything the pious follower of Jesus generally fabricates about this man.  We do, you know, manufacture many inventions about Jesus.  He is a gentle, mild-mannered, generous, kindly, even-tempered, loving and lovable, intense (but in a nice way, of course), courteous, compassionate, sympathetic, benevolent man devoted to righting the wrongs of this world. 

He does go through some hard times and his death is a really, really tortured one, but by and large he is the kind or person who knows and understands our human foibles.  He gathers the poor, the sick, the troubled, the outsiders, those who are discarded by society in general  and incorporates them into a nice little family where peace reigns, forgiveness is an everyday experience and all live happily ever after (except for those meanies who don't really catch on to who Jesus is and therefore end up killing him).  But he trumps the whole mess created by his enemies by rising again from the dead!  So there, you enemies!  Put that in your hat and eat it!

Well, perhaps that is a bit overdrawn, but it helps give perspective on what is happening in the text.  The warm, fuzzy Jesus we frequently invent with all the niceties that we fabricate about him stands shattered in our text - and in much of the chapter around the text, the exception being the "do not be anxious" section in verses 22-32.  The chapter is filled with "hard sayings," as they are frequently called, that issue from the lips of our Lord.  We know, of course, how to "tame them down" to make them palatable and to assure ourselves that we are in sync with them.  So we often do not give too much attention to them lest they "mess around" with our pious impressions and pre-suppositions.

C. S. Lewis once said that the gospel was concerned to create "new people" not just "nice people." The human need is an inner transformation that makes us into new creatures. It is the warmth of the spirit of Christ that accomplishes this. This is not something we can do for ourselves; it is the New Testament insistence upon grace and gift, not work and merit. We cannot make ourselves into the sort of persons who are recognizable as sons and daughters of God; the heart of the Christian testimony makes this clear. Not even a courageous and serious understanding of the first fire, Christ's judgment, can remedy our impoverishment before God. It takes the second fire of Christ's spirit to inspire and sustain the growth of love and grace within us.

There is evidence of splintered families all around us and among us. A cartoon strip showed a young woman talking to a minister. She said, "John and I are having a terrible time, and we need your advice. We are trying to decide how to divide the furniture, who gets what of the money we've saved and who gets custody of the children."

"Oh," the minister asked, "are you contemplating divorce?"

"Oh, no," she replied. "We are trying to work out our prenuptial agreement."

Stretching south for hundreds of miles from Glacier National Park lay a majestic mixture of valleys, rushing streams, and gargantuan mountains called the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Backpackers have hiked there for decades looking for elk, grizzlies and golden eagles. Fortunately the grizzlies stay up in the high country, but a golden eagle may be spotted and the elusive wolverine may be tracked.

The Bob Marshall Wilderness hosts some 90,000 packers and hikers each year, most of them in the months of July and August. They must come in either by foot or horseback. No motorized vehicles are allowed. The forests on those rugged mountain slopes are thick with Lodgepole Pine, a tough, hardy tree with cones so thick that only extreme heat can burst forth the seeds. That's where fire comes in. For thousands oh, millions of years lightning has cracked the big sky out there down to the forests below. (Often the lightning will hit the Douglas Firs, less rugged than the Lodgepole Pines, and a forest fire will begin.) For years, of course, the United States Forest Service fought furiously to put out these fires. More recently, they have adopted a policy of managed fires. They have learned these fires have a purpose. Without them the seeds of the Lodgepole Pines are never released. Without them much of the underbrush and plant life there does not regenerate. The earth needs a fire cast on it or it will die.

Jesus, speaking to Peter, that blustery, Lodgepole Pine kind of a man, said, "Peter, I have a fire to cast over the earth, and how I am constrained until it be kindled!" What did Jesus mean? He knew that Peter, like all of his disciples, was a wilderness that needed fire or he would die. Peter needed the fire of God's Word to burn open his heart, so that the Gospel can grow in him and throughout the world.

C. S. Lewis wrote one of the most endearing Christian books titled The Lion, The Witch and Wardrobe. It was adapted into a movie by Disney. If you have half an imagination you need to read it. You will never forget the story. In the book Jesus is represented by a Lion by the name of Aslan. The four children who are finally introduced to Aslan by Mr. and Mrs. Beaver are not quite sure they want to met him. Mr. Beaver says to them:

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
You'll understand when you see him."

"But shall we see him?" asked Susan.

"Why, Daughter of Eve, that's what I brought you here for. I'm to lead you where you shall meet him," said Mr. Beaver.

"Is is he a man?" asked Lucy.

"Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion THE Lion, the great Lion."

"Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver, "if anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

Thank God for those free thinkers throughout Christendom who have brought fire upon the earth, the early Church and the Catholic Church which has prevailed for almost 2000 years holding the banner of Christ.

Martin Luther, who called the church back to a Gospel which emphasized grace rather than works. John Wyclif and William Tyndale, who against the wishes of church leadership produced the Bible in the language of the people. William Wilberforce, against the will of many within the church, fought the evil ravages of the institution of slavery. Hudson Taylor, who dared to adopt the customs and culture of the people to whom he was a missionary. He converted people to Jesus, not to Western culture. He changed the focus of foreign missions. Men like John and Charles Wesley, Charles Finney, and Spurgeon, who called upon their churches to reform. They woke the world with their fiery preaching.

These men were trouble makers. Thinkers. Applecart shakers. Men who muddied the water just like Jesus. Heroes of the faith, we now call the, because they were not afraid of division. They knew Jesus did not come to bring peace but a sword. In other words: Truth. God's truth is like that. It is a double edged sword. What sounds like peace, the peace that Christ gives, really isn't peace as the world would have it. It is peace as God would have it. And what kind of peace is it that God wants? He wants the peace that exist between you and Him when the weight of your sins no longer are a snare and you can run with endurance the race set before you.

Jesus said, "Do you think I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division." That saying of Jesus has always struck me as one of the most disturbingly honest things Jesus ever said. There's a legend, which may actually be true because it sounds real, that when Abraham Lincoln was first introduced to Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, he said, "So this is the little lady who started the Civil War." However true that incident may be, she wrote not to bring peace, but division, and people had to decide where they stood.

There was a knight of Bethlehem
Whose wealth was tears and sorrows
His men at arms were little lambs
His trumpeters were sparrows

His castle was a wooden cross
On which he hung so high
His helmet was a crown of thorns
Whose crest did touch the sky.

Sometimes I think our reluctance to share our faith is not so much our lack of knowledge and experience in sharing it, but rather that gut feeling, we know...we know how controversial Jesus is. To say his name is to offend. My friends, Jesus knows that. He did not come to bring peace but a sword. 

During WWII, a Jewish family named Rosenberg was confined to a concentration camp where prisoners could escape the gas ovens as long as they could work. A young boy in the family was partially disabled from birth and could not carry a full workload. The parents were separated during the day by their separate work responsibilities, so they would hasten in the evenings to check on the condition of each family member. One evening the father's worse fears were realized. He could not spot his disabled boy. Then he saw his older son weeping in a corner. The son told the father that the disabled boy was taken to the gas chambers because he could no longer work. The father asked: But where is your mother? The older boy told how his little brother was afraid to go and clung to his mother, who said, "Don't cry. I'll go with you and hold you close." And she did. And so does Christ. Where else can you find such an inner peace as with Christ. This is the way we can run the race, never alone, but being held close to Christ.

In the days of the westward expansion in North America, when men saw that a prairie fire was coming, what would they do? There was no way for them to outrun it or guess the safe route out. So, the pioneers took a match and burned the grass in the area around them. As the roar of the flames approached, they were not afraid. Even as the ocean of fire surged around them there was no fear. They were standing where the fire had already been.

Jesus said, "I have come to bring fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo..." There is no escaping the judgment and division (fire) that has come since Jesus' sufferings on the cross (his baptism). There is only one safe place to stand and that is where the match of God's judgment has been struck: The foot of the cross.

Jimmy Stewart was one of Hollywood's most loved and most respected actors. According to all accounts, Stewart's character and integrity were byproducts of being raised by loving and honorable parents. He himself once wrote of his father's wise and loving advice to him before Jimmy went off to fight in World War II. In a letter, Alex Stewart wrote, "My dear Jim boy, Soon after you read this letter, you will be on your way to the worst sort of danger . . . I am banking on the enclosed copy of the 91st Psalm. The thing that takes the place of fear and worry is the promise of these words . . . I can say no more . . . I love you more than I can tell you. Dad." Part of the 91st Psalm reads, "For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." 

This is the proper antidote to the anxiety that many of us feel in this turbulent world in which we live. God is with us regardless of what the future may bring. What we need to do is to regain our connection with God. We need to focus less our financial resources for security and more on the Rock of ages. Read the signs of the times. They will tell you we need God more than ever before.

D-Day for WWII was June 6, 1944 — the day on which the Battle of Normandy began — commencing the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II. President Roosevelt composed a prayer and delivered it on the radio that evening. What follows is the full text of that address:

My Fellow Americans,

Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

Note: We offer this as a possible pastoral prayer during times of war or conflict. We understand that current wars and WWII have many dissimilarities but there are at the same time similarities. Also we understand there are many differences of opinion regarding war and conflict. So we will not attempted to contemporize or adapt the above prayer leaving that up to each pastor. Or, you may simply wish to incorporate part or all into your sermon as an historical illustration.

The unanimous Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies in Congress, July 4, 1776

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained, and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

• For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• For protecting them by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
• For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren.

• We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
• We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.
• We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare.

That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

• New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
• Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
• Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
• Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
• New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
• New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
• Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
• Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
• Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
• Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
• North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
• South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
• Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Background

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall), approved the Declaration of Independence. Its purpose was to set forth the principles upon which the Congress had acted two days earlier when it voted in favor of Richard Henry Lee's motion to declare the freedom and independence of the 13 American colonies from England. The Declaration was designed to influence public opinion and gain support both among the new states and abroad especially in France, from which the new "United States" sought military assistance.

Although Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston comprised the committee charged with drafting the Declaration, the task fell to Jefferson, regarded as the strongest and most eloquent writer. The document is mainly his work, although the committee and Congress as a whole made a total of 86 changes to Jefferson's draft.

As a scholar well-versed in the ideas and ideals of the French and English Enlightenments, Jefferson found his greatest inspiration in the language and arguments of English philosopher John Locke, who had justified England's "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 on the basis of man's "natural rights." Locke's theory held that government was a contract between the governed and those governing, who derived their power solely from the consent of the governed and whose purpose it was to protect every man's inherent right to property, life and liberty. Jefferson's theory of "natural law" differed in that it substituted the inalienable right of "the pursuit of happiness" for "property," emphasizing that happiness is the product of civic virtue and public duty. The concept of the "pursuit of happiness" originated in the Common Sense School of Scottish philosophy, of which Lord Kames was the best-known proponent.

Jefferson emphasized the contractual justification for independence, arguing that when the tyrannical government of King George III of England repeatedly violated "natural law, " the colonists had not only the right but the duty to revolt.

The assembled Continental Congress deleted a few passages of the draft, and amended others, but outright rejected only two sections: 1) a derogatory reference to the English people; 2) a passionate denunciation of the slave trade. The latter section was left out, as Jefferson reported, to accede to the wishes of South Carolina and Georgia, who wanted to continue the importation of slaves. The rest of the draft was accepted on July 4, and 56 members of Congress began their formal signing of the document on August 2, 1776.

President Madison's declaration of war against Great Britain in 1812 was not popular with many Americans, especially when the first year of conflict brought a series of shattering American defeats. New England was in a virtual state of secession; the governor of Vermont ordered the state militia to resign from national service; and in Massachusetts there was talk of negotiating a separate peace with the enemy.

After threatening for a year, the British actually attacked the capital in August 1814. While President Madison rode out to the battlefield in an attempt to instill confidence in the untrained troops, the citizens of Washington streamed out of the city into Virginia. Even the militia assigned to protect the White House deserted their posts. But First Lady Dolley Madison refused to budge.

Before the White House was burned, Dolley saved her husband's papers, a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence, and a valuable portrait of George Washington. She would leave only at the last minute—and returned as soon as Madison sent word that the British had left Washington.

Dolley's dramatic rescue of George Washington's portrait silenced her husband's critics and infused the once-divided nation with a new spirit. When news of the British burning of the White House spread, people who had been denouncing the war and talking surrender abruptly changed their minds. Confronted by a united, determined people, the British were more than willing to sign a peace treaty six months later.

In the early 80's while the threat of nuclear war still hung over most the world there was a couple who, so fearful of that threat, sought to find a place somewhere on this planet where they would be free from the danger. After much time and attention to geography, trying to find the securest place possible, they settled on a group of islands, seemingly isolated from the world, called the Falklands. You will recall in 1982, not long after they had settled there, a brief, undeclared war was fought between Argentina and Great Britain in 1982 over the control of the Falkland Islands. Overnight there paradise was turned into a war zone.

Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."

Harry Emerson Fosdick told the story of General Pickett's baby. It was during the last slaughterous days of the Civil War when the Confederates locked horns with the Union soldiers outside of Richmond. It was the cruelest time of the whole war. Then one night the Confederate lines were lighted with bonfires, and the Union guards discovered that the Southern troops were celebrating General Pickett's newborn baby, word of whose arrival had just reached the army. General Grant was so moved by the event that he ordered the Union lines to help the Confederates celebrate the birth of Pickett's baby by lighting up the scene with additional bonfires. The next day Grant's officers sent a graceful letter through the lines under a flag of truce, communicating to General Pickett the congratulations of his enemies!

Isn't that incredible?

For a moment, at least, the insanity and slaughter of war stopped, and good will and peace prevailed - and it was all because of a baby! We cannot hear that story and not think of the baby who was born in Bethlehem. "His name will be called Jesus," announced the angel, "for he will save his people from their sins." We cannot draw closer to the Christ-child without also drawing closer to God, his Father, and as we draw closer to God, our sinfulness decreases and the spirit of peace and goodwill toward others and God increases.

Note: There is no account that this story actually happening based on Civil War records. According to Pickett's biographer, Edward G. Longacre, the bonfire story was a fabricated story emanating from Pickett's wife, La Salle Corbell Pickett. According to Longacre, Pickett was at Bermuda Hundred during the July 17th birth of his son and would not of been able to see any bonfires along the front of the Union army; and besides, correspondence exists that indicates Pickett had not been in contact with "his old friends" for years and they did not find out about the birth of his son "until several months after the event."

This is actually a pretty new festival in the church year. Its roots go back only to the early 1900's, when the world's great empires British, American, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Japanese were all at war or about to go to war somewhere.

The man who was the pope of the Roman Catholic Church at the time wrote a letter in which he dedicated the world to Christ the King. In the letter, he reminded the empires that God is present with the whole human race, even with those who do not know God.

After World War I, Pope Pius XI designated the last Sunday in October as Christ the King Sunday, a day to remember that Christ received power and honor from God and was thereby made ruler of the universe. Christ the King Sunday is the last Sunday of the church year for good reason. It's a time to reflect on Christ's return at the end of time to rule over all creation, a theme which echoes throughout Revelation, the last book of the Bible. But here's the powerful thing about this celebration. Pope Pius created the day because of the encroachment of secular forces upon society. Something he called anticlericalism. 

In 1925 Pope Pius XI wrote the following:

If We ordain that the whole Catholic world shall revere Christ as King, We shall minister to the need of the present day, and at the same time provide an excellent remedy for the plague which now infects society. We refer to the plague of anticlericalism, its errors and impious activities.

With the term “anticlericalism,” Pius XI sums up the multifaceted war waged against Christianity by modern revolutions, characterized by a ferocious and indeed demonic hatred of the church, clergy, celibacy, religious life, communion, crucifixes, church buildings, parochial schools, the cross and Gospel, and anything that belonged to or bore the mark of the Church. “Anticlericalism” is a fitting term for all this.

It was an ideological war whose roots were only beginning to grow, and after decades of deep roots, has only now blossomed in our generation.

Pius XI continues:

This evil spirit, as you are well aware, venerable brethren, has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation—that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the State and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God’s religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God.

The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences. We lamented these in the encyclical Ubi Arcano; we lament them today: the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society, in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin.

There was a woman once who wanted peace in the world and peace in her heart, but she was very frustrated. The world seemed to be falling apart and her personal life wasn't that great either. One day she decided to go shopping, and she went to the mall and walked in to one of the stores. She was surprised to see Jesus behind the counter. She knew it was Jesus because he looked just like the paintings she'd seen in museums and in devotional books. Finally she got up her nerve and asked, "Excuse me, but are you Jesus?" "I am." "Do you work here?" "In a way; I own the store." "Oh, what do you sell here?" "Just about everything," Jesus replied. "Feel free to walk up and down the aisles, make a list, see what it is you want, and then come back and I'll see what I can do for you."

Well, she did just that. She walked up and down the aisles, writing furiously. There was peace on earth, no more war, no hunger or poverty. There was peace in families, harmony, no dissension, no more drugs. There careful use of resources. By the time she got back to the counter, she had a long list. Jesus looked over the list, then smiled at her and said, "No problem." And then he bent down behind the counter and picked out all sorts of things, and finally stood up, and laid out the packets on the counter. "What are these?" the woman asked. "Seed packets," Jesus answered. "This is a catalog store." "You mean I don't get the finished product?" "No, this is a place of dreams. You come and see what it looks like, and I give you the seeds. You go home and plant the seeds. You water them and nurture them and help them to grow, and someday someone else reaps the benefits." "Oh," she said, deeply disappointed. She turned and left. The seeds still on the counter.

John understood at least initially that he was planting the seeds. The message is we must wait. Are you willing to do the work and wait?

Do you even believe peace is possible? I don't think most of us do. Peace makes a lovely image to think about, but isn't very grounded in the reality of the world, right? Since 9/11, our world has changed significantly, and the relative peace we once experienced in the United States – or at least the relative sense of security, seems like another lifetime, doesn't it? Fear, anxiety, stress, worry over the unknown, worry over our safety, worry over the future has replaced the calm. We're worried as travelers, worried as vacationers. We're worried on public transportation and in crowded public spaces. We're worried at special events where many people gather together. Then, we look around our world, and we see war and death and fighting. We struggle as men and women are sent across the world, separated from loved ones, to serve in the military. We struggle as we see images of destruction, and hear reports of chaos and instability.

And our worries aren't just about what's going on over there. Here, at home, in our country, we face a kind of unrest and division that I've not known before, not in my own lifetime at least. And in our own families, within the walls of our own homes, and within the confines of our own minds, we are not at peace with ourselves, with our neighbors, or with God. We are full of fear and anxiety. We are depressed, we are worried. We are making ourselves literally and figuratively sick with stress. Peace? Is it possible?

The Army chaplain of the 106th Division was captured in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Along with many other Americans, he was herded on to a freight car and taken into the heart of Germany.

On the evening of December 23rd, the men were in the railroad yard of a German city, when a devastating attack was made by the British Royal Air Force. Many of the American prisoners were killed as well as many Germans. The next night, Christmas Eve, the air raid was repeated. When the planes began to fly over, there was fear and alarm among the prisoners who were packed like sardines into these freight cars. The chaplain persuaded the German officer in charge to let him go up and down the line of the cars and talk to the men. As he passed by he said, "Boys, this is Christmas Eve and we are in a tough spot. But, if you have your Bibles, get them out and read the story of the birth of Jesus and you will know that He is with us even here. If you can't read because of the darkness, then let's sing."

Immediately there was a medley of response. Some sang revival songs and some sang hymns. Then a rich baritone struck up "Silent Night, Holy Night," and he was joined by others. Carload after carload joined in singing that beautiful Christmas carol. Then something marvelous happened. Other voices, German voices, began to sing the song in the original "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht."  The German voices and American voices blended together in praise of Christ who came to bring all people together in peace.

Alexander Papaderos, a doctor of philosophy, worked for many years trying to bring peace between the bitterly divided countries of Europe after WWII. His motivation for doing so stems from his childhood and a very odd event which took place. "When I was a small child," he said, "during the war we were poor and lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.... I kept one, the largest piece.... By scratching it on a stone, I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine - in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find. I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became [mature], I grew to understand that this was a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. The light [or truth] is there, and it will shine in many dark places only if I reflect it."

He concluded: "I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have, I can reflect light into the dark places of the world...and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise."

As related in Robert Fulghum, "It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It," New York: Villard Books, 1989.

Washington, D.C. March 30, 1863

Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln's son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed.

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

Gracious God, how blessed we are to live and serve as a community of Your people. Gifted with the beauty of creation surrounding us, lead us into significant relationships that nurture and challenge us, as we experience the promise of life, and are grateful. 

Lead us now, O God, as we seek, in this season of Lent, to journey with our eyes fixed on Jesus. 

Lead us in righteousness, that our journey might be a journey in which we embrace Christ's ways of compassion and justice, grace and mercy, hope and right living. 

Lead us, God, in peace, as we seek to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. 

Fill us with a peace that passes all human understanding, a peace the world cannot give to us, neither can it take away. 

But, holy God, let us never be satisfied with personal peace alone. Lead us into paths of peacemaking and reconciliation. And God, we pray that You might soften the hearts of those world leaders who are far more inclined to wage war than to seek peace.

God, where there is brokenness, form us into instruments of forgiveness.
Where there is despair, make of us channels of Your hope.
Where there is division, may we be empowered to bring healing and wholeness.
Where darkness abounds, grant us courage to walk in the light, our eyes fixed on Jesus, the light of the world.

God of healing and compassion,

We hold before You now those in special need of Your healing touch …

God, make us mindful of those among us this day who silently hold hurts and brokenness within them. Teach us to look into one another's eyes and hearts.

We pray for those experiencing pain in their significant relationships, those who are yearning for new beginnings in life. We pray, O God, for young people facing untold pressures and challenges, and for older persons seeking to come to terms with limitations and losses. Whatever our life situations, O God, lead us in paths of right living, our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we pray. Amen.

During World War II the famous American pilot, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, was flying on a special mission to the Pacific Islands. The plane crashed, and Rickenbacker and his crew were lost at sea for twenty-one days. Rickenbacker wrote of that experience:

"In the beginning many of the men were atheists or agnostics, but at the end of the terrible ordeal each, in his own way, discovered God. Each man found God in the vast, empty loneliness of the ocean. Each man found salvation and strength in prayer, and a community of feeling developed which created a liveliness of human fellowship and worship, and a sense of gentle peace."

Former President Jimmy Carter in his book "Sources of Strength" listed two versus to define the meaning of Christianity: John 3:16 and Ephesians 4:32. Here is what he wrote:

Perhaps as well as any two verses, these two encapsulate the meaning of Christianity. Being blessed and forgiven by God through Christ, we have the motivation to apply his teaching and example in our own lives. There is little here about the broad scope of society, a philosophical dissertation, or international war or peace. The emphasis is on each individual human being, precious in God's sight, alienated because of sin; the acknowledgment of our mistakes; and, through Christ who died for us, total forgiveness and reconciliation.

When we model a spirit of peace it can be contagious. One time Charles Kuralt was traveling through the back roads in Ohio. He passed a farmhouse with a homemade banner on it that read, "Welcome Home Roger." One of his associates said, "I wonder who Roger is?" They decided to drive to the farm and meet the family.

Roger was a soldier on his way home from Vietnam. The family was anxiously awaiting his return from the war. Roger's mother was baking a cake and his wife was there, playing with the baby son that Roger had not yet met. Kuralt and his crew brought in their cameras and interviewed the family.

Charles Kuralt then wrote a story about all the soldiers who were returning home. He shipped the story to New York and Walter Cronkite put the story on the evening news. The story was a huge success and hundreds of viewers called in to express their gratitude for the story about waiting for Roger. Kuralt's trip through the back roads of Ohio affected thousands of lives.

Jesus wants us to travel to places we've never been because of the potential to meet new people. Life is about relationships, sharing the good news and spreading peace. As Jesus said, "If the house you enter is worthy, let your peace come upon it."

In Zen Buddhism there's a word, a concept, satori. It means "the little point." It's got to do with staring, for example, at a rose or a fly on the wall as you meditate, concentrating on one tiny point in the universe. As Westerners, we'd figure that, if we want to understand the world and ourselves in relation to it, we'd look at the world, at the larger picture. But to the Easterner, one begins to understand oneself in relation to the world by narrowing, not by widening, one's focus. To the Easterner, narrowing the focus is like concentrating all the energy into a laser. There's more, not less, power.

The satori then, is that moment of heightened awareness, that explosion of understanding, what we call the "Aha!" moment or the "Eureka!" experience that comes out of focusing on the little point. It's like a tightly compressed hand grenade of awareness exploding in the mind. That realization, that sudden awareness that the world can be different than it appears that which Social Darwinists call the "natural order of things" can be changed, that there can be peace in a world of war and violence--that realization of the possibility of the present Kingdom of God is what Jesus confronts his hearers with. His parable springs it on them, and it leaves some of them with their heads spinning.

When Ronald Reagan succeeded Edmund G. Brown as governor of California in 1967, Brown told him: "There is a passage in War and Peace that every new governor with a big majority should tack on his office wall. In it Count Rostov, after weeks as the toast of elegant farewell parties, gallops off on his first cavalry charge and finds real bullets snapping at his ears. 'Why, they're shooting at me,' he says. 'Me, whom everyone loves!'"

If someone asked you where to find the Bible verse that begins, "For God so loved the world…you'd probably know he was asking about John 3:16. If you had a Bible, you could find it for him in no time. But there was a time when no one could find a single verse in the whole Bible. There was no John 3:16, Genesis 1:1 or any other verse because the Bible wasn't divided into verses or even chapters. Worse yet, there were hundreds of years when there weren't even any word divisions. Every single word was written in capital letters and every one of those letters were put side by side. You had to know where a word started and ended. Punctuation marks weren't even a thing. Even vowels were omitted. In those days, if Genesis had been written in English, it would have started: NTHBGNNNGGDCRTDTHHVNSNDTHRTH." You would have had to spend hours or days just to find your favorite verse.

Words, in some cases, were divided by Jesus' time, but vowels weren't used in Hebrew Old Testaments until the sixth century A. D. Gradually, capitalization, punctuation and paragraphing worked their way into the Old and New Testaments, hundreds of years after the death of the last disciples. But Bible chapters such as we have today didn't come into being until the 13th century. They were the work of Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

For the next 200 years, the Bible, now divided into chapters, continued to be copied by hand. Then in 1448, Rabbi Nathan startled the world by breaking the Old Testament into verses. The New Testament wasn't divided into numbered verses until 1551 when a French printer, Robert Estienne did the job. He was planning a study Bible that would have side-by-side columns in three translations when he got the idea. He was so rushed for time he decided to do the dividing on a trip from Paris to Lyons. Some people have suggested he did the work on horseback and his sometimes awkward divisions resulted when his "jogging horse bumped his pen in the wrong places." Yet, with a few exceptions, Estienne's divisions provide us with the verses we have today.

The Bible was written over a period of centuries, from roughly 1700 B.C. to 100 A.D., and its preservation over 3000 years is due to the contribution of countless scribes, who worked by candle light and quell pins for hundreds of years. Our modern versions? We have three men to thank: a Catholic archbishop, a Jewish rabbi and a Protestant printer — who turned "NTHBGNNNGGDCRTDTHHVNSNDTHRTH" into Genesis 1:1

If you have the means, show NTHBGNNNGGDCRTDTHHVNSNDTHRTH on the worship screen. It makes for a interactive visual. 

Some years ago a book was written by a noted American historian entitled “When The Cheering Stopped.” It was the story of President Woodrow Wilson and the events leading up to and following WWI. When that war was over Wilson was an international hero, There was a great spirit of optimism abroad, and people actually believed that the last war had been fought and the world had been made safe for democracy.

On his first visit to Paris after the war Wilson was greeted by cheering mobs. He was actually more popular than their own heroes. The same thing was true in England and Italy. In a Vienna hospital a Red Cross worker had to tell the children that there would be no Christmas presents because of the war and the hard times. The children didn’t believe her. They said that President Wilson was coming and they knew that everything would be alright.

The cheering lasted about a year. Then it gradually began to stop. It turned out that after the war the political leaders in Europe were more concerned with their own agendas than they were a lasting peace. At home Woodrow Wilson ran into opposition in the United States Senate and his League of Nations was not ratified. Under the strain of it all the President’s health began to break. He suffered a stroke and in the next election his party was defeated. So it was that Woodrow Wilson, a man who barely a year earlier had been heralded as the new world Messiah, came to the end of his days a broken and defeated man.

It’s a sad story, but one that is not altogether unfamiliar. The ultimate reward for someone who tries to translate ideals into reality is apt to be frustration and defeat. There are some exceptions, of course, but not too many.

It happened that way to Jesus. When he emerged on the public scene he was an overnight sensation. He would try to go off to be alone and the people would still follow him. The masses lined the streets as he came into town. On Palm Sunday leafy palm branches were spread before him and there were shouts of Hosanna. In shouting Hosanna they were in effect saying “Save us now” Jesus. Great crowds came to hear him preach. A wave of religious expectation swept the country.

But the cheering did not last for long. There came a point when the tide began to turn against him. Oh, you didn’t notice it so much at first. People still came to see him, but the old excitement was missing, and the crowds were not as large as they had been. His critics now began to publicly attack him. That was something new. Earlier they had been afraid to speak out for fear of the masses, but they began to perceive that the fickle public was turning on him. Soon the opposition began to snowball. When they discovered that they could not discredit his moral character, they began to take more desperate measures. Before it was all over a tidal wave welled up that brought Jesus to his knees under the weight of a cross.

Why did the masses so radically turn against him? How did the shouts of Hosanna on Sunday transform into the shouts of crucify him on Friday? I am not just talking about the immediate events that may have brought it about, but the deeper root causes. What were the underlying issues? In five days it all fell apart. Why? That is the issue that I would like for us to concentrate on this morning. Why did the cheering stop?

1. Jesus Began to talk more and more about commitment.
2. Jesus dared to suggest that all people are worth loving.
3. Jesus began to talk more and more about a cross.

"Look at those two planes together," said the little boy. "It looks like one is towing the other."

"No," said the father, "the one plane is bringing more gasoline, so that the other plane does not have to come down and land. Without the refueling plane the great ship would have to stop its flight."

"Oh, that is good isn't it?" said the boy.

Prayer does its silent refueling of the soul. Many great persons have changed the course of history with dynamic leadership following the refueling of the soul.

Washington, amidst hunger and starvation, rose from prayer on his knees to lead his impoverished troops to a Christmas Eve victory over the Hessians.

Lincoln, from the loss of his dearest loved one, rose with greater understanding to lead a sorrowful nation from Civil War to peace.

Prayer is not the whispering of sweet nothings, but the communication of man and God. A resource which helps a sinner become good.

With all its imperfections, sins, blemishes, and warts, the Church of Jesus Christ is the intended healer of the world's wounds. Christians are called to be compassionate, wounded healers.

Perhaps, Henri Nouwen, the Roman Catholic theologian, has said this better than anyone else. The author of many books, Nouwen speaks of Christians as "wounded healers" who have compassion.

Compassion is not pity. Pity lets us stay at a distance. It is condescending.

Compassion is not sympathy. Sympathy is for superiors over inferiors.

Compassion is not charity. Charity is for the rich to continue in their status over the poor.

Compassion is born of God. It means entering into the other person's problems. It means taking on the burdens of the other. It means standing in the other person's shoes. It is the opposite of professionalism. It is the humanizing way to deal with people. "Just as bread without love can bring war instead of peace, professionalism without compassion will turn forgiveness into a gimmick."

One June morning 145 years ago, Jean Henri Dunant woke up and opened his window in his beloved Switzerland. He heard an excited babble down in the street and quickly went down to see what was going on. He didn't hear much at first, but he caught the words "fighting" and "war" through all the confusion. Eventually he was able to determine that a war had started in Italy. So he hastily packed a few things and set out. He wanted to see for himself just what was going on.

Henri arrived in Italy where he saw soldiers fighting on the side of a hill near the town of Castiglione. It seemed that everyone was shooting at everyone else. He watched as men were hit by bullets, gave horrible cries, and fell to the ground. Henri had never seen anything like this before. He felt that he should do something to help the wounded men. So when the fighting stopped at dusk he went to the nearby town to ask people to go to the battlefield with him. Ordinary citizens: farmers, bakers and tailors responded at once. They spent the night there giving as much aid as they could to the wounded men.

It was hard for Henri to forget what he had seen once he returned home, so he decided to write down his experiences. He described the horrible sight of battle and men being shot. He also suggested that every country should have a relief society, a kind of emergency aid service to help wounded soldiers.

It was five years later before the first rescue society was organized in Geneva, Switzerland in 1864. It was called the Red Cross. And soon other countries joined the society. Everyone forgot all about Henri until an article appeared in a newspaper in 1895. In 1901 he was given the very first Nobel peace prize.

Whoever would have thought that something as seemingly insignificant as watching a battle would bring about so much good? But Henri planted a seed that would germinate and help millions of people all over the world. That's the way the kingdom works - great harvests from tiny seeds.

Winston Churchhill: A speech at a Royal Albert Hall Concert in Celebration of American Thanksgiving Day. November 23, 1944

We have come here tonight to add our celebration to those which are going forward all over the world, wherever allied troops are fighting in bivouacs and dugouts, on battlefields, on the high seas, and the highest air. Always this annual festival has been dear to the hearts of the American people. Always there has been that desire for thanksgiving, and never, I think, has there been more justification, more compulsive need than now.

It is your Day of Thanksgiving, and when we feel the truth of the facts which are before us, that in three or four years the peaceful, peace-loving people of the United States, with all the variety and freedom of their life in such contrast to the iron discipline which has governed many other communities – when we see that in three or four years the United Sates has in sober fact become the greatest military, naval, and air power in the world – that, I say to you in this time of war, is itself a subject for profound thanksgiving.

We are moving forward in this struggle which spreads over all the lands and all the oceans; we are moving forward surely steadily, irresistibly, and perhaps with God’s aid, swiftly towards victorious peace. There again is a fitting reason for thanksgiving.

I have spoken of American thanksgiving. Tonight here, representatives of vaster audiences and greater forces moving outside this hall, it is British and American thanksgiving that we may celebrate today. And why is that? It is because under the compulsion of mysterious and all-powerful destiny we are together. We are joined together, shedding our blood side by side, struggling for the same ideals, and joined together until the triumph of the great causes which we serve has been made manifest.”

But there is a greater thanksgiving day, which still shines ahead, which beckons the bold and loyal and warm-hearted. And that is when this union of action which has been forced upon us by our common hatred of tyranny, which we have maintained during those dark and fearful days, shall become a lasting union of sympathy and feeling and loyalty and hope between all the British and American peoples, wherever they may dwell. Then, indeed, there will be a Day of Thanksgiving, and one in which all the world will share.

There are two kinds of touch, the first being physical touch. So often when Jesus wanted to transmit His power of love, he physically touched people the man born blind and the children in Jerusalem being two examples. An embrace, a kiss, an arm on the shoulder, a pat on the back all of these are ways of expressing a love which goes beyond words.

It is lamentable that we are so paranoid on this subject in America. We have grown touchy about touching. In other parts of the world they do not seem to have this hang-up. To me, the guideline that we can use for this is from the 3rd chapter of Ecclesiastes. You recall the familiar verses that read: There is a time to live and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which has been planted, a time for peace and a time for war, a time to touch and a time to refrain from touching. A sage person will appreciate the difference.

A few years ago I was in Washington, D.C., and I went on a tour of all the traditional sites like the White House, the Smithsonian, the halls of Congress and the Lincoln Memorial. There is something about standing in the Lincoln Memorial and reading the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address which gives you goose bumps. One line in the Second Inaugural reminds you what a caring and compassionate man Lincoln was. He was speaking about the coming end of the War and he said: "With malice toward none; With charity for all."

Lincoln put this idea into practice on the day that news arrived in Washington that the war was over. A crowd gathered at the White House and a military band was playing some festive music. Lincoln stood on the balcony of the White House and spoke. Instead of lashing out against the South, he spoke of the horrors of war being over. He spoke of families getting back together. He spoke of a time of peace. Then he said, "In a few moments I want the band to play and I'm going to tell them what I want them to play."

Of course, the band started getting the "Battle Hymn of The Republic" ready to play. This had been the theme song of the North throughout the Civil War. But Lincoln crossed them up. He stood there and said: "The band will now play the theme song of the people we have called our enemy. They are not our enemies any more! We are one people again. I want the band to play 'Dixie.'"

Historians say there was a long, awkward pause. The band didn't have the music to "Dixie," but they finally got together and played, "Dixie." Lincoln knew that the South was not only hurting because of the horrors of the war, but also because of the shame that accompanies defeat. Lincoln was sending a clear signal to the South. Lincoln was telling everyone that there would be no punishment upon the South. Lincoln was saying that the South would be treated with love and compassion.

When you love, after the patterns of Jesus, caring and compassion become the cornerstone of your love. Love is not vicious or hostile. Love does not try to compound the guilt. Love doesn't try to rub salt in the wounds of shame.

This is the 1863 Autumn Thanksgiving Proclamation which is the beginning of our official holiday (Note: this is not the first thanksgiving proclamation. Proclamations go back to 1777 and the Continental Congress but this is the speech from the inauguration of the Thanksgiving Holiday). 

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.

Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore if, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Some years ago a book was written by a noted American historian entitled "When The Cheering Stopped." It was the story of President Woodrow Wilson and the events leading up to and following WWI. When that war was over Wilson was an international hero, There was a great spirit of optimism abroad, and people actually believed that the last war had been fought and the world had been made safe for democracy.

On his first visit to Paris after the war Wilson was greeted by cheering mobs. He was actually more popular than their own heroes. The same thing was true in England and Italy. In a Vienna hospital a Red Cross worker had to tell the children that there would be no Christmas presents because of the warand the hard times. The children didn't believe her. They said that President Wilson was coming and they knew that everything would be alright.

The cheering lasted about a year. Then it gradually began to stop. It turned out that after the war the political leaders in Europe were more concerned with their own agendas than they were a lasting peace. At home Woodrow Wilson ran into opposition in the United States Senate and his League of Nations was not ratified. Under the strain of it all the President's health began to break. He suffered a stroke and in the next election his party was defeated. So it was that Woodrow Wilson, a man who barely a year earlier had been heralded as the new world Messiah, came to the end of his days a broken and defeated man.

It's a sad story, but one that is not altogether unfamiliar. The ultimate reward for someone who tries to translate ideals into reality is apt to be frustration and defeat. There are some exceptions, of course, but not too many.

The noted author, John Killinger, tells a powerful story about a man who is all-alone in a hotel room in Canada. The man is in a state of deep depression. He is so depressed that he can't even bring himself to go downstairs to the restaurant to eat.

He is a powerful man usually the chairman of a large shipping company but at this moment, he is absolutely overwhelmed by the pressures and demands of life… and he lies there on a lonely hotel bed far from home wallowing in self-pity.

All of his life, he has been fastidious, worrying about everything, anxious and fretful, always fussing and stewing over every detail. And now, at mid-life, his anxiety has gotten the best of him, even to the extent that it is difficult for him to sleep and to eat.

He worries and broods and agonizes about everything, his business, his investments, his decisions, his family, his health, even, his dogs. Then, on this day in this Canadian hotel, he craters. He hits bottom. Filled with anxiety, completely immobilized, paralyzed by his emotional despair, unable to leave his room, lying on his bed, he moans out loud: "Life isn't worth living this way, I wish I were dead!"

And then, he wonders, what God would think if he heard him talking this way. Speaking aloud again he says, "God, it's a joke, isn't it? Life is nothing but a joke." Suddenly, it occurs to the man that this is the first time he's talked to God since he was a little boy. He is silent for a moment and then he begins to pray. He describes it like this: "I just talked out loud about what a mess my life was in and how tired I was and how much I wanted things to be different in my life. And you know what happened next? A voice!! I heard a voice say, ‘It doesn't have to be that way!' That's all."

He went home and talked to his wife about what happened. He talked to his brother who is a minister and asked him: "Do you think it was God speaking to me?" The brother said: "Of course, because that is the message of God to you and everyone of us. That's the message of the Bible. That's why Jesus Christ came into the world to save us, to deliver us, to free us, to change us and to show us that ‘It doesn't have to be that way.' A few days later, the man called his brother and said, "You were right. It has really happened. I've done it. I've had a rebirth. I'm a new man. Christ has turned it around for me."

Well, the man is still prone to anxiety. He still has to work hard. But, now he has a source of strength. During the week, he often leaves his work-desk and goes to the church near his office. He sits there and prays. He says: "It clears my head. It reminds me of who I am and whose I am. Each time as I sit there in the Sanctuary, I think back to that day in that hotel room in Canada and how depressed and lonely and lost I felt and I hear that voice saying: It doesn't have to be that way.'"

That is precisely what this story is all about. Christ walks into the tormented life of the Gerasene demoniac, this madman, whose life is coming apart at the seams and He turns it around for him. He gives him a new beginning, a new start, a new birth. At the beginning of the narrative, it sounds like a horror-story. This wild-eyed, adrenalin-filled, madman comes running and shrieking out of the tomb. He is so unbalanced! He is convinced that he is being held captive by a whole legion of demons, who are pulling and jerking him in every direction

This is an eerie, grim, suspenseful, frightening situation. Jesus and His disciples have just come through a storm on the Sea of Galilee. It is nighttime and having survived that frightening storm they are thrilled to now set foot on solid ground. But, as they get out of the boat, they encounter a different kind of storm… yet another scary experience. They hear strange sounds coming from the tombs… shrieks, growls, screams, moans, the rattling of chains. Then, suddenly, a horrifying sight. A madman with tattered clothes, bruised, dirty, bloody and battered with pieces of chains dangling from his arms and ankles, comes running and screaming directly toward them!

Now, let me ask you something: "What would you have done in that situation?" This was a perilous place, a bloodcurdling moment… a powerful, dangerous, berserk man, charging them. I think I would have run for my life... or jumped back in the boat.

But not Jesus! Jesus stood His ground and faced the madman. Undaunted, unafraid... Jesus stood there and dealt with this wild man. Jesus healed him. He brought peace to his troubled soul. He changed him. He cleansed him. He turned his life around… and you know (don't you?) that He can do that for you.

Now, let me underscore this and spell it out a bit more by lifting three ideas out of this great story...

1. You Don't Have to Be at War with Yourself.
2. You Don't Have to Be at War with Other People.
3. You Don't Have to Be at War with God.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end war;
For we know that You have made the world in a way
That man must find his own path to peace
Within himself and with his neighbor.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end starvation;
For you have given us the resources
With which to feed the entire world
If we would only use them wisely.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,
To root out prejudice,
For You have already given us eyes
With which to see the good in all men
If we would only use them rightly.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end despair,
For You have already given us the power
To clear away slums and to give hope
If we would only use our power justly.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end disease,
For you have already given us great minds with which
To search out cures and healing,
If we would only use them constructively.

Therefore we pray to You instead, O God,
For strength, determination, and willpower,
To do, instead of just to pray,
To become, instead of merely to wish.

There's something exuberant and unrestrained about children. They have an enthusiasm for life that we tend to lose as we grow older. They have a sense that anything is possible. As adults, we admire children's childish enthusiasm. But it seems that we also tend to encourage the kids to outgrow it.

Syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman, a few years ago, wrote these wise words: "We raise our children with ethical time bombs, built-in disillusionment alarms. We allow our children their ideals until they are perhaps 13 or 15 or 18 or 22. But if they don't let go of their ideals, we worry about whether they will be able to function in the real world. After all, the real world is some place else. We have to be tough and even a little cynical." Goodman goes on to give examples of what she means: "Adults know that clean air is all very nice, but it must be balanced against jobs. Adults know that helping others is neat, but it may well take away their motivation to find a job. Adults know that peace is swell, but we can't ever trust our enemies to ever stop preparing for war." Goodman concludes that this so-called realism of adults may be the true "junk food" of our time. "We instill ideals in our children, resent it when our children challenge us for not living up to them, and then feel reassured when our kids give up their ideals like sleds or cartoons." (Quoted in a sermon by David W. Schreuder in Master Sermon Series, Cathedral Publishers, pp. 467-468)

Can this be what Jesus had in mind when he asked His disciples not to lose the child-like spirit; when he warned them about hindering little children on their way into the kingdom?

Claude Brown, who wrote Manchild in the Promised Land, in an article said that people under forty in our society have never lived in an America where movie language was not liberally laced with obscenities. He said that profanity is rapidly replacing English as the language of the American people. Then he said, "Most people don't know it, but profanity is the language of violence."

People say, words can't hurt you. They can hurt you. Words can dehumanize. That's why in war the enemy is always described in language that is dehumanizing. You will never hear the military referring to the enemy as "brothers and sisters," or as "children of God." They couldn't kill them if they referred to them that way. You use language that describes the enemy as less than human.

That is precisely the language that is being used in our cities today. The language that is used in our society today is the language that has been coined in warfare. There are words that dehumanize. There are words that make life cheap and ugly. There are words that hurt people. There are words that profane what is sacred and holy about human life. You use them and they will affect your life, and the life of those around you.

But there are words that heal. There are words that build. There are words that create. There are words that unite. There are words that can redeem. There are words that can reconcile you to someone from whom you are estranged. There are words that lead to peace. Who will be the people in this society who speak the words of peace? "This day you will be with me in paradise."