Peacekeepers or Peacemakers. Denial or Discipleship
Sermon Notes Pentecost 21st June
Matthew 10:24-39 by Desiree Snyman
This week marked the 50th anniversary of the Soweto Uprisings in South Africa. My exegesis of today’s text is shaped by this experience. I begin with a poem by Ingrid Jonker that was read by Nelson Mandela in his inaugural address to parliament. The original is in Afrikaans. The translation is as follows:
The child is not dead
The child lifts his fists against his mother
Who shouts Afrika!
shouts the breath
Of freedom and the veld
In the locations of the cordoned heart
The child lifts his fists against his father
in the march of the generations
who shouts Afrika!
shouts the breath
of righteousness and blood
in the streets of his embattled pride
The child is not dead
not at Langa nor at Nyanga
not at Orlando nor at Sharpeville
nor at the police station at Philippi
where he lies with a bullet through his brain
The child is the dark shadow of the soldiers
on guard with rifles Saracens and batons
the child is present at all assemblies and law-givings
the child peers through the windows of houses
and into the hearts
of mothers
this child who just wanted to play in the sun at Nyanga is everywhere
the child grown to a man
treks through all Africa
the child grown into a giant
journeys through the whole world
Without a pass.
Between the Sharpeville Massacre and the Soweto uprising
On 21 March 1960, South African police opened fire on about 4,000 peaceful protesters in Sharpeville (a location for black people in the former Transvaal) who were demonstrating against pass laws that restricted the movement of Black people. Officials underreported the number of victims and falsely claimed the crowd was violent. The massacre at Sharpeville ignited international outrage. It led to the Anti-Apartheid movement internationally and protests inside South Africa. The government responded with brutal force, suppressing any political movements critical of the government. In my understanding of the history of this time, the suppression from a wealthy and powerful apartheid government led to quiescence. Because the apartheid regime responded with such brutality to any protest, people were inclined to “keep the peace” and not “rock the boat”. The relative inertia lasted until about 1976.
It fell to the youth to take up leadership for justice and against apartheid. Rather than be peacekeepers like their parents, they wanted the things that make for peace. On 16 June what became known as the Soweto uprisings involved groups of high school children marching from various starting points to converge at Orlando High School. The students wanted to show their solidarity and support for the schoolchildren who were protesting the Bantu education act and refusing to be taught in Afrikaans. This disciplined peaceful demonstration turned into a tragic and violent event when police responded with viciousness, sparking a wave of resistance that changed the course of South Africa’s history. Without these brave young people standing up where their families refused to, the New South Africa may not have dawned when it did. The poem you heard remembers the bravery of the youth who were peacemakers and whose lives are remembered in every act toward a wholesome world.
I offer these stories to demonstrate the difference between keeping the peace and making peace. After Sharpeville many adults tried to keep the peace by giving-in to powerful systems of oppression. This is understandable given the violence meted out. Making peace, the necessary task of speaking truth to power, even if the reply is violent, is costly and uncomfortable. Making peace was left to the youth, and they paid a high price. Likewise, the Gospel calls us to be peacemakers, not peacekeepers. Keeping peace maintains the status quo. Making peace is disruptive.
21st century contemporary parallels of 1st century gospel discipleship
In places and times such as Apartheid South Africa from 1943 to 1994, the civil rights movement in America under Martin Luther King Jnr from 1950 to 1968, and climate activism recently, the contemporary parallels of discipleship in the Gospels are clear. A socio-literary reading of Jesus’ non-violent challenge against the Powers of first century Roman Palestine has clear implications for contemporary practices of discipleship today.
The centrality of the presence of Christ at the heart of one’s life has implications and political consequences for the decisions one makes and actions one takes to embody the restorative justice we as “little Christs” are called to continue. In short, responding to the Gospel call for discipleship would leave me no option but to form part of the protestors in the Soweto Uprisings, and to line up behind Martin Luther King in the civil rights movements and to join the youth leading protests for climate justice. I am worried that I may lack the courage to do so. More on this later.
Jesus brings a sword not peace because disciples are peacemakers not peacekeepers. Peacekeepers maintain the status quo. Peacemakers often disrupt the status quo because of a vision of a better society that they want to work towards. Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Aung San Suu Kyi all received the Nobel Prize for Peace, but they were certainly disruptive, creating both chaos and discomfort that mainstream society resented.
If we learn by heart Jesus’ core vision and way of life, it will bring us into conflict. If we learn Jesus’ core vision by heart and take to his way of life we are promised danger, uncertainty and turbulence. We are not promised a happily ever after. We are promised resistance and persecution and even physical threat.
We are called to take up the cross, which is not about a middle-class spiritual ascetism of self-denial, but a political crossroad. Crosses were a common sight in first century Roman Palestine. Crosses were a brutal form of capital punishment reserved for political dissidents. In response to Rome’s oppression Judean nationalists called for patriotic recruits who would take up the sword. In contrast disciples take up the cross. In a world where Caesar was lord claiming Christ as Lord is subversion. Self-denial is about costly choices that are political as well as personal, then and now.
If we learn by heart Jesus’ core vision and way of life our concept of family will broaden. The love and concern we have for our kin will expand to become the love and concern we have for others. Discipleship asks that we choose the wellbeing of all God’s people, not just the people we are related to. These decisions may lead to conflict if family members feel betrayed when one’s first priority is God’s kingdom and not the family unit. The Biblical dimensions of hospitality and a focus on God’s favourite people, those on the margins of society, simply mean that the hopes, dreams and suffering of the marginalised take central significance for us. In the context of refugee Sunday, the marginalised that are a priority are refugees. We do well to remember this as we reflect on the diversity and gift refugees are to modern Australia.
How do we maintain a sense of contentment if the cost of the discipleship is so high?
I listen to the Gospel call, and I can say that I am willing. I am willing to take a risk with myself, my money, my privacy, my time and my energy. I am willing to work hard. In a society were so many organisations are finding it hard to find volunteers, I can say that I am very willing to commit. What I have I am willing to give.
However, I was mentored, trained and ordained by ministers who were frontline activists against the injustices of apartheid. I saw first-hand the consequences of their political discipleship. Honestly, I worry that I lack the bravery that they had. Many of my colleagues were personally harmed by state security but worse than that was the ways in which their families were attacked. I think fear would have won me over to being a peacekeeper, rather than a peace maker. Which is why I am interested in what Jesus says next.
Three times the word fear is used, and Jesus says do not be afraid. We are sustained in the care and compassion of abiding in the Christ. But how do we maintain a sense of contentment if the cost of the discipleship is so high? The answer is so very easy to say but hard to put into practice.
We are to discipline ourselves into a personal relationship with God maintained through prayer. Discipleship is difficult to maintain if the wells of prayer are dry. We are first called to be God’s Beloved before we are called to God’s mission. The spiritual practice of prayer entices us into the deep end of union with God and our True Selves, away from the shallow end of a half-lived life. A daily rendezvous with God is how one author describes it, noting that the intensity of daily demands drowns out the subtle gentleness of Christ in us. Do not worry too much about what techniques or styles of prayer or meditation you might adopt, rather focus on being sincere and authentic in your intention to allow God to lavishly love you. As Thomas Merton suggests, a little sincerity goes a long way with God.
When we are faithful to our little rendezvous with God what gradually happens is that it is God’s love that defines us, not our ego selves, and not any fear or uncertainty we may experience. The divine union we abide in gradually takes over the centre of our being, our souls. We may still feel afraid, but the fear no longer has the final say on who we are. God’s presence within us, God’s love and compassion for us has the final say on who we are and who we are becoming. The fractured places of our lives, our emotions, and the world become the portals through which God reaches out to us in the midst of our fracturedness.
The Catholic theologian, Karl Rahner, in Prayers For A Lifetime wrote: "It is both terrible and comforting to dwell in the inconceivable nearness of God and to be so loved by God himself that the first and the last gift is infinity and inconceivability itself. But we have no choice. God is with us”.
Rahner understood something that Jesus understood long before him. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is discovering that something deeper than fear lives within us. The call of discipleship is costly. It may disrupt comfortable arrangements. It may bring misunderstanding, resistance, and sacrifice. It may even place us at odds with the values of our age. Yet Jesus does not promise that we will face these things alone. Three times he says, “Do not be afraid.” Not because there is nothing to fear, but because God is near. Not because the road is easy, but because Christ walks it with us. Not because we are brave enough, but because we are loved enough.
The question before us today is not whether we feel afraid. The question is whether fear or love will have the final word. Jesus calls us not to be peacekeepers but peacemakers; not merely to preserve the world as it is, but to participate in God's healing of the world as it could be. May we therefore leave this place willing to take up the cross, willing to seek justice, willing to stand with those on the margins, and willing to trust that wherever discipleship leads us, God is already there. For we have no choice. God is with us.