“When two or three are gathered together” Christians and the “Just War”

Sermon for Sept 8, 2002, Pentecost 18

St. Francis Church, Denham Springs, LA

Did you ever hear the joke that my Presbyterian friends have been telling me since the year one?

With Episcopalians, when two or three are gathered together, you will find a fifth.

I always thought they were just jealous.

To get back to the gospel account, that is quite an amazing promise Jesus is making. That he will be with even two or three Christians when they come together in his name. Let us stop and think about that – do we believe it?

Now does that mean that Jesus will not be present when there is just one Christian, praying and calling upon the Lord? Of course not! Nor does it mean that the more Christians we can get together in a room, the stronger the presence of Jesus will be – although that is the presumption of many mega-churches I would think.

Now does it mean that every group of prayerful Christians who get together and ask for guidance on a matter will come up with the same conviction – like some sort of magic mind-reading trick.

  But it is telling us that there is strength in the presence of other praying Christians when we try to discern what is the right thing to do in any given situation—strength because out Lord himself is there to inspire us.

To be noted in passing, Jesus also assumes that here will be people who need correction even within the Christian community. Like the message to Ezekiel, who is told to be the watchman and warn the others, Jesus says it is our duty to warn and admonish a fellow-Christian who is going astray. It is not always possible to live peaceably with all, even within the church.  Jesus says that some people will have to be cast out, to treat them like a tax collector or Gentile means to have nothing more to do with them.

But what of the rest of the world – those who are not Christian or who even hate Christians? St Paul telling us how to live in the world as Christians.  He is addressing the problems of dealing with those outside the faith who may persecute us, curse us, do evil to us. When we remember that he was martyred in Rome, executed during the Neronean persecution of 60 AD, according to the tradition of the Church, we see that the Christian community in Rome very soon had to face the fact that they could not live peaceably with all. What do you do with people who hate you and say all manner of evil against you falsely, in the words of Jesus, and then kill you for your faith?

Early Christians tried to follow the example of Jesus as much as possible in offering no resistance to those who would harm them. But they did run away, hide, and defy rulers who told them to quit preaching – we read all about that in Acts. But soon it was obvious that if they did nothing to protect themselves, they would all be killed. Furthermore, when Roman soldiers were converted, like Cornelius in Acts, the question arose of whether it was allowed for a Christian to serve in the Roman Army. The answer from the beginning was Yes – one could continue in any legal occupation one had before joining the faith, although some chose to quit if possible. St. Martin of Tours, for example, was a Roman soldier and a Christian convert when he cut his cloak in two to give half to the beggar, who returned to him in a dream that night as the Risen Lord.

There began to be a distinction between the saving acts of the Son of God on our behalf once and for all and what we are called to do ourselves while living in this fallen world. The tables turned completely when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire during the reign of Constantine, c 330 A.D. Then formerly powerless Christians became the powerful -- the people in charge of the stability of the state and its defense from outside marauders. With power comes responsibility; one can’t just speak only of ideals but one must try to put justice into practice. It was then that the Christian doctrine of the Just War was developed, first by St. Augustine in the 4^th century. This is not to be confused with a “Holy War” or Herem from the Old Testament, or with an Islamic Jihad. It is the attempt to use specifically Christian principles to deal with the reality of living faithful to the Gospel in a world where states make aggressive war on other states and can obliterate a whole people and their religion.

Now we live in a country where the issues of freedom of religion and conscience have been settled long ago. We now have legal tussles over such minor things as Christmas crèches in public squares, or the UNC freshmen being required to read a commentary on the peaceful parts of the Koran. But in many places in the world today, Christians are being persecuted, executed, and just plain murdered for their faith: Pakistan, Sudan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia.

At last, on September 11, 2001, we understood that some people who profess the Moslem faith hate us enough to kill 3000 of us indiscriminately, using our own planes as their missiles and innocent civilians as bombs and targets.

With today’s agenda– the anniversary of Sept 11 and the prospect of a war between the United States and Iraq -- it is extremely important for us:

 1. to remember that Jesus himself will guide us when we ask his presence with us, and

2. to take Paul’s words seriously about how to live  in a world that may hate us, and then

3. to examine the Christian tradition of how to deal with aggression and evil.

C. The Just War in the Christian tradition.

There have always been Christian pacifists. Once I was in a trial-study group led by one such man, a Roman Catholic priest. The other participants were another RC priest, a Nun and me. So I was the only person there who had children. And mine were still young and at home at the time.

The problem that the two in the group who were pacifists had was when we got to contemplating an attack on an innocent third person. They were wiling to die rather than fight back against someone who attacked them. But, when I asked if they would do nothing if someone attacked another person, it got more difficult for them to be so clear about their convictions. Then when I asked about a helpless person’s being assaulted? An old person? A child? It became even more difficult for them to say they would do nothing violent to stop it.

I remember saying that I would protect my children from an attacker by any means I could find. I did not think it was a moral dilemma at all – I thought it was my God- given duty as their Mother. In so doing, I was aligning myself with the Just War tradition of the Church since its beginnings, although I hadn’t studied it at the time.

Modern formulations don’t vary much from the way Thomas Aquinas, who was following Augustine, stated the principles in the 13^th century.

If a war is to be just three thing are needed:

1. It must be waged by due authorities. Those who may defend a commonwealth against criminals within may also use war to protect it from enemies without. ( that rules out vigilantism and personal vengeance)

2. The cause must be just – those whom we attack must have done some wrong which deserves attack.

3. Those waging war must intend to promote good and avoid evil.

Writing in First Things, George Weigel quotes the Protestant James Turner Johnson that “the sovereign has a moral duty to pursue the public good even at the risk of his own life.” Weigel goes on to observe that “ …the public good is the telos of the just war thinking; defending and advancing the public good is what legitimate governments are for; and that is why provision for the common defense is a moral obligation of states, not an option.” A presumption for justice, not a presumption against violence is the beginning of the just war. “To wage a just war is a deserving act,’ says Thomas, who incidentally includes the Just War theory in his section on Charity, not Evil.

When discussing this sermon with a friend of mine who is a Marine Corps Chaplain last night, we thought about the paradox involved in being a Christian chaplain in the armed forces. A chaplain bears no arms, but he goes into battle with his troops and so may be shot at and killed. He can defend himself with what ever he can find to help him if he is personally attacked, but he cannot carry a weapon, unlike those in the medical corps who can do so to protect the wounded they are treating. He will give equal spiritual assistance to an enemy soldier who is captured or dying, but he is there to provide moral and spiritual support for our troops who are trying to kill the enemy. Lt. Clark also reminded me of the church’s traditional teaching that the one responsible for the death of a combatant is not the one who kills him in battle but the one who sent him out to do the evil act of aggression in the first place.

As Christians we are thinking this week, on the anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks, of those who do hate us, have killed many of us, and whom we have been fighting in this war on terror this year. We are also thinking about the possibility of enlarging that war by an attack on Iraq. We can be sure that, when we gather together with other Christians, and prayerfully consider what we as a nation ought to do, Jesus himself will be with us.

We must take into account the tradition of the Church about the duties of states to fight evil because we believe that Jesus has been present with those Christian throughout the centuries who have wrestled with this issue; that is why I have brought it to your attention this morning.

St. Paul tells us not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good.

But overcoming evil with good can sometimes mean doing battle, fighting the enemy in order to preserve the innocent lives of those whom the enemy would kill.

 Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. But you may have to fight them. Amen.