Other Wars

Armodoxy for today: Other wars

Continuing on the theme expressed yesterday, as to how we are conditioned for war, we point to a phenomenon that continues to breed war. It is the phenomenon of leading with a stale vision. This year, this phenomenon is even more accentuated with the presidential elections here in the United States. The two leading contenders for the position have lived the good part of eight decades and are now “sharing their vision for the future” vying for votes. What vision and for what future?

This not only true in the United States, but a quick glance around the globe and you’ll see its usually older men who engage in wars that the young ones fight. We hide behind the concept of funding wars, while shipping off kids to fight those wars.

Jesus came to the world to challenge the stale visions with an option for life.  “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’” (Matthew 9) says Jesus, to a world that is desperate for a vision, a vision which is articulated by love and its manifestations, such as mercy.

Today we fund wars throughout the world based on stale visions which propagate more hatred and more war. Death, disease, famine instead of life, health and wealth. Think of the billions of dollars that can be used to fight larger wars, such as housing and sheltering homeless populations or transferring flood waters to areas devastated by drought or exploring new innovations in medicine and technology to improve the quality of life. Yes, life, health and wealth.

We read in Proverbs, “Where there is no vision, the people perish…” (29) In fact, the stale vision of war is literally and figuratively a one-way ticket to death, hence Jesus words, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” It is the direction of a life which follows a vision of faith, love and hope.

As the Body of Christ, the Church, has a responsibility and duty to continue to herald the vision for peace. This a sacred calling which is pronounced by God and heeded by humanity.

We end today with a prayer by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. O God, we thank you for the lives of great saints and prophets in the past, who have revealed to us that we can stand up amid the problems and difficulties and trials of life and not give in. We thank you for our foreparents, who’ve given us something in the midst of the darkness of exploitation and oppression to keep going. Grant that we will go on with the proper faith and the proper determination of will, so that we will be able to make a creative contribution to this world. In the name and spirit of Jesus we pray. Amen.