Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire

March 19, 2006

“Blessed Are the Peacemakers:

Supporting Our Troops By Bringing Them Home”

Rev. Kathy Duhon

We just heard a favorite reading from the Bible, about beating swords into plowshares – a reminder that we have been working religiously to stop war and make peace for a long time, haven’t we? Thousands of years.

Twenty years ago I knew a woman who was in the “Plowshares Movement”. This grandmother was working against war. With Daniel Berrigan and others, they would break into secure facilities that were building the means of making nuclear war and they would do a harmless civil disobedience. They were arrested – she spent time in jail. Their protests helped to cultivate a climate in which nuclear war was considered immoral and unthinkable, helping prevent nuclear.

That grandmother had a daughter my age, also named Cathy, who had little ones the same age as my little ones. I babysat them once. A few days later, Cathy was killed by a drunken driver as she crossed the street. She had her baby in a backpack, her daughter in one hand and a little friend in the other. In that split second when she could tell she was about to be crushed into another car, a Spirit rose up in her and moved her to push the little girls down and away to safety. All the children survived with minor injuries. The grandmother cared for those children for months, and then her trial came up, and they did not consider this family tragedy to be reason enough not to send her away to prison. Sometimes I feel imprisoned by a system of injustice, unable to breathe by the crushing nature of war, but I know I have to help the children to safety. Peacemaking – it’s about the children. They are at the heart of the matter. They are the ones whose deaths are the most tragic in wartime, and who are most affected by the war and post-war conditions of deprivation and grief. When Martin Luther King, Jr. decided to oppose the Vietnam War, it was just after he’d read an article about the suffering of Vietnamese children. He said, “Never again will I be silent on an issue that is destroying the soul of our nation and destroying thousands and thousands of little children in Vietnam.”

Many of us thought about the children before we began this war, when we were already grief-stricken that an estimated half a million children in Iraq had died because of U.S.-led sanctions, and we did not want more to die. More Iraqi children have died in the war than U.S. troops – an estimated 3500, at least.

We had other reasons for opposing this war. 72% of us said no to a war in Iraq more than three years ago. Every mainline religion in this country came out with a statement against beginning this unjustified war. Now the religions are all beginning to call for an end to this war, including the President’s own Methodist bishop.

Why is it so hard to hear the words of peace calling to us? How can the desert windstorm of war sweep up a people who want peace?

Peacemaking - it’s about the children. I have a treasured hand-made card, given to me by a little girl in our congregation many years ago. She wrote, “Peace, we need Peace, and we’ve got it. Yes.” We need peace, but it is also already here. We need to listen to the little ones – they are close to the angels. This, right here, is what peace looks like, the peace we’ve already got – it is all of us together saying no to war, and yes to beloved community.

The other person I listen to about peace is my father, and not just because he’s my Dad, but because he is entering his 8^th decade and our elders are close to the Gates of Wisdom. He is a proud World War II Veteran and I interviewed him for a book on veterans I have been writing. He said, “War is Hell. It makes it where you don’t want to see it for anyone else.”

This congregation helped me with the Veterans book and interviewed dozens of veterans from many wars. The World War II veterans were the most vocal in opposing all war. Think about it – the ones who fought the war that has seemed the most justified in the last century – they are the ones who abhor war and believe we never need to do it again. When Pope Paul VI addressed the United Nations, he said “No more war. War never again!”

Why don’t we listen to our wise elders and our religious leaders? All of our great religious scriptures cry out for peace and justice, for hope and love and awe, for faith and a reason to believe that, in truth, tomorrow will dawn with grace for our children.

Why can’t we listen to our own wisest teachings? Jesus said, “Blessed are the Peacemakers” which is not a sweet gentle blessing for folks who merely hope for peace. No, that beatitude breathes fire along with the others from the Sermon on the Mount – blessed are the poor, those who mourn, those who get pushed around, those who are dealt with unjustly and those who are persecuted – in other words, blessed are those whose anguished cries fill the night. Who were the peacemakers in Jesus’ time and soon after? The Roman historians lumped Jesus with the Jewish insurgents who challenged the occupation in their little corner of the desert by the then most powerful nation on earth. Jesus was saying, blessed are you who say no to war and injustice, and yes to peace, and you will be called children of God – yes, they’ll say you’re as naïve as little ones. You’ll know you’re as vulnerable as a child. And you peacemakers are like children, close to the angels. Blessed are the peacemakers – it’s about the children – you are the children.

Albert Einstein said that we suffer from an “optical delusion of our consciousness” that imprisons us when we think that we are separate from each other. Instead, we are whole, a universe, he said, a circle of compassion. We are all one; we are all children.

When a child is about to be struck down by a moving vehicle on the street, it is not just the mother or father who will risk everything to save that child. We are the people who run into burning buildings to rescue children. Iraq is on fire, folks, a burning inferno for the children. Our children, all children. Peacemaking is about the children – we have to save the children.

 Our American children are in Iraq. We put a gun in their hands and did not give them a mission worthy of their heroism. We learned three lessons from the Vietnam War – considered to be the least justified U.S. war of the last century. We learned to have an exit strategy – well, the military learned that lesson, but the masters of this war refused to listen. We also learned the hard way that we must welcome home our beloved sons and daughters – not because they fought for our freedom – but because they fought for us – we sent them, we put guns in their hands, we are responsible for their anguish and for not giving them the moral clarity of a just war. They deserve our wholehearted welcome, acceptance and tears. They deserve our beloved support by ending this war, especially when 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the year, and more than one in four say the troops should leave immediately. They are in the position to know when it’s time to go – let us bring our children home.

The third lesson we learned in Vietnam was that our voices can make a difference. When the protests began for that war, the demonstrators were derided, not taken seriously – just some kids, hippies. But the voices grew, and included Catholic nuns and Buddhist priests, mothers and fathers, teachers and carpenters, and soon nearly everyone said no to the war, and it made a difference. Why wait as long as we did in Vietnam? We need to say no now. The Iraqis also say no to us being there – a poll from several months ago found that 82% of Iraqis strongly oppose our continuing occupation. Our voices need to be raised with theirs, and it will make a difference – we will be heard.

Who is going to stop this war? Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I don’t believe our nation can be a moral leader of justice, equality, and democracy if it’s trapped in the role of a self-appointed world policeman.” But you know, Martin is not going to stop this war – he’s dead. He does join a cloud of witnesses, with the prophet Micah and Jesus and Mohammed and the Buddha, and others, and yes, these witnesses to faithfulness shine a light for us, but they are not going to stop this war.

Who is going to stop this war? The Dalai Lama recently talked about how to find a solution to terrorism. He said, “When a certain community is destroyed, in reality it destroys a part of all of us. So there should be a clear recognition that the entire humanity is just one family. Any conflict within humanity should be considered a family conflict.” Try as he might, bless him, the Dalai Lama is not going to stop this war, although I imagine the world would be better off if all the national leaders would just go to him for family counseling.

Who is going to stop this war? Cindy Sheehan began her protest of the war because she wanted to prevent other children from being killed and other mothers from knowing her grief. Her daughter Carly wrote a poem a few weeks after her brother Casey was killed, and that poem gave Cindy reason to live. It begins, “Have you ever heard the sound of a mother screaming for her son?” and it ends, “Have you ever heard the sound of a nation being rocked to sleep?” We need to listen to the children – they are close to the angels. Cindy listened to her daughter and headed out the door to wake up this country. Much as we’d like Cindy and all the grieving Gold Star Moms and Dads to stop this war, and even though there are far too many of them, there are just not enough to do it by themselves.

Who is going to stop this war? Perhaps the international peacemakers who go there, or the Iraqi peacemakers who live there, or even the peacemakers elected to our own government – perhaps the ones who are closest to the center of the conflict and can really make a difference will stop this war. Recently a Quaker, Tom Fox, part of the kidnapped Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq, was tortured and killed. Tom is not going to stop this war, although he died trying. He wrote, “The only something in my life I can hold onto is to do what little I can to bring about the creation of the Peaceable Realm of God.”

Who is going to stop this war? We are. Blessed are the peacemakers. If folks want, they can call us children of God, and that might remind us of the awe and vulnerability and sense of being one family, a whole universe, which we feel, but it is also for the children that we are going to do this. We must save the children. We must quit bombing their homes and destroying their environment, and instead use our abundant resources for the well-being of all humanity.

We are peacemakers – Peace, we need Peace and we’ve got it, yes, and we are going to spread it to the children of the world.

Blessed Be the Soul of the World – Peace Be to Every Soul. Amen.