PALM SUNDAY ECUMENICAL SERVICE

FEDERATION SQUARE.

13TH APRIL 2003.

I think Jesus may have had a lot of trouble getting on in our time and culture. In the gospels, almost everything he says and does stands against the dominant values that drive our expectations of life, the policies that govern us and the decisions we make about how to live.

When we talk about someone being blessed we usually mean that a person has a good job, nice house, healthy intelligent kids with excellent prospects.

When Jesus describes those who are blessed he goes for a totally different demographic - the poor, the mourners, the meek, those who are passionate for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart the persecuted, suffering people and the peacemakers.

Blessed are the Peacemakers.

If you've come here today you can most likely call yourself a Peacemaker and you can consider yourself to be one of the fortunate ones which is just as well because we who call ourselves peacemakers have copped a fair bit of bad press lately.

We have been told that the Iraqi people would still be suffering under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein if the world had listened to us but now look at how well they are doing.

I would like to clear up a few things about peacemakers in the few minutes I have been given.

Peacemakers know the difference between

truth and propaganda,

Mohandas Gandhi said that "The way of peace is the way of truth. .Indeed, lying is the mother of violence."

Who will ever be able to forget the fantasy island monologues delivered daily by the Iraqi Minister for Information at his daily press conferences

How many lies have we been told about the need for this invasion : about weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapon plants, nuclear weapons, links with terrorists? These were the reasons we could not afford to wait.

Well in the past couple of weeks we have learned about who does have weapons of mass destruction and I don't think it is the Iraqis.

Then there is the ongoing hypocrisy of our political leaders who while they colourfully catalogue the evils of the Iraqi regime, continue to imprison people who have fled to our country to escape it.

While we are on about hypocrisy, a few years back Saddam Hussein killed many of his own people with chemical weapons but because Iraq was still a favoured trading partner of the U.S at the time, little was said or done. Now someone has decided they should be moved from favoured trading partner status to rogue nation status. Nothing had changed in Iraq. They were no more corrupt than they used to be. They were just not as useful to us. So now we are meant to be outraged.

It was the peacemakers who have tried to draw the world's attention to the oppression in Iraq. But no one as listening because it was inconvenient then.

Has there aver been a war before in which one side insists on disarming the enemy before they start the invasion?

Peacemakers know lies when they see them even when they are cloaked in self righteousness and we have been fed plenty of them in the past six months.

peace and appeasement.

One of the recurring themes of those who oppose the peace movement this time round has been the assumption that because we oppose the war we therefore are not interested in seeing something done about the regime in Iraq. We have been accused of being like Chamberlain, who, they say went for peace at any price overlooking Hitler's evil intentions and allowing him to continue unabated.

Peacemakers are not naïve twits with a passionate commitment to help evildoers prosper. Most of the lasting revolutionary change in our time has been wrought through peaceful non-violent means and they didn't have to rebuild their cities in Berlin or Manila or Pretoria. They didn't have to rebuild schools or bigger hospitals to cope with the needs of the maimed and injured. They did not have to deal with thousands of homeless people combing through the ruins of their bombed out homes and market places. It wasn't easy but they were free to work on the things that needed to change. They did not start as far behind as the people of Baghdad will have to start.

Peacemakers are committed to justice not only as an end but as a means of attaining the end.

Martin Luther King said, "The choice today is no longer between violence and non-violence. It is either non-violence or non-existence".

creating and destroying

It's expensive but comparatively easy to bomb a nation to the edge of oblivion. It's another thing to create an environment where kindness and compassion can be experienced without suspicion and fear.

If the experience of Afghanistan is anything to go by, the big guys with the bombs will soon lose interest when the real work has to be done.

doing good and doing nothing

Sometimes our efforts may seem futile but I believe that every act of kindness, every expression of grace and forgiveness, every march against violence and cruelty makes a difference.

For me peacemaking is intrinsically linked to Jesus. Some people assume they have Jesus just where they want him while peacemakers are always finding him in the unexpected places and events.

And when we find him we are invited to a journey of self discovery enabling us to firstly recognize the violence in our own hearts before we can tackle it in the world around us.

We are invited to follow him to a life of militant resistance to evil by loving every human being including persecutors and enemies.

War is stupid. It is inefficient. It kills the wrong people. It robs us of hope. Its devastating effects upon combatants and non-combatants alike never go away. It lines the pockets of the wrong people. In the name of Jesus we must oppose it.