Comments for Jim Other sermons.                 

In a Washington Post editorial last Thursday, Mary McGrory criticizes both Pope John Paul II and President George Bush for significant failures in leadership. She writes:

For John Paul II, it was the pedophile scandal, which enraged the faithful in an unparalleled way...(He) missed the significance of crimes committed by a clergy that was protected, promoted and even pampered by the hierarchy. He made the mistake of thinking that Catholics care more about their church than their children….In a similar way, George W. Bush turned a blind eye to trouble that only he could solve. He sees himself not as a peacemaker but as a warrior against terrorism. For the first fifteen months of his term, he refused to lend his prestige or even his attention to the ugly developments in Israel and the West Bank…But the moment inevitably arrived when nothing but the might of the United States could halt the carnage – on one side, suicide-bombers shattering Passover, on the other, bulldozers bringing houses down on blameless inhabitants.

She ends by saying that both leaders now face hard choices made even harder by their refusal to lead in "clear and present crises."

It may be inappropriate for protestants to criticize the Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church in quite the same way the columnist, herself a Catholic, does. But also the plain fact is that predatory sexual behavior and pedophilia are also found among Protestant clergy, and there is a long history of cover-up in protestant circles just as bad as in the Catholic Church. I am grateful that Linda Carder has brought us a greater alertness to the risks that always exist for our children in any church, and pointed to some simple and direct ways of taking greater precaution. The United Church of Christ has been working on this issue for many years now, and has been a leader among Protestant churches, and for that we can be proud. We must continue to put our children first, and insist that they find a supportive and safe environment here.

I am glad that Anne Weissenborn read the joint letter from the Presidents of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, regarding the Middle East. I find it balanced and thoughtful. Like you, I am appalled and disgusted by the wave of suicide bombings in Israel. And I am equally appalled and disgusted by Yasser Arafat’s duplicitous dealings and equivocations. Those are murderous atrocities. Israel exists and has a right to appropriately defend itself. Israel came into being with the strong moral imperative to be a different kind of nation. In the final days of the Clinton administration the Israeli president went farther than anyone imagined possible in the negotiations. But today Israel, in my view, is losing its claim to moral authority. I simply cannot understand why the indiscriminate destruction of the homes of innocent people furthers any cause except vengeance. Why have Christian Palestinian schools have been vandalized by Israeli soldiers? For that matter, I cannot understand why Israel has insisted on building illegal settlements on the occupied West Bank. Our hearts go out to the Israelis and the Palestinians. How could one think of taking sides in the face of such suffering? Both the Israelis and the Palestinians deserve better leadership. Arafat appears to come to life and action only in the midst of chaos. Sharon’s preference for military ferocity has long been a matter of historical record. I believe the leadership of both Sharon and Arafat is bankrupt, relying on the worst in their followers rather than the best. The people of the region are getting only the ghastly and apparently irresistible logic of retribution and vengeance. It’s very, very sad.

We need stronger leadership from President Bush in the Middle East, stronger moral leadership. In the days following the attacks of September 11^th I believe the President responded with strong and clear moral authority. Though I believe we have been guilty of some serious excesses, in proclaiming the War on Terror he helped us all, I believe, to understand the scope of the threat and what we need to do. His recent decision to request Congress to double foreign aid is both compassionate and serves our self-interest. His consideration of a new Marshall Plan for Afghanistan is both wise and visionary. But events of the last several weeks have me concerned. I don’t understand how, under the circumstances, he can call President Sharon a "man of peace." I don’t understand that. I am embarrassed for the President because of the rebuff he received from Israel when he said, "Enough is enough." I was glad he said that because he was right. But then what has happened to show that he means it?

America is and must continue to be a strong military power in the world. But we can easily forget that our greatest influence ultimately comes from our example. Several weeks ago, Chris Neal of our congregation invited me to a lecture at the World Bank by the noted Kenyan scholar, Dr. Ali Mazrui. He was the writer and narrator of the award winning PBS series on Africa several years ago. Dr. Mazrui said something particularly striking in his talk. He said that the countries of the developing world look to the United States first and foremost, not just for military strength or economic assistance, but for our example, for our moral leadership. They know our history well. When we talk about freedom and equality and justice for all, they listen attentively and watch closely. When our actions match our vision, they find hope for themselves. And each time we fail to live up to our own ideals, they notice. They saw the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. change the course of our history for the better. They saw President Nixon made accountable for what he had done. And they also saw how we resolved the presidential election of 2000. And they have seen some of their corrupt leaders take that as a green light for abuse of power. They saw the mass detentions and abridgment of civil rights for people of Middle Eastern extraction here after September 11th. And they note that some of their leaders then take this as justification for their own imprisonment of political opponents. If America does it, why can’t we? And even quite recently, a coup appeared to have toppled the democratically elected President of Venezuela, and our leaders blinked long enough to send the message that, in this situation, maybe a military government would suit us better. And then pretended that wasn’t the case. And I can guarantee you that nobody in Latin America missed what that was about. We hurt ourselves far more than we realize when things like that happen.

Moral leadership at critical moments of crisis is crucially important. I believe a person of world stature who is exercising such leadership is United Nations General Secretary, Kofi Annan. The more I learn about him the more impressed I am. Perhaps he is right in advocating a multi-national peacekeeping force to police a ceasefire. Israel resists this. But I wish President Bush would pay less attention to the obvious domestic politics of this issue and again say "Enough is enough," and believe it, and put the credibility of his office and the highest principles of the United States behind it. That is not taking sides. Let us somehow take the side of those murdered Passover celebrants in Israel and take the side of those innocent Palestinians buried alive in their homes. But let us not take the side of anyone who sees vengeance as a necessarily ingredient of legitimate self-defense.

In the Gospel of John we are presented with the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. And I believe that in many ways a strong moral leader is a first and foremost a Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd begins with compassion and yearning to care for those he leads. The Good Shepherd takes chances for them, willing to risk venturing from safety to restore the lost. The Good Shepherd is wise and firm as well as gentle. His goal is the protection and safety of the flock. He can be fierce and must be in fighting off the predatory. But he is not vengeful. What does that accomplish? He cares for his flock. And even so, at the same time, he lets them know that they are not the whole world. "Other sheep have I" he says, "not of this fold."

What has been lost in the Middle East is the understanding that though Israel and Palestine are not in the same fold, there is one shepherd, one God. But it is the blood vengeance of their leaders and the worst of the radical elements in each society that have darkened their understanding with hatred.

Richard Cohen, also of the Washington Post, ended a column last week by suggesting that the cultural and spiritual differences between Israeli and Palestinian may be so intractable that the best solution could indeed be to build a wall between them, as former prime minister Ehud Barak has advocated. Although Cohen can be witheringly critical of Israeli arrogance, he states that no Jew could ever be a suicide bomber. Jews love life too much. And therein, he says, lies a critical cultural gulf. Then he states, "As New England poet Robert Frost wrote, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’" But I don’t think that Cohen got that quite right. I know that poem, Mending Wall. In the poem we meet two farmers, as they "walk the line" putting stones back in place during the spring thaw. It is the farmer opposite the narrator, across the wall who says "Good fences make good neighbors." And he insists on repeating it, as if it were a kind of ancient saw, an undeniable truth. But the narrator wonders if it has to be that way. Why?

If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,..

And as he looks at his neighbor across the barrier, he wonders if the maxim represents a resigned and unreflective state of mind. As if it is just easier to say, "Good fences make good neighbors" than it is to do the hard work it takes to actually be a good neighbor. And even in his wondering he tastes a fear of the other.

I see him there
Bringing stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

Maybe Cohen is right. We certainly need fences when people acknowledge that they have stopped thinking and dreaming and hoping. When they can only fear, and hate those whom they fear. Then the good shepherd, like a loving parent who physically separates two fighting children, must act. AMEN.

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