West Michigan ‘Peacemaker of Year’

The 2008 West Michigan Conference “Peacemaker of the Year” is Ronald Fassett, whose ministry has included a passion for justice through the churches he has served and in his ministry as director of Grand Rapids Area Metropolitan Ministry from 1983 until his retirement in December 1994.

The 2008 West Michigan Conference “Peace Sermon of the Year” is “Down by the Riverside,” preached by the Rev. Jennifer Browne, associate pastor, First United Methodist Church, Grand Rapids. (An excerpted version of the sermon is in this article.)

Fassett has been instrumental in developing new congregations and ministries among Korean, Vietnamese, Native American and Hispanic persons.

Fassett has been a faithful member of the former Grand Rapids District Swords into Plowshares Peace Center and the current Grand Rapids District Peace with Justice Community. When he was Metro director, the district peace library was housed in his office.

The Peacemaker of the Year is chosen by the West Michigan Conference Board of Church & Society, reported Ann Whiting, Editor and Publisher of Michigan Christian Advocate

2008 West Michigan Conference Peace Sermon of the Year

Down By the Riverside

By the Rev. Jennifer Browne

What struck me was how often a river was connected to the idea of peace. Rivers everywhere, not just the Jordan, are where we go to find the peace that only God can give.

They’re the source of timeless, wordless wisdom for humanity. When we stand at a river’s edge, we stand next to something once ancient but new, something passionate but calming, that speaks to us of mystery and simplicity, that refreshes and inspires.

No wonder God’s Spirit has been imagined, for thousands of years, as a river running through us.

Rivers flow from the first book of the Bible, with the rivers that define the Garden of Eden through to the very end of the Bible in the “Revelation of John of Patmos.” Revelation is the vision of a political and religious prisoner, living in exile many decades after Christ. The river itself is part of a larger picture of John’s ultimate hope of peace and freedom.

The river itself is part of a larger picture of John’s ultimate hope of peace and freedom.

John writes in Revelation 21:22-22:5 about the New Jerusalem, a city that does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by this city’s light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. It is a city whose gates are open and never closed as they would be for war.

It is a vision of opening doors to peoples and nations beyond ourselves. And through it all runs the river of the water of Life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb: not from the restored Temple of Jerusalem, as it did in Ezekiel’s vision, but from God and the lamb, who now replace the temple. It is the life of God flowing like a river — a wonderful image.

Beside this river is a tree with all kinds of fruit. And the leaves of this tree are for the healing of nations: for the healing of nations: no HMOs; no Cost Containment; no Co-pay; no troop deployments; no carpet bombing; no coercion by violence, no threats of domination. Just pluck the leaves of the tree and be healed.

It is a new kind of healing. It is a new kind of reconciliation. It is a new kind of health-care delivery system. It is a new kind of Peace. It is God’s own Shalom.

This vision of joy, well-being, harmony and prosperity can’t be captured by a single word or idea. We might call it love, loyalty, truth, grace, salvation, justice, blessing, righteousness. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann calls it “Shalom.”

Shalom carries ‘the freight of the dream of God.’

Shalom carries “the freight of the dream of God,” according to Brueggemann. Which hee says is God’s intention that all of creation will be one, every creature in community with every other, living in harmony and security toward the joy and well-being of every other creature.

Shalom is deliberately corporate. If there is to be well-being, it will not be just for isolated, insulated individuals; it is rather security and prosperity granted to a whole community: young and old, rich and poor, powerful and dependent. Always we are all in it together. Shalom comes only to the inclusive, embracing community that excludes none.

When Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you,” he was commissioning us to be those who bring this vision of God’s Shalom to all people and to all the nations. In giving us that parting gift, Jesus invited us to bathe in this river that flows through the New Jerusalem.

What stops us from living in a shalom world? What stops us from being a shalom church? What stops you from being a shalom person? What keeps us from coming to the riverside, laying down our swords and shields? Why do we continue to study war?

Life in the New Jerusalem, in the City of God, is not just a utopian dream, a pie-in-the-sky wish concocted by a prisoner with a vivid imagination. Life as it would be if we actually followed God’s leading is, in fact, exactly what Jesus came to show us: how to live only by the light of God, how to live a shalom life, how to be a shalom person.

Jesus teaches us how to lay down our swords and shields.

Just as there are many words that describe shalom, there are many ways to describe this life that Jesus lived and taught. One is to say that Jesus teaches us how to lay down our swords and shields; how to live without causing violence; how to respond to violence without creating more of it.

Prof. Walter Wink has for many years brought a new understanding of Jesus’ teachings on violence to the world. He says we’ve been hearing Jesus’ words all wrong. You probably know the passages we’re talking about.

From Matthew 5: 38-41: “You’ve heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. But if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other one also.”

Wink says it’s obvious that almost all of us think this is bad advice, because almost none of us obey it. Look at what happens if you follow Jesus on this one: You’re taken advantage of. You become a doormat for Jesus. You get beat up. It hurts. It’s humiliating. It’s just foolish; if you let them get away with it one time, they’ll do it again.

Wink argues that we’ve been mistranslating the key word in the passage, “do not resist one who is evil.” The word “resist” is incorrect, he says. Jesus is not saying “Do not resist the evil people.”

Can anyone name a single time Jesus doesn’t resist evil?

Of course you resist those who are evil. Jesus always resisted evil. Can anyone name a single time Jesus doesn’t resist evil?

Jesus is saying don’t resist evil violently. Don't mirror the evil that you’re attacking. Don't become the very thing you hate.

The correct translation is really “Do not react violently against the one who is evil.”

One version, The Scholar’s Bible, has it that way: “Do not react violently against the one who is evil.” Write it down somewhere and then write that in the margin of the Bible you use at home. Think of what a difference it would have made in Christian history if we had had that translation earlier.

So Jesus is not recommending that you become a helpless victim. In Jesus’ place and time one always used the right hand to exact punishment. The left hand was used only for going to the toilet.

Hitting someone on the left cheek, the “other cheek,” forced the perpetrator to use his right hand; it forced him to use a fist, not a slap. A slap was what a superior used to keep the subordinate in place. It’s how a master punished a slave, or a husband punished a wife, or a parent a child.

Forcing the violent one to use a fist meant you were demanding to be treated as an equal. You’re saying to the one who’s slapped you once and now is threatening you again: “You didn’t succeed. You can have me flogged within an inch of my life, but I’ve had it. I’m not going to take this kind of thing anymore. I’m your equal. I’m a child of God, and I expect to be treated like that.”

Jesus is saying you can find power in each situation, but you’ve got to start thinking about power in a whole new way. This is a whole new concept of “fighting back,” a whole new concept of power. Power without violence.

With Jesus’ teachings, we begin to see a whole new world emerging. And one of the things that we see is that we don’t have to wait for the kingdom of God to come at the end of history to start living a kingdom-life. We can begin living in the kingdom of God now. We can begin being shalom people now.

With Jesus’ teachings, we begin to see a whole new world emerging.

It may seem farfetched to think that people would take that kind of a risk, but in fact, people do it and change the world because of what they do. In South Africa, during the end of the apartheid era, children and kids began to take that kind of risk. They stood in front of military vehicles and yelled, “Freedom, freedom!” They dared the military to run over them.

It was as if they had decided they had suffered enough. We can put down our swords and shields. We can live as shalom people, God’s people.

In December 1996, on the third night of Hanukkah, someone threw a rock through the Markovitz family’s front window, grabbed the electric menorah inside and smashed it to the ground, breaking all nine bulbs. Mrs. Judy Markovitz had emigrated from the Ukraine as a child to escape persecution. Her mother was a Holocaust survivor.

Margie Alexander, a Christian neighbor who was with the Markovitzes after the incident, asked: “Have you ever seen real fear and devastation? You don’t see something like that and not do something.”

So she did, and so did her neighbors in that predominantly Christian community. Four days later, on the seventh day of Hanukkah, 25 Christian homes in the neighborhood had menorahs burning in their windows.

We can put down our swords and shields. We can live as shalom people, God’s people.

Dr. George Ellis, a cosmologist and a Quaker, won the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 2004. After he received the prize for his work on balancing science with faith and hope, Ellis received a letter for a Scottish soldier who told a story that supported Ellis’s theory about the human willingness to make sacrifices for the sake of a greater good:

In 1967 I was a young officer in a Scottish battalion engaged in peacekeeping duties in what is now Yemen. The situation was similar to Iraq, with people being killed every day. As always, those who suffered the most were the innocent local people. Not only were we tough, but we had the power to pretty well destroy the whole town had we wished.

But we had a commanding officer who understood how to make peace, and he led us to do something very unusual: not to react when we were attacked. Only if we were 100% certain that a particular person had thrown a grenade or fired a shot at us were we allowed to fire.

During our tour of duty we had 102 grenades thrown at us, and in response the battalion fired the grand total of two shots, killing one grenade-thrower. The cost to us was over 100 of our own men wounded, and surely by the grace of God only one killed. When they threw rocks at us, we stood fast. When they threw grenades, we hit the deck and after the explosions we got to our feet and stood fast.

We did not react in anger or indiscriminately. Slowly, very slowly, the local people began to trust us and made it clear to the local terrorists that they were not welcome in their area.

At one stage, neighboring battalions were having a torrid time with attacks. We were playing soccer with the locals. We had, in fact brought peace to the area at the cost of our own blood. Principally because we were led by a man whom every soldier in the battalion knew would die for him if required. Each soldier in turn came to be prepared to sacrifice himself for such a man.

Gradually the heart of the peacemaker began to grow in [each] man, and the determination to succeed whatever the cost. Probably most of the soldiers, like myself, only realized years afterwards what had been achieved.

There is a better way, and we can live it. There is a better place, and we are its citizens. It is the way of God, the city of God, and through the middle of the street of the city flows the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

Gonna lay down my sword and shield,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside.

Editor’s note: These articles on the “Peacemaker of the Year” and the “Peace Sermon of the Year” are reprinted and excerpted, respectively, from the October Michigan Christian Advocate.

Browne’s sermon was part of a summer series, “A River Runs Through Us,” that she and senior pastor, the Rev. Gary Haller, preached. “Even though we knew the river image was a good one, both Pastor Gary and I have been surprised and pleased to discover just how rich it is,” she said.

At the beginning of the summer, the series explored texts that spoke of the Jordan River and the many biblical characters that encountered God near, or in, the muddy stream: General Naaman was healed in it; Joshua led the people across it; Jesus was baptized in it. Then the pastors examined some of the other biblical rivers along with the rivers of more contemporary literature. Browne’s sermon was preached at the end of the summer.

Browne has served churches in the Detroit and West Michigan Conferences, and from 1998 to 2000 was assistant to the president of Albion College.