“FRIENDLY
FIRE”
|
|
A sermon preached Readings: Colossians
3:12-17 and John 13:21-35 |
WAR IN IRAQ
On Friday there was it seems yet another
instance of so called “friendly fire” in Iraq –
just one of the many reminders this week of how
difficult it is
to control the violence of war once you let a
destructive genie out of a bottle.
When you think about it, “friendly fire” is a
bizarre phrase if ever there was one –
is quite a recent invention.
Previously the phenomenon was referred to as
“fratricide” – killing of your brother.
Which of course raises the question “Who is my brother
and my sister?”
There was a
film about Operation Desert Storm released in 1996.called Courage Under
Fire.
It starred Meg Ryan and Denzel Washington.
Part of the plot was about friendly fire –
Denzel
Washington is consumed with remorse for killing some of his men with friendly
fire.
There is
powerful stuff there.
But for me the
interesting thing is something the film just takes for granted.
What about the
Iraqis who are killed?
Yes of course there is huge soul searching and agony about killing my brothers
in arms.
But as to all
the other people the hero kills – that is the Iraqis –
they are simply
faceless nobodies –
and the guy who
is so understandably devastated about the friendly fire incident
has no concern
whatsoever for the Iraqis he is killing –
he calls them
“fuckers” and the only emotion he has about them is jingoistic pride in blowing
them away.
The more the
merrier.
Who is my neighbour?
When Jesus was asked this he told a story about
Jews and Samaritans –
the point being we can all be neighbours
whichever side of the tracks we come from.
Who is my brother and my sister?
I wonder of Jesus could have told a story about
an American and an Iraqi –
ending up “we’re all brothers now”?
In Voltaire’s Candide, Candide comes across
a prostrate African slave,
who explains the terrible conditions under which
he is forced to live by his European masters.
He is stuck on the floor because he has had an
arm curt off because it got caught in machinery
and a leg cut off because he tried to run
away.
This he says is the custom of the country -
But then he comments rather plaintively,
“The Dutch missionaries who converted me tell me
every Sunday
that the blacks and whites are all children of
one father,
whom they call Adam.
As for me, I am not a genealogist;
but if what these preachers say is true,
we are all second cousins;
and
you must allow that it is a shocking thing to use one’s relations
in this barbarous manner.”
So who are our brothers and sisters?
In the immediate aftermath of Sept 11, I called
in at one of the local Mosques
opposite the Church I was at in Walsall.
I asked the Imam if there were ways we could
work together –
his immediate response was “But yes of course,
for are we not all the children of Adam and Eve?”
And yet sadly so often we are reminded that
Adam’s children were called Cain and Abel –
and we have from that day on practiced
fratricide – friendly fire.
20 years after Voltaire wrote “Candide”, John Wesley wrote
a “Seasonable Address to
the Inhabitants of Great Britain”
The date was 1776 and the subject matter the
American war of Independence:
"See!
Here are some thousands of our brave countrymen gathered together on this
plain; ….
Then
turn your eyes and behold a superior number at a little distance, of their
brethren,
'flesh
of their flesh, and bone of their bone,'
who
only a few years since emigrated to the dreary wilds of America. ….
See, they advance towards each other,
well
prepared with every instrument of death!
But
what are they going to do?
To
shoot each other through the head or heart; to stab and butcher each other.
…...
So
these countrymen, children of the same parents,
are
to murder each other with all possible haste, to prove who is in the right.
Now,
what an argument is this! What a method of proof!
What
an amazing way of deciding controversies!”
And
what was true in 1756 and 1776 is still true in 2003 –
We are all brothers and sisters, all part of the human family,
so
in a real sense all killing is fratricide, all fire friendly fire.
None
of which is to say that all wars are unjustified –
as
a Methodist Church we are a broad coalition.
I am aware that many of us in this Church are opposed to the war
but
equally there are some who however reluctantly support Tony Blair’s
policy.
But
whatever our view on the rights and wrongs of war in general, or this war in
particular,
we
can agree thus far –
that the death of any individual – soldier or civilian, Iraqi, Kurd, British or
American,
is
the death of a child of God, of our brother or sister.
According
to the particular situation and our view of it,
each death may be necessary or avoidable,
it may be accidental or deliberate.
What
it can never be is a matter of glory.
What
it must always be is a matter of deep sorrow and penitence
on
behalf of a human race which has come to this.
Our NT reading today speaks of Judas the betrayer –
the one who was instrumental in the death of Jesus.
There
have been many attempts to explain
why Judas did what he did:
Was he plain greedy – after the 30 pieces of silver?
Or was he perhaps trying to force Jesus’s hand
by putting him into a situation where he would have
to use God’s power
to defeat the powers of Rome and the Temple?
Was it a deliberate plan to kill Jesus as an enemy?
or was it all a ghastly mistake – a plan that went wrong?
Friendly
fire or enemy fire? We don’t know -
only that the result is the same –
the death of God’s Son.
And
when we kill in war
(even
if for some killing may be justified as the least of several awful evils)
when we kill in war we stand with Judas and crucify Christ afresh -
for “Insomuch as you do it to the least of these your brethren you do it unto
me”
and
American British Kurdish or Iraqi, we are all brothers now…..
The
question for us is of course
“Can
we justify killing in war as the least of several evils?
Read
John Lawson’s article in this month’s “Forward” and ponder the question.
But
whatever you decide,
never
forget that every faceless Iraqi statistic casually or even smugly catalogued
by our military
was
someone’s son or daughter and was your brother or sister.
MOTHERING SUNDAY
I
have talked about war, because it is so much at the top of our thinking this
week.
But
today is also Mothering Sunday,
and
we think not only about the family of the human race but also our own very
local families.
We
thank God for our mothers and children if we have them, for our immediate kith
and kin.
Of
course the home can be a place of friendly or enemy fire – deliberate or
accidental.
The
parent or child who hurts those they love by thoughtless unawareness or by
calculating design.
And
Judas gave Jesus a kiss – a sign of love and care –
and the kiss was perverted into a means of destruction.
Let
us seek in all we do to avoid enemy and friendly fire amongst those nearest to
us –
may
our kisses be signs of love not betrayal.
THE CHURCH
And
What is true in the international affairs and in the home is equally true in
the Church.
Heaven
forbid that we should preach and pontificate about brotherly and sisterly love
whilst
not displaying it in our own Church family.
We
need to ask if there is anyone in the Church who is the victim of our enemy or
friendly fire.
If
so, we need to beg forgiveness, disarm ourselves, bind up the wounds.
For
as Christ said to his followers –
and let this be a final word to us
as
members of the family of nations, our domestic family and our Church family –
there
is one here who would betray me - but
“A new commandment I give to you – to love one another…”