Monday, May 30, 2011

Standing with our Youth

The youth in our St. Paul Area Synod have been denied assembly synodical authorization to engage the critical questions surrounding military service.  The synods did not stand with our youth with the authority of the office.

Recently, the Joint Peace with Justice Committee of the St. Paul Synod and the Minneapolis Area Synod proposed a resolution with the resolves: "...to provide congregations with resources for addressing the issues of faith and conscience inherent in military service....[urging] congregations to share such resources with parents, pastors, church youth leaders, Sunday school teachers and confirmation instructors in order to encourage the teaching of what Jesus taught and lived, and to inform young people of the often destructive consequences of combat and training to kill."

It was the decision of the St. Paul Area Synod resolution committee to NOT allow for a vote, but instead to allow two speakers, one pro-resolution and the other a military chaplain, table conversation, but no public comment.  To be fair, the speakers were excellent and the table conversation vigorous.  I had planned to speak in favor of the resolution.  What follows was to be my speech.

I speak in support of the resolves.  Our nation has fought more wars and proxy wars than any other nation in the world in the 20th Century.  Now, in the 21st Century, we are again leading the world in being the major player in wars.  Our national defense budget is larger than all the defense budgets of all other nations in the world combined.  We are a fighting nation, and if the past is our teacher, we will fight again in defense of our nation and to protect the vulnerable.

The truth is that our youth are going to be asked to fight these wars.  Our youth are going to be faced with the most traumatic decision of their lives: taking another life on the field of battle. For most, this action is life changing.  Some are physically impaired for life.  Suicides, unemployment, and homelessness rates for vets are significantly higher for the discharged soldier.  War has life beyond the battlefield.

Our Church owes it to our youth to provide them with the opportunity to engage the central questions of war, peace, and military service from Biblical, confessional, and historical positions.  We support our youth when we provide opportunities for faithful, moral conversation on these crucial issues of life.  We
support our youth when we provide time for conversation on the just war theory, pacifism, conscientious objection, selective conscientious objection, and the nonviolent ethic of Jesus Christ.

The Church is the most gifted place for our youth to engage these questions.  Indeed, it may be the only place where our youth can engage these profound questions in a faithful, thoughtful, suppportive, compassionate environment.  Let us journey with our youth.  I urge the asssembly to support the resolves within this resolution.  Thank you.

Some would argue that synodical resolutions are words in the wind, signifying little, assuaging only bothered consciences, creating only illusions of moral action.  For some voters this would be true.  But where would we be if those who signed the Augsburg Confession would not have signed?  Where would our nation be if our Constitution was unsigned and not voted into law?  Where would the ELCA social statements be if there were no votes?  Where would the Civil Rights Act of 1965 be if there was no vote?  Democracy would be a sham without the right to vote.  What is the Arab Spring all about?

Votes matter.  Votes give authority for action.  Votes put conscience on the line.  Votes mean we are standing up for what we deem of faithful value.  Our synod failed our youth.  Personally, I will spend the next year moving another resolution forward for vote.

We must stand with our youth.

Peace!
Ron

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Songs Keep Me Going

Songs keep me going.  Songs are stories, theology, and values put to rhythm and melody.  Perhaps a main reason why songs are so central in my life is that as a former stutterer, I never stuttered when singing.  One doesn't.  Hence, I am grateful for songs. Songs meant freedom!  Songs keep me going today.

I sing and play the guitar.  I have three 12-string guitars: a 45 year old sunburst Gibson, a 32 year old Guild, and a 24 year old Guild.  I play them all.  Each has spent ample time accompanying worship liturgies, sermons in song, music at campfires, school programs, in-home gatherings, and daily hanging loose at home. Our four year old granddaughter Anja picks up a 12 string and strums along.  Joy!   I have a stack of music perhaps six feet high which fills drawers and takes up shelf space.  Songs keep me going.

Given all that is going on in this world, we need songs to help define the reality of the times and to give us hope for the times.  Songs help us verbalize our fears and rage, our hopes and dreams.  It is always better to express and decompress.  Songs are our personal confessions of faith and ethics.  Songs unite our spirits because when we all sing the same song, we are one.  It could be that if the world would sing together, we could live in peace.  Yes, songs can ignite discord, but that is part of the truth-telling, and when there is truth, there is hope.  So here are some songs and lines for these times, songs that keep me going and perhaps can help you keep going.

Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all eagerness,
Lord of all kindliness, Lord of all gentleness.... (Struther)

So you speak to me of sadness and the coming of the winter.
Fear that is within you now that seems to never end. (Denver)

Have no fear, little flock....Have good cheer little flock.
Praise the Lord high above....Thankful hearts raise to God.... (Jillson)

Sometimes I just don't know, how could life be anything but beautiful;
It seems that I was made for you and you were made for me. (Lightfoot)

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Whose garden was this?  It must have been lovely.
Did it have flowers?  I've seen pictures of flowers.
And I'd love to have smelled one. (Paxton)

How many times must those cannon balls fly,
before they are forever banned?
The answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind. (Dylan)

You've given me tenderness so I can know warmth.
You've given me laughter so I can be free!
You've given me honesty so I can know trust.
You've given me You, so I can be me. (Letnes)

Ain' nobody gonna turn me aroun'.
I'm gonna keep on a walkin', keep on a talkin',
marchin' till the day I die. (Civil rights song)

When we look and we can see things are not what they should be,
God's counting on me, God's counting on you.
Hoping we'll all pull through, me and you. (Wyatt and Seeger)

Light one candle for the wisdom to know
that the peacemakers' time is at hand.
Don't let the light go out! (Yarrow)

You are salt for the earth, O people....
Bring forth the kingdom of mercy, the kingdom of peace,
The kingdom of mercy, the city of God. (Haugen)

Preparing to cross the Jordan into Canaan, Moses said to the people: "Now therefore write this song, and teach it to the Israelites; put it in their mouths, in order that this song may be a witness...." (Dt. 31:19) What followed was "The Song of Moses", written to sustain the People of God in their New Land.

What are your songs?  What songs keep you going?

Peace!
Ron Letnes

Friday, May 6, 2011

I Celebrate No One's Death!

The day after Osama was killed, I received an email from my sister-in-law in which she asked a pointed question: "Is bin Laden's death 'justice' in your peace-and-justice world?"  I emailed her and asked her if I could use her question as the lead for this commentary and she graciously said yes.  Here was my response with some additional comments.

"Justice has been done", so we hear.  In ways, yes.  Justice demands accountability to the common good.  God creates us to be part of the same family of God. Being part of the same family of God makes us accountable to each other, that we are not simply a bunch of Ayn Rand types individually doing our own things at another's expense regardless of the common good.  No one is exempt, from Hitler to Osama to Christians to Muslims to them to us to me.  In the proclamation of Komarovsky in "Dr. Zhivago": "We're all made of the same clay you know!"  We are all broken, some the same bones, some others.  We are all called before the justice bar of God's and the world's courts to be given life's verdict.  One newspaper headlined Osama's death: "Rot in Hell!"  Then there are Jesus' words to the thief on the cross: "Today you shall be with me in Paradise".   I celebrate no one's death.

Osama's death insured his accountability to the common good.  No one is accountable only to themselves.  Osama had broken the trust and sanctity of the common good.  Justice demands accountability to the common good.  However, justice and killing are not necessarily wedded. I celebrate that Osama was held accountable.  Yet, I celebrate no one's death.

How then is justice administered?  In Romans 13:4, Paul writes that the government is God's instrument of justice: "It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer." The purpose of justice is to maintain order.  When order is disturbed, the wrath of justice is brought down.  However, this does not mean that governments have a blank check to do whatever and however and whenever it pleases.  Justice must flow out of love for the sake of love.  In short, the main ingredient of justice is love.  It is important to recognize that Paul's Chapter 13 is bookended by the call to love.  Indeed, the Old Testament meaning of love is justice.  Likewise, when the New Testament speaks of love it means justice.  Justice is love and love is justice.  Justice administered by governments is to be tempered with love.  Love does not instigate death.  Hence, I celebrate no one's death.

How then do we administer justice with love?  The message of the Gospel is nonviolence.  Jesus' justice is a gentle justice, a justice tempered by mercy.  Jesus took death upon himself as the expression of God's mercy for the world.  In the case of Osama, it was right to call him to account, but to exact justice with mercy.  This means the first goal should have been to  try and capture him alive and bring him to the United States for trial. Second, he should have been given the full protection of the law guaranteed within our Constitution.  Third, if and when found guilty, lock him up for good.  No capital punishment.  Jesus put an end to the ethic of "an eye for an eye".  Whether we want to admit it or not, Osama was also created in the Image of God, which tragically he bastardized.  Yet, all of God's people deserve mercy.  God's ways are not necessarily the world's ways.  Hearts can change, repentance happens. I celebrate no one's death.

I have been bothered by the celebrations of Osama's death.  I ask, is this what we have become?  Is this who we are? We dance at death?  Shouts of "USA!  USA! USA!" provide the dancers' cadence.  The bloodlust of revenge drips from our polluted souls.  Osama's death is our catharsis.  Furthermore, we celebrate the skill of the "Kill Team", "our nation's finest."  We elevate them to near deity status.  They have executed American justice by their "terrible swift sword".  We trained them well and they performed their duty well.  They were obedient, courageous patriots.  Yet, I recall Churchill's warning: "Those who have sown the wind shall reap the whirlwind."  Yes, Osama sowed the wind on 9/11 and he has reaped the whirlwind.  Now, do we reap the same whirlwind?  Are we dancing to our own funeral?  Violence begets violence.  I celebrate no one's death.

We can ask: Does death move us forward?  Is there a positive in death?  Certainly.  The defeat of a vicious enemy, the passing of one whose life has been wracked by pain and disease, the exiting of an unjust political force, all may release us from past barriers to love and justice.  But celebrate these passings, no.  The pain has been too great, the sufferings too deep, the memories too vivid to make us dance on their graves.  I celebrate no one's death.

The Christian faithful recently celebrated Easter!  Easter reminds us that death is not to be celebrated, but life is a gift to be lived in faith, love, and justice.  The grace within Jesus' death and resurrection is Christ taking death upon himself to give us all a new heaven and a new earth, when there will be no more dying, no more crying, and pain will be no more, when God is making all things new. (Revelation 21:1-5)  If we dance, let us dance at the resurrection!

Jesus' justice is life!   Jesus does not celebrate death.

Peace!
Ron