SEATTLE MENNONITE CHURCH

Memorial Day Sunday, May 26, 2002

Sermon: Weldon D. Nisly

TITLE: Real Remembering

THEME: A Real Memorial

TEXTS: Psalm 46 God is our refuge and strength

Matthew 21: 10-17 Jesus disrupts temple worship

MEMORIAL DAY REMEMBERING

Last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday, remembering the birthday of the Church. This Sunday is Memorial Day Sunday, remembering the war dead of the US. How could there be any connection between the two Sunday’s? Their connection is the contrast in their remembering.

Do you know the origin of Memorial Day? I did a web search about Memorial Day and found over two million Memorial Day rememberings.

Memorial Day was first called Decoration Day -- a day to remember those who died in our “nation’s service” -- service being a euphemism for dying while waging war. Decoration Day was first officially observed on May 30, 1868, as a day to place flowers on the graves at Arlington National Cemetery of those who died in the Civil War.

More than two dozen towns claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. In May 1966, President Johnson officially declared Waterloo, New York as the birthplace of Memorial Day. Memorial Day isn’t about birth and life. It is about death and dying.

In 1915, Moina Michael wrote a poem for Memorial Day:

We cherish too, the poppy red

That grows in fields where valor led,

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies.

With her inspiration, red poppies became the flower of choice decorating Memorial Day graves of those who were sacrificed to the gods of war.

In the Vietnam war years, Memorial Day lost some of its glamour. It became a holiday weekend launching summer -- and the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” Now, in the patriotic fervor of 9/11, there is an effort to restore Memorial Day to its original day, May 30, and to its original glory remembering those who died in war.

On this Memorial Day, I do not want to add to the sorrow of the families who lost beloved ones in war. On this first Sunday after Pentecost, I do wish to ask what we Really Remember as global Christians in the 21^st century?

SMC sermon – WDNisly – 5/26/02 – p. 2

No matter how we glamorize it, Memorial Day is remembering death at war! It is remembering death that does not remember the death of the other, the enemy. It is remembering death that does not remember the sacrificial system of war. To make war means to scapegoat the enemy so that in their dying lies our salvation, to use Rene Girard’s language. Insecurity and evil of the world is their fault, whether the there is a person such as Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, or Osama bin Laden, or peoples such as Iragis or Palestinians or Cubans or terrorists. It is our duty to rid the world of “them” so “we” can all be in solidarity and safe again. That is scapegoating sacrificial violence.

It is a remembering that leaves God and God’s people out of our remembering.

PENTECOST REMEMBERING

Pentecost remembering won’t let us live that way. The Holy Spirit won’t let us live with that memory of death on our side alone. That is what Jesus’ cross and resurrection is about.

Ted concluded the Pentecost message last Sunday with words that tell us what the Holy Spirit helps us really remember. “The Spirit is God’s ‘Yes’ to the life of all of us….We pray, ‘Come, Spirit of Life, send your power. We love your creation. May we extend your liberating reconciling life until death itself is completely overturned and we share the glory of God.’”

The Pentecost promise is that God declares: "I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young shall see visions, and your old shall dream dreams" (Acts 2: 17 quoting Joel 2: 28.)

The Holy Spirit is not poured into us to conform our prophesies and visions and dreams to the prophesies and visions and dreams of culture and country. Rather the Spirit inspires our imagination with prophesies, visions, and dreams that disrupt the worship of culture and country.

JESUS DISRUPTS THE TEMPLE Matthew 21: 10-17

But what does this have to do with Jesus “cleansing the temple” in the gospel we just heard? It is because Jesus’ action in the temple is a disruption not a cleansing.

The Gospel stories of Jesus going to Jerusalem, entering temple, and driving out the money-changers and traders is one of the more controversial and misunderstood encounters of Jesus’ life. It has been used as justification for scape-goating and sacrificial violence. See Jesus used force against the “bad guys” so we must use force destroy “them” before they destroy us.

SMC sermon – WDNisly – 5/26/02 – p. 3

I can’t begin to explain all the problems and controversies in this temple story. I do want to suggest that one hearing is that Jesus’ disruption of the temple was a disruption of what was being remembered and worshiped in his day.

Testimony to the significance of Jesus’ Temple encounter is that all four gospels include it. But all four gospels tell it differently. Matthew’s version of the story as well as Mark and Luke put it at the end of Jesus’ ministry when he has entered Jerusalem and the conflict with the powers-that-be is escalating. John’s gospel tells the story early in Jesus’ ministry.

The Temple in Jerusalem was the center of the Jewish faith. It was an elaborate complex of ritual space. A large outer courtyard on the one side held animals for sacrifice which people bought to give to the priest to offer on the sacrificial altar in the inner sanctum.

One controversy is over whether Jews had to buy their sacrificial offering from the Temple traders or whether their sacrifice was to be “first-fruits” brought from home.

Another important matter is that Jesus’ Temple encounter is not a “cleansing” confrontation. Cleansing was a purification rite. Jesus did not use the language or the ritual of cleansing for purification.

Jesus disrupts the temple. Jesus disrupted the status quo. Jesus disrupted the peace. Jesus disrupted the politics and economy upholding the worship life. Jesus disrupted the way things are and the worship that keeps them that way.

SACRED SPACE & DISTURBING THE TEMPLE

Victor Turner’s book The Ritual Process, gives contemporary understanding what it means to disrupt the temple. Turner makes a distinction between mere ceremony and true sacred space.

Mere ceremony is the ritual that confirms the dominant consciousness, maintains the status quo, and keeps us blind to our own shadow. Mere ceremony waves the flag, honors the gods, and keeps everybody in line. It is a way of remembering that worships the dominant gods. September 11, unleashed an explosion of mere ceremony in church and state.

Albert Einstein was challenging mere ceremony when he reminded us long ago that we cannot solve any problem with the same consciousness that created it (Rohr tape, Hope against Darkness).

SMC sermon – WDNisly – 5/26/02 – p. 4

True sacred space poses an alternative consciousness. It refuses to get caught up in the polarized fight or flight actions with the status quo. And it dares to reveal our own shadow. All worship is meant to be sacred space which leads to knowing all creation as God’s sacred space.

The Pentecost Holy Spirit helps us remember and to enter into true sacred space before our God together. It is the power that makes a disruption of the temple possible.

I want to tell three stories about disrupting the temple to encourage our real remembering on this Memorial Day.

THE TEMPLE OF THE WORLD’S ONLY SUPERPOWER

When Ken Nafziger was here, he shared his gratitude for sabbatical time in Cuba as well as here at SMC. The day Ken arrived here it was announced that former President Jimmy Carter would make a trip to Cuba in May. Ken was elated and wrote a letter of gratitude and encouragement to Carter.

Last week we heard about Carter’s visit to Cuba, as the highest ranking US citizen to do so since the Cuban Revolution of 1959, 43 years ago. Carter was given freedom to travel the country and talk with many Cubans including the Human Rights group (Valera?). He had critical words and encouraging words to offer Castro and the Cubans. For the first time someone of Carter’s stature, challenged the 43 year old US embargo on Cuba as a failed policy and put greater responsibility on the US than on Cuba. Carter entered the temple of US hegemony and disturbed the temple gods.

The official US response was as predictable as was the response of traders and money changers when Jesus disturbed the temple of Jerusalem. By weekend our president lectured Cuba on democracy and human rights in Florida, of all places. It was a tragic irony seemingly lost on this country but certainly not lost on Cubans or the world.

THE TEMPLE OF THE CHURCH & PASTORAL LEADERSHIP

A second encounter of disrupting the temple today is so very critical today. It brings great sorrow and pain to me as it does to so many today. But it also offers a window of hope. It is most prominent in the US Catholic Church, but it cuts across all denominational and theological lines. It is in the pastoral life of the church.

Victims of abuse are finally disrupting the temple of abuse and secrecy by naming their abusers. Pastors called and charged with sacred trust before God and the people have sinfully violated that sacred trust.

SMC sermon – WDNisly – 5/26/02 – p. 5

The church, particularly the Catholic Church, is being shaken by such rememberings and revelations as it must be if it is to find renewal and healing and new life in the Spirit and true sacred space. The shadow of secrecy is being unveiled and the dominant consciousness exposed. There is great disruption in the temple.

THE TEMPLE OF MILTARY INTELLIGENCE

Finally I want to share a personal story of disrupting the temple. It is a Memorial Day story of a few years ago. My apologies to some of you who have heard it before.

It was Friday of Memorial Day weekend, 1987. The week was spiritually intense and exhilarating as well as anxious and soul-searching.

The war in Nicaragua was raging on, fanned by flames fueled by our tax dollars and so-called democratic principles. We as a nation were fueling the war with endless weapons and money.

We as communities of faith were trying to “Get in the way” of such policies, to use a Christian Peacemaker Teams image (see cover of worship bulletin). Our “getting in the way” was with Witness for Peace and Pledge of Resistance. It often seemed as if our voices were lost in the powerful winds of policy-makers and the dominant consciousness of the country. But Nicaraguans gave us a remembering hope as we did them.

We had a few great peace elders in Cincinnati in Maurice McCrackin, Peggy Brokaw, and Ernest & Marian Bromley. The energy for the peace community was based in Community Friends Meeting, New Jerusalem, a lay Franciscan Community led by Richard Rohr, and Cincinnati Mennonite Fellowship.

That Spring one of our activist student members, Regina Sansalone (now an NPR reporter in Europe) decided to do a project on the CIA for her class at Xavier University. She and Laurie went to the Federal building in downtown Cincinnati to see if they could find a CIA agent to talk to. There of course was no identified CIA office in the federal building. So they wandered the halls of ten floors of the Federal building asking a seemingly innocent question of federal employees, “Where’s the CIA office?” Most of their inquiries were met with startled or nervous responses, “I can’t tell you.”

On the tenth floor they got an honest answer. They stepped off the elevator and asked a suit “Where’s the CIA office?” “Right over there,” he said, and led them around the corner to an unmarked locked door that looked like it led to a broom closet. Laurie and Regina knocked on the door until someone finally opened it a peek and sternly asked what they wanted. They said, “We are doing a school project and are trying to talk with someone in the CIA office.” “Who told you?” he shot back. They tried to get a foot in the CIA door but you know how important security is keep us protected and blind.

SMC sermon – WDNisly – 5/26/02 – p. 6

That was just over a week before Memorial Day. Laurie and Regina called a few of us together and shared their discovery. We spent the next week in intense discussion and prayer listening to the Spirit in how we might name this CIA office so the community can remember it on Memorial Day.

We struggled over it as a family and with members at Cincinnati Mennonite Fellowship where I was pastor. It was becoming clear that I would be one to help name the CIA presence and disrupt the temple of the federal intelligence community. A consensus of support and anxiety emerged in family and church and peace community.

On Thursday, the eve of the Memorial Day weekend, our group met for final prayer and plans. Then someone drew a vial of blood from each of us, except for me hates to sight of blood. We had told family members most of what would happen. But we hadn’t told anyone exactly what and when because we didn’t want the Federal officials to get wind of it and lock down the building early on Friday on the pretense that it was a holiday weekend.

At 3:00 p.m. on Friday as the Memorial Holiday rush began, 8 of us entered the lobby of the Federal Building. 3 people went to the pay phones and called the newspapers and TV and radio stations. Five of us took the elevator to the tenth floor, got off, turned the corner, stopped at the CIA office, opened the vials wrote in our own blood on the wall and door “CIA Room 10503, Thou shalt not kill.” Then we sat down to pray.

We had counted on about 90 seconds to name the CIA in blood before being arrested. In about 90 seconds the place was swarming with federal agents. They cordoned off the hall way and waited, hoping we would decide to leave and go enjoy a Memorial Day weekend. I told them we planned to stay and pray.

At 6:00 o’clock, when the building is to be locked, the arrested us and took 4 of us outside and released us. Laurie was whisked out a back entrance and taken to jail because she was on probation from an earlier action. Several days later she was released when we kept a vigil outside the jail.

On that Memorial Day we wanted to remember how what is done by our nation in our name kills other children of God and tries to keep us from remembering. In order to remember in a new way we disrupted the temple of federal security and named its bloodshed with our own blood.

DISTURBING THE TEMPLE WITH JESUS

Jesus enters our temples to disturb us out of our mere ceremony and leads us to live by the power of the Holy Spirit in true sacred space. Then we will truly remember and be re-membered as children of God and the Body of Christ. Thanks be to God.