-- { Exodus 20:1-17}  ¹ Then God spoke all these words: ² I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; ³ you shall have no other gods before me. ⁴ You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, ⁶ but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. ⁷ You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. ⁸ Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work. ¹⁰ But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. ¹¹ For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

¹² Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. ¹³ You shall not murder. ¹⁴ You shall not commit adultery. ¹⁵ You shall not steal. ¹⁶ You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. ¹⁷ You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

-- { I Corinthians 1:18-25}  ¹⁸ For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ ²⁰ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. ²² For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³ but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.  --NRSV

Dear Friend, grace and peace be unto you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus, the Christ.  Amen.

Today, our nation is involved in a terrible conflict.  Young men and women in the military, on both sides, are at great personal risk.  We are killing Iraqis, many of whom have no choice but to fight for their country.  And they are killing us - our men and women.  We hope for a speedy end to this conflict.  We pray for a just resolution, but this is a dark and terrible time for all who love peace, for all who love humanity, for all who love God, for all who follow Jesus.  So, as your pastor, what can I share with you in response to the events of this week?

THE FIRST THING I CAN SAY IS THAT WAR IS NOT GOD'S WILL. Our reading from the Old Testament for this Third Sunday in Lent is a recitation of the Ten Commandments.  And in the middle of these commandments is a stern warning: "Thou shalt not kill."  The New Revised Standard Version translates these words as "You shall not murder."  That gives us some comfort, but still we are left with the truth that God is hurt and weeps when one human being, created in His image, takes the life of another.

G.A. Studdert-Kennedy was in the mud-filled, blood-spattered trenches of France in World War II when he wrote these graphic lines:

This war, any war, represents not the will of God but the sinfulness of humanity.  Regardless of how this conflict turns out, we have failed as human beings once more.  Sin has had its way.  It's been two thousand years since the Prince of Peace walked the sands of this same Middle East that is producing so much conflict today, and still we can find no better solution to our conflicts than to kill one another.  We who follow Jesus have failed.  We cannot blame the President.  He is convinced he is doing what's best for our country, post 9/11.  We cannot blame the Congress.  We cannot blame the military.  We can only blame ourselves.  Somehow we have not shone the light of Jesus’ love brightly enough to convince the world's people that love is better than hate, life is better than death, peace is better than war.  That war is not God's will.  That there are no holy jihad’s.

THE SECOND THING I CAN SAY IS THAT GOD'S HEART GOES OUT TO ALL WHO SUFFER.  The picture we have in the beginning of this twentieth chapter of Exodus is of a God who is vitally involved in human affairs.  God says to the people of Israel, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery…"  It is a picture of a God who is involved in the struggles of his people.

Across this land and Iraq there are parents of young people caught in this terrible conflict who are praying intensely, "Please God, let my son - or my daughter - come home safely."  Our God is just as concerned for the safety of these young men and women as we are.  

Beside the tomb of Lazarus, his friend, Jesus wept.  Even though he knew he could - and would - bring Lazarus back from the dead, he wept.  He wept for the human condition.  He wept for a world racked with sin and death.  He wept because of the unbelief of his friends.  He wept because his heart was breaking… for us.  God's heart goes out to all who suffer.

That, of course, is what the cross is all about.  You want to know how much God's heart breaks at the sight of human suffering?  Go to the Cross.  See Jesus’ body broken, his blood shed.  If someone you love is in harm's way this day, rest assured that God is concerned about him or her as you are.  In our epistle today, St. Paul called it the foolishness of God.  He writes in the eighteenth verse of the first chapter of I Corinthians: "For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."  It is foolishness.  You and I would never have done it that way.  

THUS, THE THIRD THING I CAN SAY IS THAT GOD DIDN'T SEEK TO SAVE THE WORLD BY OVERPOWERING IT, BUT BY LOVING IT.  Think about that long enough and it will change your life.  God could have wiped the deck clean as He did in the story of Noah.  Instead, God took His broken heart and displayed it on a cross for all the world to see.  And it is by that cross - and that cross alone - that the world will be saved.

And God gave an assignment to a group of people - people who had come into a relationship with His Son.  And the assignment was this: take up that same cross.  We are to save the world not by overpowering it, but by loving it.  That is our job – before this conflict began, in this conflict and when this conflict is over.  It is to recommit our lives to taking up the cross of Jesus - the cross of peace, the cross of love, the cross of sacrifice - until that time when war is no more.  It will seem silly to many of our friends and neighbors.  Foolishness, that's what the critics said about the cross of Jesus - but, ultimately there is no other way by which this world will be saved.

A simple story by an unknown author says it all: It is a story about a quiet man named Carl.  Carl was 87 years old and had lived in the same neighborhood for over 50 years. It had once been a nice neighborhood, but now it was full of random violence, gangs, and drug activity.

The local church advertised for volunteers to take care of the gardens behind the pastor's house.  Carl signed up for the job.  But then an event occurred that would have crushed many people.

Carl was finishing watering the garden one day when three gang members showed up.  He ignored their intimidation and just asked if they would like a drink of water from the hose.  The biggest and meanest answered, "Yeah, sure."  The other two grabbed Carl and threw him down.  They took Carl's retirement watch and wallet.  Carl tried to get up, but he had fallen on his bad leg.  He was trying to get up when the minister came running to help.  The minister kept asking Carl if he was okay, or if he was hurt as he helped him to his feet.

Carl sighed and shook his head.  "It was just some punk kids.  Maybe they'll wise up someday."  He bent and picked up the hose, adjusted the nozzle and started watering again.  The minister was confused and concerned as he asked Carl what he was doing.  "I need to finish watering the garden.  It's been very dry lately," was the calm reply.

A few weeks later the gang members returned, and just like the first time, Carl offered them a drink from the hose. They didn't rob him this time.  Instead, they wrenched the hose away from Carl and soaked him from head to foot in icy water.  When they had finished humiliating him, they sauntered off down the street, yelling insults and curses over their shoulders and falling over each other at the hilarity of what they had done.  Carl just watched them.  He turned his face toward the warm sun, calmly picked up his garden hose, and went back to watering the garden.

Summer was quickly turning into fall.  Carl was tilling one day when he heard someone come up behind him.  He stumbled and fell into some evergreen branches.  He struggled to regain his footing, and turned to see the gang leader holding out his hand.  Carl braced himself for an attack.  "Don't worry, old man," said the gang leader, "I won't hurt you."  The young man spoke softly, still holding out his tattooed and scarred hand to Carl.

He helped Carl get up, and pulled a crumpled bag from his pocket.   "What's this?" Carl asked.  "It's your stuff," the boy answered.  "I brought your stuff back.  It's all here, even the money that was in your wallet."  "Why would you help me now?" Carl asked.  The boy shuffled his feet, looking embarrassed and uncomfortable.  "Because I learned something from you," he said.  "We picked on you because you were old.  We knew we could get away with it.  But every time we came, instead of yelling and fighting back, you just tried to give us a drink of water.  You didn't hate us back because we hated you.  You just kept showing us love." 

He stopped for a minute and then went on.  "I couldn't sleep after we stole your stuff, so I decided to bring it back."  He paused for another awkward moment, not knowing how to proceed.  "I guess this is my way of thanking you for straightening me out."  With that, he walked away.

Carl carefully opened the bag in his hands.  He put his retirement watch back on his arm.  When he opened his wallet, he checked for his wedding photo, and gazed lovingly at the young bride smiling back at him.

Carl died one day that winter right after Christmas.  In spite of the weather, his funeral was well attended.  The minister noticed a tall young man sitting quietly in a far corner of the church.  The minister spoke of Carl's garden.  "Do your best," he said, "and make your garden as beautiful as you can.  We will never forget Carl and his garden."

The following spring another flyer went out asking for a volunteer to work in the garden.  It read: "Someone needed to care for Carl's garden."  One day the minister heard a knock at his office door.  When he opened the door, he saw a pair of scarred and tattooed hands holding the flyer.  "I believe this is my job, if you'll have me," the young man said.  The minister recognized him as the same boy who had returned Carl's watch and wallet.  He knew that Carl's kindness had turned this boy's life around.  The minister just handed him the keys and said, "Yes, go take care of Carl's garden and honor him."  The young man went to work without a word.

Over the next several years, this young man tended the garden just the way Carl had.  During that time, he went to college, got married, and became a prominent member in the community.  But he never forgot the promise he had made to honor Carl's memory.  He kept the garden as beautiful as he could, and thought that Carl would have approved.

One day he approached the new minister and explained that he could no longer take care of the garden.  He said with a shy and happy smile, "My wife had a baby boy last night, and she's bringing him home on Saturday."

"Congratulations!" said the minister, as he took the keys to the garden shed.  "That's wonderful!  What's the baby's name?"  "Carl," replied the former gang member.

You might call what Carl did foolishness, but that is the way of the cross - the Jesus way!  Can you offer the world, your enemy, a drink of water?

In an old CALVIN AND HOBBES cartoon strip, Hobbes, the tiger, asks little Calvin, "How come we play war and not peace?"  And Calvin replies, "Too few role models."

We do have too few role models for peace.  But, really, we only need one, Jesus.  In the 1960s we sang, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me…"  You and I are called to be role models for peace.  After all we follow the Prince of Peace - Jesus.  And hopefully our example will have a positive influence even in time of war.

What can I say to you this day?  God hates war.  Why?  Because God loves people: American, Iraqi, French, German, British, North Korean, Saudi, etc.  God loves every man and woman on the field of battle this day.  God loves every civilian caught in the crossfire.  God's heart goes out to all who suffer and God has given us a better way - the way of the cross, the way of sacrificial love.  

It is not optional for us who follow Jesus.  We are all called to be peacemakers for Jesus’ sake.  In this conflict let our prayer be:  Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.  Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.