When they that were
about Him saw what would follow, they said unto Him, Lord, shall we
smite with the sword? And one of them smote the servant of the high
priest and cut off his right ear. Luke 22, 49. 50. Then said Jesus unto
him, Put up again thy sword into his place; for all they that take the
sword shall perish with the sword. Matt. 26, 52.
Tonight I ask you to come with me to
dark Gethsemane, the small grove of olive-trees outside the city wall
of Jerusalem. It is the depth of the darkest night in human history,
and save for the presence of our Lord and His sleepy disciples the
Garden is deserted, enshrouded in the silent, gloomy forebodings of
deep tragedy. But that silence is broken by the sound of marching
multitudes, and the darkened heavens begin to glow with flames of
flickering torches. Nearer and nearer a weird procession wends its
resolute way, until suddenly we behold a band of man-hunters, led by a
perfidious traitor, stampede into that solitude, surround that gentle,
unresisting Savior, and lay their blasphemous hands upon His holy
body. Oh, the cowardice, the ingratitude, the damning injustice of it
all! A heavily armed, blood-crazed mob, under the protection of night
and insolently secure in the approval of the highest churchmen, seeking
one solitary individual, — and He the divine Benefactor of the human
race, the all-powerful Miracle-worker, the unparalleled Preacher of
grace and truth and love! And now, in this crucial moment, with a
feeling of human loyalty which, misapplied though it was, we can well
understand, St. Peter, mentioned specifically in the fourth gospel,
impetuous, fire-breathing Peter, turns to His Lord and asks the
question which has been asked down though the centuries as it has
helped to form or deform history, our question for this evening: “Lord,
shall we smite with the sword?”
PETER’S
ANSWER.
We see that Peter,
in the impulsiveness that characterized his discipleship, answers the
question for himself. He takes a sword, runs in upon the advancing
persecutors of his Lord, and clips off the ear of one of the high
priest’s servants. Peter, with a single sword, starting a holy war for
Him who could summon the angel hosts of the heavens, yea, whose divine
glory and overpowering brilliancy had cast that blood-crazed mob
helpless to the ground!
Now, the number of
those who since Peter’s day have adopted Peter’s principles is truly
legion times legion. Page after page of history bears convincing
testimony to the unspeakable woe and agony that have followed all
attempts to defend and spread the truth of Christ with the sword. Think
of the persecutions of the Waldensians and Albigenses in the thirteenth
century, who “were put to the sword without distinction of age or sex,
while the numerous ecclesiastics who were in the persecuting army
distinguished themselves with a bloodthirsty ferocity.” Listen to the
groans of the thousands of martyrs in France on St. Bartholomew’s Eve
and in the ensuing massacres, as they ring out piteously into the night
of religious intolerance and bloody massacre. See the smoke of the
martyr fires in the hideous Spanish Inquisition, cataloguing more than
18,000 unfortunates burned alive in only the beginning of its crimson
history. Read the record of all these racked bodies and tortured souls;
behold arrogant prelates moving their puppet statesmen with strings of
ecclesiastical tyranny, wielding the naked sword of persecution over
the lives and destinies of millions, with no prince too exalted in the
splendor of his palace and no peasant too obscure in the lowliness of
his hovel to escape that vengeance, — and you are face to face with the
darkest and bloodiest pages in the records of church history.
But do not for a
moment believe that this sword-smiting religion is only a matter of
ancient and medieval history. Today, in the year of grace 1931, we
think of the modern counterpart of all this in the form of political
activities led by professional “reformers” operating under the Church’s
sanction and with salaries paid by the Church. We think of the
political lobbies maintained by American churches in the national
capital and in the political centers of our States, of the conscious
and defiant utterances of churchmen who still contend, in spite of all
past tragedies to which this principle has given expression, that the
Church must direct the political affairs of the American nation. We
think of the lamentable fact that too many Scriptural texts become
merely political pretexts, that too many militant clergymen are really
virulent policemen, and we realize that this spirit of Peter, far from
being extinct, flourishes today as one of the greatest dangers
threatening the welfare of our country, — flourishes to promote bigotry
and intolerance in our own lives, to make us think of the Church, as
Peter did, in terms of merely human and perverted ideals.
OUR
LORD’S ANSWER.
But this is the
very antithesis to that divine and limitless love that filled our
Savior’s heart to overflowing. His answer to Peter’s question, “Lord,
shall we smite with the sword?” was clear and emphatic: “Put up again
thy sword in its place”; and then, to tell us that the battles of His
kingdom were not to be fought on bloody fields of religious warfare, He
reached over, surrounded as He was by the mad killers, who thirsted
after His blood, and healed the ear of wounded Malchus as a divine
protest against that kind of militant, maiming, murdering Christianity.
Once before, in order to emphasize the importance of this pillar-truth,
our Lord had issued a similar protest. He was passing through a village
of the Samaritans, that despised, mixed-breed people, half Jew and half
heathen. And because the people of that village did not receive Him,
two disciples, James and significantly John, the disciple of love,
provoked by the insult which their Master had sustained at the hands of
these half-breeds, ran to Christ with the proposal, “Lord, wilt Thou
that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Now, I
want to read the answer of Christ especially for the benefit of you who
have been harboring the sword of persecution in your own hearts and
directing it against those who do not share your religious conviction,
for you who hate those who are religiously other-minded. Here are
Christ’s words, words of imperishable truth, “The Son of Man is not
come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”
If Christ were
with us here in the United States today, His voice of warning would
also be raised, we may well believe, against those aggressive
interferences in the political life of the nation on the part of church
organizations which have gone beyond the scope of their province in
busying themselves with economic issues, with political problems, and
with purely governmental questions. He would not countenance the
campaigns conducted by church federations to mold popular opinion in
regard to such purely partisan issues as the entrance of our country
into the League of Nations or the adoption or modification of
international treaties. He would disavow the outspoken pacifist
tendencies of certain religious groups, the ironfisted control which
some churches wield in the petty circles of ward and city politics, the
customary procedure of church-bodies in passing political resolutions
or endorsing political candidates at their annual conventions, and the
whole unholy relation by which the spirtual power of the Church is
prostituted, its appeal to the soul materialized, and its inner
effectiveness hopelessly paralyzed.
No, — His religion
is a faith that is founded on love, that manifests itself in love, and
that leads to love, unspeakable, indescribable, immeasurable love and
compassion. We tell of human love in its noblest and most unselfish
forms. We speak of that intense devotion by which a Christian mother
protects her little one and shields it from threatening danger. The
world is dotted with monuments to those who have followed the call of
that greater love and laid down their lives for their brothers.
History’s pages again and again record such confessions of patriotic
devotion as that which marked Nathan Hale’s last earthly moments, “I
regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” But all of
this is removed by worlds from the love that animated my Savior and
brought Him down from heaven to earth. For here, as we trace the
footsteps of Jesus, we see love in its highest heights and in the
deepest depths of self-effacing sacrifice. No other love ever embraced
the overwhelming totality of mortal men as did that unconquerable love
which swept over the whole horizon of history, with the promise, “I
came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” No other love ever
strained to take in all the impoverished, downtrodden, persecuted,
suffering masses throughout the breadth and almost endless reach of
human existence, as the love of Him who pleaded, “Come unto Me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” No other
love could forgive and forget the frailties of His feeble and failing
followers, as the divine love of the Holy One of God who forgives
Peter, though the cursing denial of that disciple almost breaks His
grief-torn heart. No other love — and this is the greatest love — ever
went out to those who hated the truth, hated the light, hated God, as
did the love of Him who was branded by His enemies as a friend of
sinners, who loved the whole sordid, self-indulgent world “unto the
end” and in the agony of that end raised His voice to pray the prayer
of unparalleled love, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do.” Truly, this love, expressing itself and culminating in
limitless self-giving when His bruised and lacerated body was nailed to
a felon’s cross, comes from the divine heart of Him whose pierced
hands, which never grasped the sword, reach out to us tonight to draw
us, as with a huge and heavenly magnet, to the shelter of His home. His
love through sixty generations comes to us, lost and disobedient sons
that we are, when we plead in the words of the prodigal, “Father, I
have sinned against heaven and in Thy sight,” and reassures us today in
His never-failing pledge, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save
that which was lost.”
Wherever men have
failed with the sword, Jesus has succeeded with His love. Empires that
have been built up by blood and brutality now lie in hopeless ruins,
covered by the debris of relentless centuries; for here is His
unavoidable condemnation, “All they that take the sword shall perish
with the sword.” And churches that abuse their holy offices by engaging
in the mud-slinging of politics, in the commingling of the affairs of
the State with those of the Church are doomed to similar failure. They
may continue to exist and enjoy popularity and certain preeminence;
they may even heap up the prestige of wealth and political influence;
but a Church which grasps the sword and permits it to overshadow the
Cross has forfeited its right to existence.
MY
CHURCH’S ANSWER.
It is by the grace
of God that the Church to which I am pledged definitely and unalterably
commits its members to follow Christ’s command and “render unto Caesar
the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”
Our Lutheran Church in the United States entirely disavows all secular
aims and political ambitions and regards every attempt to wield the
sword of governmental power as condemned by Jesus. Driven to the
shores of America by a sword-bearing government that prohibited the
free worship of God according to the dictates of a Christian
conscience, my Church has spurned all political entanglements and
dedicated its energies to the preaching and spreading of the Gospel of
love, which knows no violence, and to the glorifying of the Cross of
Jesus Christ as the final hope of humanity. And the promised blessings
of God have rested upon this quiet spiritual effort. The first
theological institution of our Church was a rude log cabin in Missouri,
far removed from the busy cross-roads of life; but tonight, after three
generations, these words come to you from that same institution, now
the largest ministerial school in the United States, with a total
enrolment of more than 540 students, all dedicated to the service of
Christ.
That promise of
spiritual blessing is extended to you. No matter who you are (and I
thank God that these messages penetrate into every stratum of American
society, behind the iron bars of Leavenworth and into the presidential
chambers of American colleges); wherever you are (and tonight I am
thinking of you who live beyond the reach of the Church or who receive
these messages on the fringe of modern frontiers, in Newfoundland,
British Columbia, Alaska, in the isolated sections of Mexico, and on
the islands of the Caribbean Sea); whatever you are (and I know that
these words are heard in municipal lodging-houses as well as in homes
that have been blessed with affluence and plenty) , — to all of you and
especially to those who have never taken Jesus into their hearts, but
who have come to see that they need Him for their soul’s welfare, we
offer and extend, not the sword, or any creed of force of any kind, but
the prayerful appeal for Jesus’ sake, “Be ye reconciled to God.” Come
to Him whose holy hands never clutched the sword, whose holy lips speak
only peace to the contrite sinner. Come to Him just as you are, with
the deep and penitent acknowledgment of the imperfections that abound
in your life, but with the confident conviction that His shed blood
will cleanse us, every one of us, from all sin. Come now to the Christ
of Love whom you have neglected, to the Christ of Truth whom you have
denied, to the Christ of Hope whom you have betrayed, to the Author of
spiritual and eternal life, and from the greatest and truest and purest
heart of all history, from the heart of the Son of God and the Redeemer
of men, comes this beautiful promise, “Him that cometh to Me I will in
no wise cast out.” Amen.