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I think about the city I was reared in Washington, D.C. What does
the city government do when the street needs to be paved due to
excessive potholes? They plug them. And a month later the holes
begin to emerge again. We have to come to see that the entire street
must be repaved but not with asphalt but with a new substance, a new
material that will be lasting and sure. We need a new type of
asphalt, indeed. Yes, we need a new type of RAID. Not the kind of
RAID that looks at the other and says, “You are a roach—get away
from me.” Not the kind of RAID that sprays toxins in the air and
kills the innocent and injures thousands, but a very special kind
that sprays an infectious aroma that invigorates, shares, protects,
accepts, nurtures and enhances our world. And this is the spray we
must use in our apartments and houses, at our jobs wherever we are;
we must spray the contagious, intoxicating fragrance of love. The
love that respects the inherent worth and dignity of all people!
That’s what we need in our world today!
We must create a new paradigm based upon the words of Emerson who
wrote: “All violence all that is dreary and repels, is not power,
but the absence of power,” I add,the absence of humanity and the
absence of love. And Martin King said it well, “Hatred and
bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do
that. Hatred paralyses life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life;
love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.” And of
course the words attributed to Jesus, “Peter, put down your sword.”
Yet thousands of years later, as Joseph Campbell said once, “Peter
has not stopped raising his sword.”
Let me say this, my position is that we have to be brave enough to
stand up and say that in most cases war is unnecessary. Now, if
someone breaks into my house it is my duty as parent and guardian of
my family to protect them by any means necessary. I feel I’m
rationally justified in this case. This is a rare occurrence,
statistically. It makes no sense for me to go and beat somebody up
on the street because I suspect they are the person who broke into
my house. Somebody knows what I’m talking about! How much sense
does that make? Using force is only in self-defense.
The answer for us calls us to look not at what is good and what is
evil rather we must look beyond the dichotomy, we must raise our
consciousness and look into the eyes of the person we call evil.
That is our challenge. We must turn enemies into friends knowing all
share common needs as people on earth. And I challenge the leaders
of the world to look closely at the families they say they hate.
Look at the sons and daughters on the battlefield. Look in their
eyes. These are people’s children! Would you sacrifice your
children? How deep is your conviction? Would you put the ones you
love on the front line? This message today is about recognizing the
ambiguity and seeing how dangerous it is to be too emotional and
reactionary about whom the enemy is. I am asking you this morning to
search deep within yourself and see that most people on earth simply
want to have life, liberty and happiness. Most want to raise their
children, and have their basic needs met. Most want to work at
something they love and to share their lives with people they love.
We waste so much time hating. We waste some much time pointing the
finger. We waste too much time brutalizing folk who are not even the
culprits of crimes. We need to spend time building the spirit of
humanity. We need to spend time repaving our world with the power of
love. We need to spend time “building a people-oriented society, not
a thing oriented society.” We need to spend time trying to find a
way to end the cycle of hate, and the cycle of one group thinking
they have all the answers. We need to release ourselves from this
reincarnated cycle of purgatorial abuse so that we can find
“moksha”— or release, and experience Nirvana— the bliss of living!
That is the challenge. I heard a song recently that speaks to the
moment. It simply said, “We were meant to live for so much more and
we lost ourselves. We want more than the world has to offer. We want
more than the wars of our fathers. We were meant to live for so much
more but we lost ourselves… But somewhere I sang a song that said,
“I once was lost but now I’m found. I once was blind but now I see!”
And so there is an amazing grace that humanity affords if we can
somehow get up enough courage to stop the hatred and brutality and
create a new vision that embraces instead of erases… That is the
message this morning. Let it be so! Amen.
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