america — Page 6

2013 10 13 Right Here, Right Now from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

A sermon preached at John Knox Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri on October 13, 2013.

Psalm 66:1-12
and Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-7

When you hear the name Jeremiah, what do you think of?

I really love it how the two bible studies I led this week…both of them

instantly said “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog”

when I asked them what first came to mind when we think about Jeremiah.

This is a pretty hip church, I thought. They love Three Dog Night

We’ll dig into Jeremiah in a moment,

but maybe you know that song too:

Joy to the world….All the boys and girls now.

Joy to the Fishes in the deep blue sea…

Joy to you and me…

* * *

If Joy means something like happiness, or contentment,

or having a “positive” disposition…

none of that really fits the prophet Jeremiah.

There isn’t much joyful about him,

at least not at first glance.

True: Jeremiah is considered

one of the greatest prophets of the Hebrew people,

second in importance only to Isaiah.

And true: Jeremiah is revered and respected and admired

but not so much for his message of Joy and glad tidings and comfort.

Some call Jeremiah the “weeping prophet”

because his particular watch

led him to work and to witness during a painful period of history.

Many found his words to be hard to hear,

uncomfortable for some, unbearable to others.

Since the start of his prophecy, during the reign of King Josiah in 626,

he felt compelled to warn the Hebrew People of the coming collapse

of their country, of Judea

and of their own blindness to how their material excesses

and their injustice towards the poor

and their lack of faith in God

was leading them to this pending confrontation.

And for this message, Jeremiah is attacked by his family,

is beaten and thrown into the stocks and dumped into a cistern.

He was called the Weeping Prophet

because during his reign he experienced the dismantling of reforms

the collapse of the Assyrian empire

and, eventually, the hoards of Babylonians

who came down over the plains to the north

to sack Jerusalem, destroy the beloved temple

and to take the wealth and the bulk of the Hebrew people

into captivity in Babylon.

[Read more…]

Certainly, one aspect of my longing for a new administration has been my sense that we need to account for our use of torture (or “enhanced interrogation techniques”) in the Global War On Terror (GWOT). I blogged about my concerns about torture extensively, including its incompatability with Christian Ethics, its lack of utility as a tool for either protecting the homeland or prosecuting the GWOT, and the effects it has had on our relationship with other countries. More vital than our military might is the force of our ideas, and the hypocracy and moral injustice that our use of torture requires evicerates any standing we once had to be a “beacon of light for the world.” If that is something we think our nation ought to aspire toward, then the use of torture is simply incompatable (whatever else you want to say about the fact that Christian thought cannot theologically allow it, or the utter foolishness on relying on torture-derived information in a practical sense).

And so I am well pleased to read Josh Orton this morning, summarizing a portion of Obama’s interview on 60 Mintues last night pertaining to torture. Orton draws from this Think Progress report, which cites this relevant portion of the interview:

CBS: There are a number of different things you can do early on pertaining to executive orders.

OBAMA: Right.

CBS: One of them is to shut down Guantanamo Bay. Another is to change interrogation methods that are used by U.S. troops. Are those things that you plan to take early action on?

OBAMA: Yes. I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn’t torture, and I’m going to make sure that we don’t torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.

(emphasis in original at Think Progress)

And the video is also available on you tube:

Whatever your thoughts are on the election of Barack Obama to be our next president, I hope you can see this as a major advance, should Obama follow through with this, in America’s standing around the world. And even if it didn’t lead to that, it would be the right thing to do. Reconciliation can come, but it must follow a formal end to a policy that led us down that dark tunnel in the first place.

Sermon: Right Here, Right Now

Hope for a Renewed Moral Vision…