Our Sermon Section
By Maynard S. Clark - 2 Sep 2012
In Reference to: 2 September 2012 - Peace: Many Branches, But One Root
Frank, what does it mean to "focus upon" (the war machine...)?
Keith Akers (Denver, Colorado) wrote in a trace on why the vegetarian movement, that all protest movements focus upon what others are doing wrong; even the animal rights movement does that. But the vegetarian movement, he argued in that mid-Eighties flier from VSC, DOES focus (and SHOULD (continue to) focus on what humans CAN do right (correctly, well) by being vegan.
I think that OUR challenge IS to present a VERY positive, clear, and universal message to ALL 7 billion of our contemporaries, but our challenge is to effectively customize that message so they can hear it. Christian sermon that focuses upon what we mystically 'SEE' in Jesus Christ confuses the faithful AND the unbeliever, I suspect. If "what we mystically 'SEE' in Jesus Christ" is a code for "unconditional love and compassion", (I suspect that) that's a hard sell to MOST human beings across our troubled planet (unless they're on the RECEIVING side rather than on the embodiment and giving side).
As many Americans see it today, that's quite a lot to ask of them when they THINK that we are geopolitically unsafe. However, I think that sustainable peace and long-term PLANNING for a sustainable peace CAN be rationally discussed in a variety of contexts. Planning for 7+ billion human beings (and Africa growing and constantly exporting millions of people HERE) is somewhat scary. Talk of moving whole oceans out into the sea is also scary ('an existential threat'), but the need, I THINK, is to see that realistically THERE IS some achievable peace or outcome or resolution or synthesis.
I don't know what your SERV colleagues say to you about your sermons.
Richard Schwartz is basically Richard Schwartz and not a very good listener, that he's a person who expects to get a hearing from seasoned Democrats and thus wants to show that HIS kind of religious Judaism is really a warm-hearted visionary and non-objectionable variant of what human beings can and could do religiously. He puts out SO much stuff, most of it a self-promotional signature block.
Maynard