Pastor's Corner
November 2024

Inspired: War Stories

     When we recount the history of America, we are sure to include the war stories that make up our past. From the Revolutionary War, through the Civil War, and onto the world wars, our history is replete with war stories. Of course, we are not surprised by this. After all, there is hardly any country in existence that doesn’t have war stories as part of its past. Yet, what might surprise us, if we were first time readers of the Bible, is that war stories also make up some of the history of God’s people.
When God rescued the people of Israel and led them through the desert, their goal was to settle in the Promised Land. Yet, settling in the Promised Land was not a peaceful transition, because there were already people living in that land, people who needed to be conquered and in some cases, completely wiped out. This is a troubling history. Yet, what is most troubling is that God is the one who ordered the Israelites to go in and conquer the Promised Land. We wonder how the God who took up the cross in Jesus Christ could also be the God who appears to condone ethnic cleansing.
In her book, Inspired, Rachel Evans notes that “the Bibles tales of violence and holy war added some of the first wrinkles to her pristinely starched faith.” It was these tales of holy war that caused her to reexamine some of the other Bible stories that also include acts of violence, especially violence against women. When she turned to pastors and other religious leaders to share her concerns, her objections were dismissed and she was encouraged to set aside her conscience and simply trust God. Of course, as she notes, she was raised in a church tradition that did not value women as equal to men, especially with regard to leadership in the church. Evans made the decision not to be dismissed and instead decided “to face the Bible’s war stories head-on, mind and heart fully engaged, willing to risk the loss of faith if that’s where the search led.”  
We may, or may not, be fazed by the war stories found in Scripture. After all, as I indicated above, war is so much a part of our nation’s history that we have come to accept that it is what it is. Our modern culture is greatly influenced by war stories. We not only hear about it in our news, we see it in movies, television shows. We read about it in books, and use war language in our sports, our elections, and even in our relationships with other people. As Evans writes, “Our war stories tell us where we come from, what we value, who we fear, and what we hate.” So, what do we do with these war stories in the Bible, especially if they are troubling to us?
According to Evans, we can take note of those who, in these stories, expressed lament, who acknowledged the horror of these events with deep sorrow and a cry for justice. Often, it was the women who took on this role. Second, we can note that we are not so different today from the ancient Israelites of the Old Testament, and with humility and introspection, we can question our own adherence to a war focused perspective on life. Finally, we can turn to the cross and realize that the cross becomes God’s final answer to the question of war. As Evans writes, “On the cross, Jesus chose to align himself with the victims of suffering rather than the inflictors of it.”  
War is part of our history; it is part of our identity, but war is not the future to which we are called. Yet, moving towards a future where wars will finally cease, we must confront the darkness that is in us, the darkness that makes war possible in the first place. Then, in prayer, we must carry that darkness to Jesus, to our Lord who entered Jerusalem, not on a warhorse, but on a donkey, who took up, not a sword, but a cross.
From the Pastor.....