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Sermon
for 10.00am Sunday 9th November 2008
preacher: John Routh
Remembrance Service
Congo - Looking for Wisdom
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I don’t know how many of you have seen the television news reports this
week – I don’t mean reports of the American election, exciting and
important as it was; I mean reports on the situation in the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
With so much going on in the world in recent years – with Iraq and
Afghanistan, tsunamis and hurricanes – the Congo hasn’t exactly been a
front page story. But the problems of the Congo, the conflict
going on there and the suffering it is causing, are nothing new.
Back in 2004, the storyline of one of my favourite television programs,
ER, took two of its central characters, Doctors Carter and Kovac, to
the Congo. By the way if you haven’t seen them, try to - for my
money those Congo-based ER episodes are the best pieces of television
drama ever made.
Carter and Kovac go to spend some time doing volunteer work; they go
looking for a change from their normal working life in Chicago.
What they find is life-changing. They find a nation in turmoil, a
nation whose people have been uprooted as they flee before armies of
different factions engaged in a bloody struggle for power.
Life in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been
like that for a long time. The reasons are very complex, and I
can’t go into what has happened fully here, but to give a grossly
over-simplified version …
The roots of the current crisis in the Congo can be found in the 1994
conflict between Tutsi and Hutu tribes in Rwanda. I’m sure you
remember that a Hutu dominated government engaged in a campaign of
genocide against its Tutsi citizens. The Tutsi rose up against
them, and the Hutu fled across the border into Eastern Congo.
Broadly speaking, the Congolese government supported the Hutu militias,
who mounted raids back into Rwanda. So Rwanda invaded the Congo,
twice – first in 1996, then again in 1998. The second time the
conflict escalated as four other nations joined in, some supporting
Rwanda, others the Congo – all of them seeking to grab some of the
Congo’s mineral rich land for themselves.
It continued until 2002, when a fragile peace agreement was
brokered. But really nothing was resolved. Today we still
have Hutu extremists sitting in eastern Congo on the borders of Rwanda;
we have a militant Tutsi rebel group active in the same general area;
and fighting has continued despite the peace agreement – with the
apparent blessing of the governments of the Congo and Rwanda, and
despite the presence of a United Nations force.
Forced conscription of children, rape used as a weapon, murder – all of
it continues. It’s come to the point where neither side can claim
their innocence. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has sat back
until a media report pricks our consciences and we remember there is a
serious problem in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
There’s another television drama I love – rather pertinent for this,
the week of the American presidential election – and that’s The West
Wing. At one point the storyline involves an outbreak of civil
war, tribal war, in an African state called Kundu, the situation a
thinly veiled copy of the problems of the Congo and Rwanda.
The President, as anguished as any of us would be, but loathe to get
his nation involved in the conflict, loathe to put his troops in harm’s
way, asks a rhetorical question of one of his aides ‘Why is a Kundunese
life worth less to me than an American life?’ He gets an
unexpected answer: ‘I don’t know sir, but it is.’ The rebuke is
enough to stir him to action, to send forces to intervene in the
conflict.
Sadly what is happening in the Congo is not a
television drama, and the decision to become involved in order to stop
the conflict isn’t as simple as the wish of a scriptwriter to take the
storyline in a particular direction. But there is a decision to
be made – about this particular conflict in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, along its eastern border with Rwanda; and about every conflict
we witness on this earth.
How human beings can treat one another in this way is something I will
never understand. But here’s a question: how long will the rest
of the world sit back and watch? How long will the rest of the
world satisfy itself with words urging peace, whilst the protagonists
show utter indifference to those words? When will the rest of the
world stand up and say, in actions as well as words, enough is enough –
you cannot do this to each other?
Listen to the words of the reading which Andrew gave
a few minutes ago. ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness’ – what could be more righteous than to bring an end to
this horrendous waste, this debasement of human life? ‘Blessed
are the peacemakers’ – surely we have to make peace between these
peoples.
But what does it mean to make peace? Does making peace involve
more than words? Can we stand between warring factions, without
risking our own safety, without being dragged into the fight
ourselves? And if that happens, if we come to the point of
fighting … can righteousness truly be satisfied, can peace truly be
made, if we have to resort to violent means?
Certainly we have thought so before – we’re here today to remember the
sacrifices made by so many people, some known by us, in the conflicts
of the last century … often in not dissimilar circumstances. Even
here, in civilized Europe, soldiers and civilians have been left dead,
wounded, scarred by the experiences of oppression and the warfare which
sought to end it.
Earlier this week I re-read part of a book called,
in English, Night. It’s the memoir of Elie Wiesel, a Nobel peace
prize winner, telling of his childhood experiences in the death camps
of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Let me read a brief passage …
One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in
the assembly place, three black crows. … Three victims in chains – and
one of them, the little servant, the sad eyed angel (a young boy Wiesel
had written about earlier).
The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than
usual. To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators
was no light matter. The head of the camp read the verdict.
All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm,
biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him. …
The three victims mounted together on to the
chairs. The three necks were placed at the same moment within the
nooses. ‘Long live liberty!’ cried the two adults. But the
child was silent.
‘Where is God? Where is He?’ someone behind me asked. At a
sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over.
Total silence throughout the camp. On the horizon the sun was
setting.
Then the March past began. The two adults were mo longer
aliv. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the
third rope was still moving: being so light, the child was still alive …
For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and
death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him
full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of
him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.
I cannot say with my hand on my heart that this nation fought the
Second World War to bring an end to such places, to such treatment of
other people. But I can say that that was, at the very least, a
righteous by-product of what we did. I can say that there was
some purpose to, some reason to be thankful for, the actions so many
people took back then, in defence of liberty. I can’t help but
wonder whether the situation in the Congo is comparable.
In our first reading this morning, we heard these words: ‘Wisdom is
easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek
her. She hastens to make herself known to those who desire
her.’ I wish it were that easy; I wish that wisdom came so
clearly, so unambiguously in answer to my prayers.
I find myself torn. I believe absolutely, that we should get
involved; there is no doubt in my mind: of course we should seek to
bring a righteous, peace to the lands of Congo and Rwanda. But
how? By words of reason and a physical but non-combatant presence
– which have failed so far? Or by more active means – is it the
case that violence is now the only language these murderous militias
will hear?
Or does violence beget violence? Can a just, lasting peace ever
be imposed at the end of the barrel of a gun?
As President Bartlett of the West Wing recognized, every human life has
equal value be they American, or British, or African. We all long
to see every human life treated with respect and dignity. We all
hunger for righteousness; yearn to be peacemakers. We are all
called to seek and fulfill those things.
But was Bartlett’s response, to send in his troops, the right
one? We are here today because we remember the cost of acting as
he chose to act; even so we know that not acting brings a terrible cost
too. How do we achieve the just and peaceful world we desire,
that God’s will calls us to attain? How do we grasp that
priceless gift of wisdom?
I have no final answer but this … as people who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, who seek to make peace in our world, we need to come in
total humility before God – the God who makes us with our capacity for
humanity, who redeems us when we are less than human, who sustains us
as we struggle to maintain our humanity in the midst of life’s
turmoil. And we need our leaders to join us on their knees.
For wisdom is a very rare commodity that far too few possess; and there
is only one place, one being we can turn to, to find it.
John Routh
9th November 2008
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