Peace - Lumen Christi Retreat - Sunday November 18, 2001
by Sr. Marianne Murray, RSCM

From left (standing): Alexius, Beth, Rosemarie, Joana with little Andrew Gabriel, Sr. Marianne Murray, Fr. Salutaris Libena, Bessie, Agatha, Jane Clyne and seated Claudio (left) and Kobby (right). Grottaferrata, Nov. 2001

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem
May those who love you prosper!
May peace be within your walls
Prosperity in your buildings
Because of my relatives and friends
I will say “Peace be within you”
Because of the house of the Lord our God,
I will pray for your good. Ps. 122, 6-9

These words are taken from one of the pilgrim Psalms- When the pilgrims of the Lord saw the holy city of Jerusalem in the distance they rejoiced and began to sing the Pilgrim Songs of  joy at having the opportunity to visit the city that they loved:

“And now we have set foot
within your gates O Jerusalem
Jerusalem, built as a city
With compact unity”

Jerusalem  with its Temple for the worship of the one true God was a holy place for the chosen People. It had deep spiritual significance for them. Israel had only one sanctuary and it was highly revered. The feast being celebrated was probably the Feast of Tabernacles, a feast of thanksgiving for the fruits of the harvest and a commemoration of God’s providential care.

It was David who made Jerusalem the political capital of Israel. He captured the city from the Jebusites and justice was administered from there. The name Jerusalem means city of peace. We know the Hebrew word for peace is Shalom. It seems that the Hebrew word for peace shalom  also sounds like the word for prosperity shalvah and Jerusalem  (Jerushalayim) . For the Hebrew, Shalom connotes every kind of prosperity or well-being. It is a prayer  more than a ordinary greeting.

The walls mentioned are Jerusalem’s ramparts and the buildings probably its forts and towers. These were all associated with the defense of the city against invaders and attack

So the passage that we are looking at is really a prayer for the city, for peace, prosperity and security.

The psalmist gives 2 reasons for loving Jerusalem and for praying for good things for it: first his relatives and friends probably live there and secondly and more important because if contains God’s house – the Temple. The Hebrews believed that when they uttered blessings, fulfillment followed. The prayer was efficacious.

Today Jerusalem the holy City is not just the Jerusalem of Israel nor the Church but the whole world of God’s creation. God dwells among the peoples of the earth through his creative presence. “ The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness, the world and all its people. It is God who set it on the sea.” There is nowhere where God is not. It is God’s world and our tendency to be forever in conflict and at war destroys God’s plan for a civilization of love and peace. The vision of the Holy City, the new Jerusalem remains a dream for the future when God will be all in all and there will be no more battles and no more wars and “no more death or pain “ Rev 21,4.

How much do we ourselves long for peace not only for the Jerusalem of today but for the people of the world? The lack of peace is such a feature of our human experience. We all feel the uneasiness associated with the present situation after September 11 and the war situation in Afghanistan. There have been wars in many countries since the ending of World War 11, in Korea and Vietnam, in many countries in Africa, in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, to name but some. Countries have had experiences of terrorist attacks, eg. Ireland, England (IRA bombings) Italy from the Red Brigade and the Mafia (eg Bologna, and Rome), Spain from Basque terrorism. There is the continual standoff between the Israelis and the Palestinians over land settlements, over Jerusalem, over the political aspirations of two peoples. Somehow or other, though we were and are concerned about these deeds and actions they somehow did not and do not have the universal menace which we feel now in the present world situation of a war against terrorism, and specifically the expression of it in Afghanistan. For the west especially, Bin Laden is a threatening figure almost like a bogey man – capable of taking on the most powerful nation in the world and its allies, capable of threatening widespread destruction.

What are we to do  in the face of the present menace? Let us take a look at the Prophet Habakkuk v11 BC   who engaged in a dramatic dialogue with God on precisely such matters as we are considering. We can consider Hab. From 1,2 to 2,4 and it is most relevant. I am in touch with this passage because I  translated a commentary on it for one of my sisters- a Biblical scholar. She calls her commentary Paradoxes. The prophet begins by asking God why his cry for help in a situation of violence and injustice goes unheard. He says

O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous-- therefore judgment comes forth perverted. (1:1-4)

If we read carefully his words we are immediately struck by the actuality they have today: Destruction and violence are before me…law becomes slack and justice never prevails. As for him so for us, in different ways, we  direct the same cry to God: How long? He pronounces his difficulty to understand or to accept that the relations between human beings are so violent, and manifests intensely his wish that justice and peace prevail. But also, Habakkuk cries out to God because he wants God’s intervention though God seems absent. Why did God allow the Twin Towers to fall, why does God allow the bombing of Afghanistan? Is the  righteous God  absent or inexistent, blind or impotent (cf. Sl 10; 14; 53; Jb 22,13; Sf 1,12). 

In fact God is present and  comes out of his silence and answers the prophet in a most surprising way (1:5-11).  This seems to be the way that  international injustice works. God says:

Look at the nations, and see! Be astonished! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told. For I am rousing the Chaldeans, that fierce and fiery nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.(1:5-6)

We may imagine the surprise of the prophet. How is possible that to the violence already existing, God answers by raising a stronger violence? How can it be that it is God, who is the one who raises the destroyer? The prophet faces and makes us also face one of the most dramatic paradoxes of human reality. He makes God come out of his silence, showing that He is not an absent or an impotent God before the injustice of the wicked against the innocent. It is against that, that He will raise the Chaldeans as an instrument of punishment against the guilty. In this way God reveals himself as supreme Judge, who never allows the wicked to go unpunished. We may see here the traces of a typical theology of history  that tries to explain the appearance of a new political force as a judgment over the preceding one.  However, this interpretation does not resolve the problem of the innocent who suffers and shows that the way God acts in History sometimes goes beyond the accepted wisdom that normally the good receive good things and the wicked  bad things.

God calls the Chaldeans a fierce and fiery nation, able to seize the homes of others, drawing from themselves law and authority and inflicting fear and the terror. The prophet spends sometime describing this kind of nation. The images are impressive: their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at night…they are all bent on violence… scoffing at kings.

The phrase their own might is their god! (v.11b) is not clear, once we do not know who pronounces it: God or the prophet. We may say that the destroyer makes a god of his strength. This may show  us that sometimes the violence between human being is mainly a way to affirm power. Maybe because of that, violence never ends. Even if one of the destroyers die it will be necessary to maintain power over others to affirm superiority.

            In fact, it is the winner of the war who installs the tribunal declaring how to legitimize all the violent action conducted against others. But in the New Testament the message is that only by giving up the sword can the Reign of God come.

A 1, 12-17 (the prophet’s question)

In these verses, the prophet takes up his questions again. His faith in God causes him now to renew the question of the why of the suffering of the innocent. If God raises up the Chaldeans to do justice why does God permit them to kill  the just mercilessly, as well? in carrying out their rigorous mandate to exercise justice, they go to excess and another stronger people is sent to destroy them. This way of reading history finds a specific expression in apocalyptic literature, where we see beasts each one more terrible and endowed with unheard of  powers.

In the eyes of Habakkuk it is frightening and inadmissible that history is imprisoned by a growing violence. Hence the question now is to know when this spiral of violence will end? And the death of the innocent? What can the just hope for?

B 2,1-4 (God’s reply)

In this final part, one see the pre-occupation of the prophet to give particular attention to the divine response to his questions:  “I shall stand at my post , I shall stand at my watch tower, watching to see what he will say to me, to my complaints”  God begins to order him to write down the vision on tablets (2,2). This order to write what will happen in the future sends the hearer to a certain date, but not well defined, a time not too distant, which supposes perhaps a long or a short wait. (V.3)

            The content of the vision, i.e. what must happen is not expressed, only it is said: “The upright will live through faithfulness” This phrase  does not explain precisely what is the significance of the term “faithfulness?  We can affirm  that for the just person to live, it is necessary to maintain faith in the presence and action of God, even when appearances manifest the contrary.  This is until the very moment of death. To live here seems to be linked to the condition of the lamb who is led to the slaughterer (c.f. Is. 53,7), To synthesize, in the eyes of Habakkuk, justice requires a perservering patience which culminates often in martyrdom. (c.f.Lk 21,19)

Conclusion

For us reading  Habakkuk in the light of the present, the message is that in spite of everything that happens in the way of disasters, that God is with us and that salvation comes by an unexpected route of justice and trust. God saves in spite of appearances. Paul states this clearly in .Rm. 1, 16-17

“For I see no reason to be ashamed of the gospel: it is God’s power for the salvation of everyone who has faith – Jews first, but Greeks as well – for in it is revealed the saving justice of God, a justice based on faith and addressed to faith, As it says in scripture, Anyone who is upright through faith will live.”  The believer is only invited to trust in God. Without trust, a future does not exist.

Today the longing for peace calls us to faith and trust. Trust is needed because it is so difficult to make sense of what is happening. So our longing for peace is linked to faith that God is at work in the midst of chaos. “That all shall ultimately be well and all manner of things shall be well” Juliana of Norwich. Moreover we can look to the roots of violence in ourselves, the angry word, the conflicts we cause. Each day at the end of the day we can ask ourselves if we practiced non violence in the situations of the day. Were there expressions of prejudice against and individual or a group because they are different from me, because they  insulted me or paid no attention to me? Peace is hard work.

A mensagem e o livro de Habacuc: análise exegética e teológica de Hb 1,2-2,4.

© Lumen Christi  Rome
18 November 2001