Civil War Reflections

I have been wrestling with the State of our Union as of late. The idea of unity seems like a far off fantasy at times right now as we hear such divisive rhetoric which shakes open the chasms of our nation’s divide. The “us” vs “them” mentality in our country overwhelms normal sensibility and kinship. Those who hold differences of political opinion become labelled as traitor and enemy.

It’s dangerous language… but it is not unknown to our country’s past.

Recently, I began pouring over sermons written during another time of great division. Sermons written, preached, and published during the Civil War. It was a time of such thorough division that they couldn’t even agree on the name for the war:

Hear the difference in the names: War for the Union - War of Yankee Aggression

Mr. Davis’ War - Mr. Lincoln’s War

War of Rebellion - War of Separation

The names used by the North and the South suggest who was at fault… whose political agenda was in play… who was the sinner and who was the righteous one in the fight. That same divide was seen in Christian circles as well. Interestingly what was considered Gospel in one part of the country was considered political in another.

But regardless, the church played a key role in the era as Christian men filled the ranks on both sides of the field. Devout Christians who only a few years earlier had perhaps raised a cup to the strength of United States and their civilized ability to overcome political disputes found themselves instead cast into hand-to-hand bayonet-to-bayonet warfare across a broken nation.

And as men in blue and gray would stare across the battlefield, looking at those whom they had

formerly called brothers, they asked themselves if their cause was the right one. Who were the righteous ones in the fight? Who had God on their side?

In the time of the Civil War, sermons were published and passed around much like magazines might be today. Because of this, we have some incredible records of sermons from those years which preached into a very divided nation.

Preachers in the South, such as Bishop Thomas Atkinson of North Carolina, declared from the pulpit that though the earliest steps of the war might be questionable from an ethical standpoint, that by 1861 that the South was on the defensive and wanted only to be left alone. Thus, God must be on the side of the South for they did not wish war but only separation. He said the continued incursions of northern aggression was proof that the South had become the righteous ones and that they were indeed in God’s favor.

All the while preachers in the North spoke out against the sins and brokenness of slavery. Even in the years leading up to the Civil War there were sermons from the pulpit which spoke of how men of high morale standard who believed that ALL people should be made free had been forced by congress to capture runaway slaves from the South and return them back across state lines.

In Pastor Charles Finney’s 1852 sermon, 8 years prior to the civil war, he posed the question from the pulpit as to whether or not Good Christians who believed all people should be free should individually and personally aid in making men slaves. While congress had deemed it lawful to require people who had escaped slavery to return… did that same law break with God’s law for the neighbor? He declared it was the Christian duty to stop actively participating in catching and returning runaway slaves… but also to no longer turn a blind eye to the brokenness happening within our own country. Slavery must be denounced by all good Christian people, he proclaimed.

Sermons, from both sides of the Mason Dixie, pointed to how the Gospel spoke into a politically charged moment in our nation’s history.

Pastors of the Civil War reminded the people of Revolutionary War preachers from a 100 years before who proclaimed Life and Liberty for all people in the eyes of a God who cared for all people no matter political or social class. God cared for the lowly citizen just as much God cared for the King. These were Gospel words that were extraordinarily political in the mid 1700s as the church held up a mirror for society to see itself through the mirror of the Gospel. And yet these politically charged sermons helped form our founding fathers’ understanding that we have certain unalienable rights granted not by Government but by God.

Political. Radical. Unsettling for many in the day.

Sometimes, when people are divided, the gospel can seem very political… but that would make sense because even in Christ’s time it was not a message that was always welcomed.

Today’s Gospel

In our Gospel reading today the 12 disciples are sent out by Christ not to the gentiles… not to the Samaritans… not to groups beyond their borders who need to hear the Good News… but to the Lost Sheep of Israel... to their own people. These were the people of Israel; part of the same kingdom as the disciples, the same ethnic background, the same shared history, the same God as the disciples.

At first glance it seems like Jesus is sending the disciples out for the low hanging fruit. These are the easy ones to talk to. These are the ones they have the most in common with. But as we go on into the reading we learn that perhaps things are a bit more complicated than we originally anticipated.

In verse 16 Jesus even says, “See, I am sending you out like a sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and to the gentiles.”

These are not encouraging words to the disciples toward the possibility that they are going to get an easy start to their ministries. This does not sound like a nice and easy disciple internship to slowly learn the ropes. Jesus calling for the disciples to jump into the proverbial fire.

Jesus forewarns the disciples that the message they will carry to the communities within their own land will be a message that will cause upheaval and unrest. It is a message that will make some very people uncomfortable as Christ lifts up the most vulnerable: standing in solidarity with the widows, the children, the poor, the sick.. all who are ostracized. Meanwhile calling out their friends, family, priests, and city leaders who have privileged authority and power to give up their comforts and care for the most vulnerable.

But we need to pause here and think about this for a moment.

Jesus is not so much pointing out a condemning finger at the “bad Jews” but instead is holding up a mirror to a society and a people that he is very much a part of. He calls the disciples to look at their own family, their own hometown, their own kingdom, their own places of worship.

Rather than starting with the sins and brokenness of other people… especially Samaritans whom nearly all Jews of the day could agree were a bad and evil bunch… the kind of people that if you have to go through their town that you will go in and out of it as quickly as possible giving your donkey only enough food and water to make it to the next safer Jewish town… instead of Jesus telling the disciples to look at the sins of other groups, he says let us start by looking at ourselves.

Let us have our own sheep… the sheep of Israel… the lost sheep of Israel hold up the societal mirror and look for the cracks and blemishes of sin and also receive the good news of the forgiveness for those sins.

Let us start here, Jesus says.

I would argue that this mirror holding that Jesus calls the disciples to do amongst the lost sheep of Israel is perhaps the most difficult place of ministry that he calls them to. It is certainly not the easiest. People who think they are without sin do not like learning that they are yet sinful.

Dorian Gray

It reminds me of the character, Dorian Gray, whom you might be familiar with either from the movie the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or from Oscar Wilde’s original 1890 novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”

The story goes that Dorian Gray was a young man in the 19th century who fell in love with his own perceived beauty and was afraid of it one day fading. Upon seeing the unveiling of a truly magnificent painting of himself in his prime, Dorian sold his soul so that he could retain his physical perfection while the painting’s beauty would age and fade to the wears and tears of time and vice.

In the years that follow, Dorian went down a very dark path as he fully explored all of the pleasures of life. His own face and body remained beautiful while the painting took on the scars and abuse of the life he lived. The story of his life is very interesting and quite scandalous… a bit more so than what we have time for today… but the ending of the tale sees Dorian face to face with his portrait. The beautiful Dorian looks at the ugly, scarred, grizzled painting. And upon being faced with the reality of who he actually was, he pulls out a dagger that he had murdered his best friend with and stabs the painting. The magic is broken. Dorian dies, an ugly, scarred, unrecognizable old man.

I think sometimes we are like Dorian Gray… perhaps not being so scandalous in our sins… but struggling to see our own brokenness not to mention our need for forgiveness.

I remember hearing one individual claiming they didn’t need to ask God for forgiveness because they just don’t do anything wrong. And while that was one person, I suspect that more often than not we avoid looking too deeply at the sins said and left unsaid… the sins done and left undone.

Back to the Disciples

I imagine that as the disciples went out to the Lost Sheep of Israel they encountered many who grew angry when faced with their sins. Many who tried to justify themselves rather than listening and loving. Those who instead of saying “yes” to loving their neighbor instead asked the question, “Who is my neighbor?” in hopes of narrowing down who they needed to include.

And at this… I pause. And I wonder how often I too speak in the whisperings of my mind, “Does Jesus really mean that I should love that person too? Is that person also my neighbor? Really?”

How often do I try to justify my reasons for loving one person but not the other?

How often do we fall short of caring for the lost sheep of Israel because we ourselves are so lost?

People of God, as we see Christ sending his disciples out to the lost sheep of Israel to challenge the state of things, there are two questions that come to mind for us to wrestle with.

· As we look to our own portraits, do we see cracks? If the answer is no, we likely need to do some soul searching. If the answer is yes, what are those cracks?

· In this day, if we ask, “Who is my neighbor?” who is that we want to leave out?

These questions will help us recognize the lost sheep that WE are called to care for. These are those that Christ sends us out into the world to engage with love, compassion, and the message of God’s grace.

And while division exists and relations fluctuate, we have the promise of the one constant in the universe… the constant of the promise of Christ’s Word of redemption for us sinners on all sides of every issue.

Wherever we fall on political party, racial issues, concerns over COVID, favorite beverage, Star Trek fan or Star Wars fan… God’s promises are for all of us. We are EACH of us in need of God’s grace and forgiveness. This is a universal truth.

Another universal truth is that we are never beyond the reach of God’s grace and forgiveness because God constantly and continually reaches out to us where we are at, even and especially in the reflection of our scarred portraits and cracked mirrors. Christ died on the cross for those very scars and cracks. Those sins that we confess… those known and unknown… those are the blemishes that Christ comes to cleanse.

We live in a time where Christ sends us out to a people who are divided. But take heart, sheep of the Good Shepherd, for we are not the first that Christ has sent and we are not sent by ourselves.

May you find encouragement in the very message of hope and grace and new life that God sends

us into the world to proclaim for the sake of our broken world and our broken selves. We are sheep, called by the good shepherd, to care for the fellow sheep… even sheep that seem lost to us.

Remember, as you look upon the brokenness of our times that you belong to the shepherd that takes broken situations and creates new life. God restores and renews that which seems unredeemable. Have hope, proclaim that hope. Peace be with you.