"Yes," answered God, "but not in your lifetime."
Then Kennedy spoke. "God, do you think there will be peace between blacks and whites in our land and around the world?"
"Yes," replied God, "but not in your lifetime."
Then it was the Israeli leader's turn. "God," she asked, "do you think there will ever be peace between the Jews and the Arabs?"
"Yes," said God, "but not in my lifetime."
Do you get the feeling, sometimes, that if there is a third World War, it will not be over politics or over economics-- rather it will be over religion? The militant, sometimes belligerent, rise of fundamentalist Moslems, the continuing carnage in Northern Ireland, the insane saga of Israel and its neighbors, the enmity between Pakistan and India, and a host of lesser known tensions throughout the world--all conspire to cause us to wonder if the next confrontation will not take us back to the Middle Ages when most of the killing and torture and hatred in this world was done in the name of religion. Every religion I know of sees itself as a beacon of light for the rest of the world. What a terrible shadow has been cast through the ages, however, by religious conflict and persecution.
And don't say that we are beyond such problems in this land! We all would probably be surprised and even shocked if we were to discover the number of country clubs in our enlightened land who still do not allow Jews as members. They may not say so publicly, but the unwritten law remains.
There is an old joke about a black man who had tried for years, in vain, to become a member of an exclusive club. He died and went to heaven. He had no difficulty gaining entrance there. One day he and St. Peter were talking when for some reason that club was mentioned. "Did you know," said the black man, "that club refuses to accept Blacks or Jews as members?" "We know," said St. Peter. "The Boss's son ran into the same thing."
If ever the world needed to hear the Gospel, it is now. A lawyer asked Jesus a question, to test him. "Master, which is the great commandment?" Jesus answered him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets." Thus Jesus forever joined love for God and love for persons.
Let this one truth be clear. Tell it to the Saddom Hessian of Iraq and the militant Christians in Northern Ireland and the Israeli government and the P.L.O. and tell it to every other misguided soul upon this earth--including those of us who might someday make the same grave error:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A HOLY WAR.
IT IS IMPORTANT FOR US TO NOTE THAT LOVE OF GOD IS PRIMARY.
The most natural thing in the world is for us to love ourselves and those who are an extension of ourselves--our family, or clan or tribe--and to ignore or even despise the rest of the world. I read somewhere that among many tribal peoples, the word for human being is also the name of the tribe. Therefore, members of a different tribe are by definition not human beings. It is no coincidence that among many of the head- hunting tribes of the Amazon, killing a fellow tribesman is murder, whereas killing someone else is simply "hunting." That is the way primitive people think.
I guess "primitive" is not the right word. After all, it was less than a century ago the governor of a Western state in this country could publicly suggest the extermination of Indians. After all they were "savages," according to this way of thinking--something less than human.
One comedian said it best. He said historians have recently found the very first treaty the United States government ever signed with the Indians. The treaty states that the Indians can keep their lands "for as long as the river runs clear, as long as the buffalo roam, as long as the grass grows tall, and as long as the mountains stand proud--or ninety days--whichever comes first!"
That is the natural way for human beings to behave. To love their own and to despise the foreigner, the stranger, the outsider. It is the natural way, but it is not the way of those who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. God has reached down into our lives. He has loved us with an everlasting love--even though we are unworthy. And He has called us to share that love with others. And those "others" are not limited to our family, our community, our city, our nation or even our faith.
Every great act of self-giving love I know of was, first of all, inspired by love for God. It was love for God that drove Albert Schweitzer into the jungles of Africa. Schweitzer was a man of dazzling intellect and enormous accomplishments. But he wrote a book entitled THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL JESUS. The research for that book brought him face to face with the claims of God upon his life.
When it was finished, he gave up all his academic degrees and distinguished posts and went to Africa to serve as a missionary physician. For he read Jesus' story of the rich man and Lazarus and it touched his heart. So when his patients awakened from the anesthetic in that little hospital in Lambarene the first words they heard were the old doctor's, "The reason you have no more pain is because the Lord Jesus told me to come to the banks of the Ogowe." Would you say that was love for God or love for neighbor? They cannot be split asunder.
LOVE FOR GOD IS PRIMARY. LOVE FOR NEIGHBOR IS OUR RESPONSE TO GOD'S LOVE.
In the last of Tolstoy's TWENTY-THREE TALES, he tells the story of a king who is searching for the answers to three questions: How can I do the right thing at the right time? How do I know whose advice to trust? And what things are most important and require my first attention? His search took him to the hut of a wise old hermit. Dressed in pauper's clothes, the king visited the hermit who lived deep in the forest.
As he approached the hermit, he saw that he was on the verge of collapse. The king took the spade the hermit had been working with and finished the job of digging his garden.
At sundown, a bearded man with a terrible stomach wound staggered to the hermit's yard. Unknown to the king, the man's wound had been dealt by the king's own guards who were keeping watch in the forest. Gently, the king cleaned the wound, bandaged it, and stopped the bleeding. Night fell, and the king slept on the threshold of the hut.
When he awoke, he tended to the bearded man's wound and checked on the hermit. The wounded man, overcome by guilt, made a confession to the king. He had been lying in wait for the king to return from the hermit's hut so he could kill him. He was seeking revenge for a judgment the king had made against him some time in the past. The king listened intently and then promised to send his own doctor to tend the man's wound. Then he prepared to take his leave.
Remembering his own mission, the king again asked the hermit the answers to the three questions.
The hermit patiently explained that the king had received his answers on the previous day. When the king had come upon the sickly hermit, he had finished digging his garden for him. This was both the right thing at the right time and the most important matter at hand. Had the king chosen instead to leave, he would have been killed by his enemy in the forest. Secondly, he helped the wounded man, which was again, the right thing at the right time.
The hermit continued, "Remember then, there is only one time that is important. Now!" And then he added, "The most necessary man is he with whom you are. . . and the most important thing is to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!"
There is quite a kernel of truth in that little story. There is only one time. That is now. And there is only one reason for life and that is to do good. And the object of that good is anyone with whom you or I happen to have contact.
Tolstoy would have been the first to have given assent to one final truth:
REMEMBER WHENEVER YOU DO AN ACT OF LOVE TO ANOTHER, YOU DO IT UNTO CHRIST.
In our nation's archives there is an account of two ladies from Tennessee who came before President Abraham Lincoln at the conclusion of the Civil War. They were asking for the release of their husbands held as prisoners of war at Johnson's Island. Lincoln put them off until Friday, when they came again. Again the President put them off until Saturday. At each of the interviews one of the ladies stressed to Lincoln that her husband was a religious man.
After the Saturday interview the President ordered the release of the prisoners. Then he turned to this lady and said, "You say your husband is a religious man. Tell him when you meet him, that I say I am not much of a judge of religion. In my opinion, however, the religion that sets men to rebel and fight against their government...(so that they can) eat their bread on the sweat of other men's faces, is not the sort of religion upon which people can get to heaven!"
I think Abe was a pretty good judge of religion. Any religion that tells me that I can hate or exploit or mistreat any person regardless of their race, nationality or religion is not the kind of religion upon which people can get into heaven. Tell that to Saddam Hessian, will you, and Ian Paisley and the IRA, and Mr. Shamir and the PLO. And in case I forget, remind me from time to time. It's so easy to forget. Love for God, love for neighbor. They must forever be one.
