This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plawshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord. (Isaiah 2:1-5)

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     On a chilly day quite a few years ago, I was watching the annual Remembrance Day ceremony from Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The ceremony, of course, revolves around a number of wreath layings by various dignitaries, the most moving of which is surely the wreath laid by the “Silver Cross Mother” - a woman who has lost a child during a time of war. I often reflect on how difficult it must have been for those mothers to see their children killed in a far off war, and I believe that it's only through the strength God gives them that they move on with life. How much they must cherish peace, and celebrate God's promise that peace will one day by an everyday reality! As much as we rejoice in that promise, how much more must they – who have paid the price of war very directly – rejoice in it. On that particular Remembrance Day I remember the host of the broadcast noting that it wouldn't be too long before there was no wreath-laying by the Silver Cross Mother: because that generation that had almost passed on completely there just wouldn't be Silver Cross Mothers left much longer. The most moving of the wreath layings would then be gone – but its disappearance would be a welcome thing, because it would be the sign that we had been a country at peace for a long time; that perhaps this country at least had been honouring the vision of the prophet Isaiah by turning our weapons of war to peaceful purposes. After all, on that particular November Day no Canadian had died in combat since the Korean War. We were a nation at peace; we were a nation that believed in peace; we were a nation that kept the peace; we were a nation that helped others keep the peace. And we were rightly proud of that fact. And a huge part of our national identity was tied up in the pride we felt in the Canadian Armed Forces – a military that rarely went anywhere in anger, but that usually went (wearing the blue berets of the United Nations) – not to fight a war, but to keep the peace; not to kill but to give hope for life; not to fight the enemy, but to try to make enemies friends. It was noble. It was even Christian. We remember the words of Jesus - “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Yes, there may be a subtle difference between peacemaking and peacekeeping, but still Jesus would have approved. But the world changed not too many years after that ceremony that caused me so much reflection.

     9/11. We watched in horror as planes crashed into buildings and as those buildings collapsed and as innocent people died horrible deaths. And soon the Canadian Navy was on its way to the Persian Gulf and “JTF2” - Joint Task Force Two (the Canadian military's elite anti-terrorism unit) - headed off to Afghanistan. That limited Canadian involvement eventually became a formal combat mission, and today we know that the traditional wreath-laying by the Silver Cross Mother will continue for a while, because we now have almost 250 Silver Cross Mothers, one right here in Port Colborne. I went by the war memorial down at Knoll Park the other day. On it, looking fresher than the other names that had been engraved long before, was the name “Tyler Crooks” - and, so that future generations would know why his name was on there, also engraved was the single word “Afghanistan.” Our Canada – a country justly proud of our reputation as peacekeepers – is a country at war now for almost 10 years. Jesus offered a blessing to “the peacemakers” - but what of the warriors? Somehow, it all used to seem so easy. Jesus stood for peace, Jesus blessed “the peacemakers” and we were devoted to peacekeeping. Everything fit. We were doing God's work. Now we're not even sure what God's work is! Now, we're forced to confront the fact, in the words of Ecclesiastes, that there is “a time for war and a time for peace.” Both somehow seem to be included within the broad plan of God. Our combat mission ends next year. Our troops will come home. Many will be scarred and wounded – physically and emotionally. I've noted over the years that veterans tend to have two responses to their wartime experiences. They either share them in the hopes of making others understand how horrible war is, or they can't bring themselves to think or speak about them. Thousands of Canadian veterans will have to make that choice in the coming years. And on war memorials across the country, there are other names freshly engraved, and – with a few months left to go – probably still more to be added somewhere.

     There's an irony in the perception we have of ourselves as peacekeepers rather than warriors. Many historians argue that our real sense of national identity was forged on the battlefield. Pierre Berton has argued that Canadian nationhood came of age in 1917 when Canadian troops took Vimy Ridge from the Germans after the British had tried and been defeated and after the French had tried and been defeated. Canadians landed with British and American troops in Normandy on D-Day, and few people remember that Canada emerged from World War II with the fourth largest military in the world, smaller than only the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain. And then we did what those other nations didn't do. We disarmed to a large extent. We kept a small military, but it seemed as if we were trying to live by the words of the prophet Isaiah. We were “beating our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks.” Our politicians – no matter what party they were from – became (at least on the surface) peacemakers – Diefenbaker refused US nuclear weapons on Canadian soil; Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize; Trudeau had his peace mission; Mulroney fought apartheid; Chretien said “no way” to the war in Iraq. But by the time of that “no way” we were already in Afghanistan. The world had changed; we had changed. Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers.” Did we still qualify? Were we still among the blessed, or had we fallen in with the wrong crowd, taken a wrong turn and gone in the wrong direction? The reality is that even as Christians we aren't sure what to make of this war – whether we support it or not, whether we think we should be there or not. A few years ago there was a debate in the Letters to the Editor column of the United Church Observer. Some wanted the United Church to pull its chaplains out of the Canadian Forces in protest over the war. Others pointed out that the United Church is not and never has been a pacifist church – although there is, I would say, a strong streak of pacifism running through our denomination. And the angst we feel as a denomination all revolves around one question: can followers of “the Prince of Peace” also be warriors? After ten years of war – who are we as Canadian Christians?

     I don't know what Jesus would think of the war in Afghanistan, or what He would think about some of His followers being warriors. Some believe that one of the reasons people turned against Him was His refusal to lead the people in a rebellion against Rome. And yet there's almost a sense in which Jesus seems to have taken war (and even the fact that His own followers might be fighting those wars) for granted. In speaking of the signs of the end, Jesus said “You will hear of war and rumours of war, but do not be alarmed.” And why wouldn't Jesus speak of war in such a way? After all, human beings have always fought with other human beings, and often in response we find ourselves like the prophet Habakkuk, whose words we read last week – able to only wait and watch and wonder how God can possibly be working in the midst of this insanity. As I mentioned last week in my reflections on evil, in Genesis 4 (very near “the beginning” spoken of by the Bible) Cain murdered Abel – and murders in all walks of life (as we heard last week) have continued ever since, and surely war followed soon after. Millennia ago nations fought each other with rocks and clubs. Then it was bows and arrows; then swords and spears; then cannons and guns; then bombs and missiles and planes and ships of various kinds until – with our God-given human ingenuity – we engineered the ability to destroy ourselves completely, and it's probably only by the grace of God that we haven't done so – at least not yet. People have always been prepared to fight and kill in order to rule and control and achieve their goals. Why wouldn't Jesus say it would continue? Why would it stop? The church itself has fought its share of wars over the centuries, and many of those nations that have marched off to war have been so-called Christian nations firmly convinced that “the Prince of Peace” was on their side – in spite of the fact that Jesus told His followers to love their enemies, and that there certainly seems to be a disconnect between loving them and killing them! And that leaves us wondering today – as a nation at war (which is soon to be a nation at peace) – is Jesus still on our side? Are we still blessed? And has the experience of the last ten years changed us so much (or at least changed how we perceive ourselves so much) that we have trouble even recognizing who we are – as Canadians or as Christians?

     The question, I suppose, is are we peacekeepers or are we warriors? The short answer would seem to be “yes” - we're both. Ecclesiastes 3 (which we acknowledge to be a part of the Word of God) does remind us that there is “a time for war and a time for peace.” The challenge is how to discern the time for each. I know people for whom Remembrance Day is an extremely emotional time and who have no doubt that war can be a righteous and virtuous thing because they are the blessed recipients of the willingness of Allied soldiers (including Canadians) to leave the security of their homes and sometimes to give up their lives to liberate total strangers from oppression. Nobody in their right mind likes war. I'm grateful that my generarion never had to decide whether to fight in one or not, and I deeply respect those Christians (and others) who are consistent in their pacifism. But we live in a fallen world which isn't as God wants it to be, and sometimes we can only sleep securely because there are some who have made the decision to fight and who are willing to take the risk of trying to make peace through force, and I respect and honour the decisions they've made as well. I know that many in our nation and in our denomination feel a sense of angst right now. It seems to many that we've lost our bearings and abandoned our convictions by going to war rather than trying to keep the peace. But when there's no peace to keep do we just sit idly back? Should we be in Afghanistan? Should we be pulling out of Afghanistan? Is it the right war? Will it lead to anything good? Is it even winnable? I don't have answers to those questions. I don't know if we've been right or wrong over the last ten years. But if the heart and spirit and motivation are in the right place I believe God honours us even if we're wrong, and if we are wrong, I believe that God's grace covers us for the mistakes we might make.

     We're still God's people – still blessed by the love and grace of God, and still blessed by the hope God offers that someday God “will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” Some day the guns and bombs and missiles and tanks and fighter planes will be turned into instruments of peace by the gracious act of a loving God. Right now, the world is not as it should be – and neither are we. But God doesn't give up on us. God still loves us. God still blesses us. Blessed be God's name!