Enriched by Grace
Isaiah 49:1-7, I Corinthians 1:1-9
January 20, 2008
Leslie A. Klingensmith

Last Sunday evening, Ed and I went to see the movie Charlie Wilson's War. It is definitely a movie worth seeing. Charlie Wilson was a member of the United States House of Representatives in the 1970s and 80s. He was from Texas. His first six or seven terms were undistinguished - someone once said of him that his most major accomplishment in his first six terms was getting re-elected five times. He didn't really make any waves seemed to shuffle in place in a pattern of "going along to get along," receiving and returning favors whenever politically necessary. He seemed to view his seat in Congress as the means by which he could finance his personal interests, which included spending a lot of time with beautiful women and drinking a lot of hard liquor. The movie strongly implies that he used drugs, at least recreationally, and at one time he was even indicted on drug charges.

The beginning of Charlie Wilson's War shows the Congressman at his most debauched. He is drinking in a hot tub with a lot of naked women. Later, when a limousine takes him to the airport, other people in the car are snorting cocaine, although Charlie Wilson is not shown partaking at that time. There is a hint, even in the seedy circumstances, though, that there is more to Charlie Wilson than partying. From his seat in the hot tub, he is watching a television that is showing war footage of Afghanistan. He tries to get everyone around him to be quiet so he can follow the story. This was around 1980, as Soviet Russia was unleashing all of their power in an attempt to take over Afghanistan and spread Communism further into Asia. Charlie Wilson was on the appropriations committee, and he knew that the United States, as threatened as we were by Communism, was contributing very little to Afghanistan's efforts to preserve democracy and retain their independence.

I must confess that, having grown up in the later years of the Cold War, I did not directly experience the very real fear of Communism as many of you did. I was uncomfortable in the movie with the talk of Russians as some kind of horrible enemy. The glee with which Americans would speak of their effort: "Let's go kill some Russians!" made me cringe, as did the footage of Russian helicopters being blown out of the sky with guns that the US had purchased for the Afghans. That was another time, though, another era in our diplomatic and military history. I am getting ahead of myself. What intrigued me about Charlie Wilson's story was his determination to do something to end the Afghan's suffering, once he became aware of how horrible it truly was. It was an encounter with the other, with people who were damaged by the Soviet army beyond anything he had ever imagined, that galvanized him to action and gave him a sense of purpose. It was a sense of connection and relationship that really transformed Charlie Wilson from a dilettante to a committed individual.

Charlie Wilson was nudged along by one of his constituents, a wealthy Texas socialite, who insisted that he become more knowledgeable about what was happening to the Afghan people and then do something about it. Her motivation was at least as much hatred of Communism as it was solidarity with the Afghan people, but nonetheless, she saw to it that Charlie Wilson traveled to an Afghan refugee camp and met the people there. It was that encounter that steered Charlie Wilson to what became his most significant accomplishment. He saw people who had been blinded and maimed by Soviet weapons. He saw children whose arms and legs had been blown off by landmines. He was particularly incensed when his guides told him that Soviets often put out bombs and mines that were disguised as toys, so that children would pick them up and be injured or killed. There is one scene when a food truck drives into the camp. It is clear that the truck is not large enough to hold food for the vast amount of people, and the people are so hungry. They try to climb into the truck as soon as it stops, and as packages of dry rice are thrown over the sides of the truck they grab for the bags and attack each other, each person trying to get enough food. They behave almost like animals, but their desperation is so palpable and so sad that Charlie Wilson and his assistant, Bonnie, cannot forget it. They never forgot it.

Over the course of the next several years, Charlie Wilson pushed for more and more appropriations for Afghanistan, enabling them to get the equipment they needed to eventually defeat the Russians. During that time, the funding for the Afghan war effort increased from a paltry $5 million to $500 million. Sadly, after the Soviets left Afghanistan, Charlie Wilson continued to plead for money to rebuild the country. He pushed for funding for schools and health clinics, and some kind of compensation for people who had been injured or had family members killed in the war. He believed that Afghanistan had borne the vast majority of the burden for pushing back Communism, and that we had a responsibility to help them get back on track. The money that he asked for for the rebuilding efforts was a miniscule amount - it was nothing compared to the money that had previously been appropriated for weapons, but Wilson's pleas fell on deaf ears. Once the Communist threat was gone, the United States was no longer interested in what happened in Afghanistan. In hindsight, we KNOW what happened in Afghanistan. It has become a hotbed of Islamic extremism - places without hope for the future often do. I will paraphrase Charlie Wilson's summation of what happened - his actual words would not be appropriate to use here, but essentially he said "We did a great thing, and then we failed in the end game."

Why am I so interested in Charlie Wilson's War? A couple of reasons. The Isaiah passage that I read this morning is another of the "servant songs." You may remember that we looked at the first one last week. "The servant" can be either an individual or a group, a national identity. The servant may be misunderstood and maligned, but God's purpose will, in God's time, be fulfilled through the servant. Likewise, Paul writes of the Corinthians that by the grace of God they have been enriched in their lives through relationship with and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Paul promises the Corinthians that once they have been enriched by grace that God will strengthen them for the tasks to which God has called them.

These two passages both brought Congressman Charlie Wilson to my mind, even though I have no idea what his faith background was, or even if he had any. What grabs me about his story, as it relates to God's servant in Isaiah and to the Corinthian church in the New Testament, is that Wilson's story serves as a reminder that God can (and does) use flawed vessels to be the bearers of hope and grace. Under the right circumstances, people who have not been previously known for their courage can be compelled and empowered to speak the truth, even when the truth is unpopular. There is a moving scene in the movie, when Charlie Wilson returns to the Afghan refugee camp for a second time, this time accompanied by the chair of the Appropriations Committee. As the congressmen speak to the crowd of Afghans, promising that they are going to do whatever is in their power to relieve their situation and get them the equipment that they need to defeat the mighty Red Army, hope comes to the faces of the Afghan people. Their eyes light up with that hope, the camera beautifully captures their transformation. Those watching cannot help but feel a sense of solidarity with them. In today's culture and era, we may not like weaponry, but at that time, in that place, it was what the Afghans needed to defend their homeland. Rather than empty promises, Charlie Wilson delivered on what he said he would do for them.

A few details from these passages especially spoke to me and made me carefully consider how we can embrace our call to be God's servant people, enriched by grace and compelled to enrich the lives of others. If we look at the Isaiah passage, we see that, unlike the servant song that we looked at last week, this one is written in the servant's own voice. There is one thing that the servant emphasizes: the servant has been known by God from the beginning. "The Lord called me before I was born, named me while I was in my mother's womb" and later the servant refers to the "Lord who formed me in the womb to be the servant, so that Israel might be gathered back to him." This idea that we are created for a purpose and brought to a certain time and place for a reason packs a lot of power. If we expand on this line of thinking just a bit, if we believe that each of us is intimately known by God and created to do something that is a part of returning all of God's people to a state of reconciliation with God and one another, well then, we've got some work to do. A belief that God knows us better than we know ourselves and can give us what we need to participate in the world - that is not a call to be an uninformed couch potato. Harvey Cox wrote that in today's complex world "to be unaware is to be less than moral (When Jesus Came to Harvard, p. 247)." Charlie Wilson may have been many things - he may have been what those of us from Oklahoma call a "rounder," but he was not unaware. The more aware he became, the more compelled he was to act. And if we think Isaiah is on to something, it is at least possible that Charlie Wilson was born to help the Afghan people. What was I born to do? Who were you born to be? For what purpose (or purposes) has St. Matthew Presbyterian Church been called into being?

Two other things spoke to me from this Isaiah passage. One - things do not always go smoothly for the servant. There must be times when the servant feels he is banging his or her head against a wall. Yet somehow, in the midst of frustration, the servant is able to believe that he or she is working faithfully to carry out God's purposes, and that God will eventually vindicate the work of the servant. "I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity, yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God." Even when our work does not make us popular here, even when we feel as if no one is listening - if we genuinely believe that what we are doing is just and right, God give us the wherewithal to carry on, even in the face of overwhelming discouragement.

Finally, I like that the servant may have some particular responsibility for Israel, but it does not end there. I take that to mean that we too are intended to extend ourselves beyond our own nation. God says to the servant "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth." I pray that we who are at least attempting to follow Christ can heed that call. Hopefully you know me well enough to know that I am not talking about forcing everyone to think like us. I do believe, however, that the more all children of God open themselves to one another, proudly proclaiming who we are but also being open to who someone else is, the closer we come to the holy Truth that is God. As we move toward that truth, I believe that God becomes even more of a light to all the nations.

To make a quick jump forward of about 800 years before we close - the apostle Paul was coping with some of the same problems that God's people wrestle with today. The people of the Corinthian church argued about matters of order and worship, they wanted to make sure that everything was done right, and they did not exactly have a blueprint to follow. The Christians were still largely misunderstood and distrusted and persecuted. But Paul reminds them: your lives have been made richer through your relationship with Jesus Christ. You have been enriched by grace. That same grace will give you what you need to get past petty differences and move on to joyful service to our Lord. In this same letter, Paul implores the Corinthians to move past their arguments and unite around their call to be God's church. "I appeal to you," he writes, "by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose." I hope that is our appeal as well - that we can be united not only as a congregation but with all who hope for an alternative to the way our world is today, and that we might find our purpose (as individuals and as a community of faith) in creating that alternative.

Amen.