Sunday, October 24, 1993
BEYOND THE BARRICADE
Key Scripture - Deuteronomy 34: 1-12
On a clear day you can see the Promised Land. The land flowing with milk and honey, the land of peace and plenty, the land for which the people journeyed through wilderness and desert. Moses stood on the top of Mount Pisgah across the Jordan from Jericho. The Promised Land stretched endlessly before him.
“...Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as afar as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is the valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar.”
It was there! The Promised Land was real! All the hardships of the journey would pay off. All the struggles along the way would be rewarded. And although he would never enter the Promised Land, Moses was blessed with being able to see it.
The story of Moses standing and looking across the Jordan brought to my mind another story. The account of his being able to see a new reality which he would not be able to enter reminded me of another vision of a new reality. The vision of the world “Beyond the Barricade.” The image is taken from the musical, “Les Miserables.” In the midst of the poverty and wretchedness of pre-Revolutionary France; in the midst of the injustice, of helplessness and misery in the shadow of wealth and power, there was a longing for justice and equity.
The barricade became the symbol of resistance. It became the center of a struggle for dignity and freedom. The tables and chair piled in the street, the scraps of lumber, and bits of metal, and whatever the poor people could drag there, became their fortress. But when the battle was joined there was resounding defeat. There was no match between the forces of those who would struggle for justice and those who held power and wealth. The rebels were completely defeated. Most of the young men were killed in what seemed a senseless struggle. And the barricade now became a symbol of failure and defeat.
But that is not where the story ends. Once the battle had been joined there was no going back to business as usual. Once the barricade had arisen there was no going back to life before the barricade. It was in this context of hope frustrated, in this atmosphere of dreams disappointed that the vision would not die. And in the final scene building from a quiet chorus in the first stanza into a moving crescendo the whole cast is on-stage for the finale.
“Do you hear the people sing
Lost in the valley of the night?
It’s the music of the people
Who were striving to the light.
For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies;
Even the darkest night shall end
And the sun will rise.
They will live again in freedom
In the garden of the Lord;
They will walk behind their plowshares,
They will put away the sword.
The chain will be broken,
And then will have their reward.
Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say, do you hear the distant drum?
This is the future that they bring
When tomorrow comes.
“Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?”
You know there is. The struggle for peace with justice is never easy. Most of the time we plod on in our journey without the benefit of being able to see the Land beyond the Jordan. We keep stumbling in the darkness because there is a flame within us which just won’t go out.
For some reason the El Salvadors, the South Africas, the Bosnias are forever popping up. Whether there are two super-powers or just one doesn’t seem to matter. What comes after Bosnia? In a world in which there is always enough money to buy guns and bombs, and never enough to buy food and health care, you can be sure that something will come up. A world economy that is dependent upon the production of arms is ultimately dependent on the creation and maintainance of a system in which injustice is perpetuated so that conflicts will continue.
Those who will work for peace with justice know the odds. And they know that the odds are against them. The guns and the bombs are all on the other side. The political power is all on the other side. The wealth and social approval are all on the other side. Jean Bertrand Aristide becomes the symbol of the struggle. A Roman Catholic priest who is thought to be emotionally unstable, subject to periods of depression. The elected leader of the hemisphere’s poorest nation. And on the other side the wealthy and privileged ones, with the police and the army on their side, and with Jesse Helms and Bob Dole in their corner. And suddenly the barricade seems very flimsy, and the cause seems shaky and hopeless.
But as flimsy and shaky as the barricade may be, and as great the power on the other side, the barricade is the symbol of resistance. The symbol of those who would rather die struggling for freedom, than live even in a comfortable slavery.
But the barricade is not out there, not something which separates the good guys from the bad. The barricade is within us. It is the symbol of our own inner struggle. The struggle to be faithful in the midst of a middle class society with middle class values is very real and very difficult. The barricade is a part of my experience. The world I have tried to make for my children is not necessarily the world for which I struggle in my ideals. The vision of a comfortable middle class life for them, in a comfortable middle class neighborhood, with their two jobs, two cars and two and a half children. The piano lessons, the ballet lessons, the soccer league and nintendo games, are the things we want to secure for our children.
Yes, the barricade is a very real presence in our lives. Our ideals and our realities are often separate and different worlds. We seem to be drawn into a powerful vortex which sucks us all into a mindless materialism. We are drawn irresistibly into a lifestyle we resist in our thinking and ideals. Our ideals cry out against our compromise, and the barricades arise.
“Somewhere beyond the barricadeA world in which the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, a world in which they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war anymore.
Is there a world you long to see?”
“Somewhere beyond the barricadeYou know there is. It is the world of peace with justice which we champion in the ideal, but which we undermine in our struggle for the fulfillment of our middle class dreams.
Is there a world you long to see?”
“Do you hear the people sing
Lost in the valley of the night?
It’s the music of the people
Who were striving to the light.
For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies;
Even the darkest night shall end
And the sun will rise.
They will live again in freedom
In the garden of the Lord;
They will walk behind their plowshares,
They will put away the sword.
The chain will be broken,
And then will have their reward.
Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say, do you hear the distant drum?
This is the future that they bring
When tomorrow comes.
Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say, do you hear the distant drum?
This is the future that they bring
When tomorrow comes.
