There is No Peace on Earth When the Belfries of Christendom Are Full of Clanging Symbols

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Christmas Bells” is a stunning poetic study on the contours of the current sins of the church. In Longfellow’s day, the “black accursed mouth” of civil war was enlarged by the mouths of preachers justifying the enslavement of other humans with robust biblical exegesis. Politically, churches were one of the biggest reasons slavery, and segregation/Jim Crow laws after the war, were justifiable by the majority public in the South.

Today in the “belfries of Christendom”, as Longfellow’s poem depicts, “hate is strong/and mocks the song/of peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

In fact, hate defines Christendom today. Who mocks the “song of peace” on earth the loudest? Christians. The seat of the scornful is in the pulpit and the pews.

I’ve been thinking the phrase in 1 Corinthians 13: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”

I wonder if today’s “tongues of men and angels” includes the theological prowess of those who pride themselves on their years of Greek and Hebrew and eschatology and Reformation history and extensive catechesis, exegesis — those with their concise and thorough understanding of all the Christian creeds. I wonder if it includes those who deem Christianity a mental assent to doctrine and use their righteous orthodoxy justify apathy in the face of suffering, because their abstract knowledge about the creator means more than the least of these whom God joined in the flesh: Emmanuel.

We can’t listen, because we’re too busy claiming we know better than everyone else. Our so-called “good news for all people” has been weaponized against the very people Jesus came to seek and save. And our proclamations are anything but good tidings.

We may speak with the tongues of men and angels, but the bells in our steeples have become cannon barrels.

In Luke 10 Jesus sends out 72 disciples to prepare the way for his good news. He sent them out empty-handed, and here is what he told them:

“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you.”

Then he tells them to eat and drink. Heal the sick, and proclaim that the kingdom of God is here. Good news precludes good news.

But first, emptyhandness. And a proclamation of peace.

What did the angels tell the shepherds?

Peace.

On earth.

What did Jesus tell his disciples to pray to the father?

Your will be done.

On earth.

When the body of Christ is sitting up in the choir balcony, full of hot air, we can’t partake in the immanent Kingdom of God. James has harsh words for us, the ones who claim to be pure before God yet using our tongues to deceive instead of heal: “your religion is worthless,” he says.

How do we know our faith is real, then?

Ask the orphans and widows, says James.

Ask the women leaving churches where abuse is normal and moralized. Ask the queer people speaking up for the value of their lives despite being told they’re hated by their creator for existing. Ask the Black men that are incarcerated and executed if they aren’t strangled on the street first. Ask the indigenous people being arrested for advocating for the health of an earth groaning from the consequences of our greed. Ask the children behind wire fences at the border, being rationed toothpaste and plastic thermal blankets.

You have hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to little children.

If you claim to carry the good news of Jesus, leave your shoes and walking stick of theological accuracy behind. You are needed, but not as another voice spouting biblical “truth” bearing the fruit of hatred.

You’re needed at the table. Your tongue, quiet for a while, can taste and see that the Lord is good: If you can’t offer living water and the bread of life to the least of these, perhaps it’s time to receive it from them instead.

Until we stop our flapping tongues and open our mouths to recieve the communion of saints: this is my body, broken for you — we will miss the nourishment of the spirit as well — and we will be thumbing our noses right over the feast.