“Peace Child”Text: John 6: 51-58
Pastor Noel Anderson, First Presbyterian Church of Upland
MISSION STORIES
For August, we’re looking at Mission Stories. Over the next few weeks you’ll be hearing about missionaries and mission projects—all of which remind us that God is at work in the world revealing himself in unexpected ways.
As we prepare to come to the table, today we will have a most unusual meditation with an extraordinary application—one which ought to ready us all for communion. Our story today is called “Peace Child.” Our text is from the Gospel of John. [John 6: 51-58 NRSV]
MAVO OF HAINAM
Don Richardson and his wife met at Bible College in Canada. Once they fell in love, they jumped into the adventure of marriage, but also something else extraordinary—they jumped into the life of missionaries to unreached tribes of Papua, New Guinea in Irian Jaya.
Irian Jaya, in what was then called Netherlands New Guinea, is dense rainforest with hundreds of primitive tribes—all still living in a stone age civilization. Two of those river villages, Kamoor and Hainam, hold tribes that have been feuding on and off for hundreds—perhaps thousands—of years. One day, a man named Mavo from Hainam was fishing from a dugout canoe and ventured too close to the village of Kamoor. From the shore, he bent down for a drink of water when he found himself surrounded by Kamoor warriors. But this was a peaceful time. The soldiers reassured Mavo not to worry; they wanted him to serve as a go-between between his people of Hainam and the people of Kamoor. It was an honored position, and boosted his status at home in Hainam.
Mavo made many trips to Kamoor and brought communications back and forth—some resolving old differences and others portending new exchanges between their people. Mavo was to receive a special honor—a feast in recognition of all he had done in working between the two villages.
Wild pig, grubs, and sago(their staple) covered the table. It was a lovely event, but then the warriors slowly stood, all smiling, and they killed Mavo with stone clubs. After murdering him, they ate his brains and the whole village shared in eating him. Like most cannibals in the primitive world, they believed that when you ate the flesh of your enemy, you take in his life-force, his power, and his luck. Remember as well that ancients—even the Jews—believed that blood was literally “life blood” and one’s eternal soul resided in the blood. When one was killed, his lifeblood cried out to God from the ground. This is partially why the Jews had a strict prohibition against eating blood of any kind, let alone human blood. It is also why cannibals do drink blood—because by means of doing so you take greater soul and spirit into yourself, making your own life longer and more spiritually powerful.
MISSIONARIES TO THE SAWI
Don Richardson and his wife felt called to the Sawi people of Papua New Guinea. They travelled there with local missionaries and came to the village of Kamoor, telling the people they intended to move there and live among them. They were welcomed warmly. He told them they wanted to live among them and learn their language in order to bring them good news.
The Richardsons stepped into the stone age lifestyle of Kamool and began learning from the people. They found that the people treasured their young children above all else, but the mortality rate ran near 50 percent. Funerals were frequent. Death from animals, illnesses, and warfare between the villages was constant.
When there was a death, the people would wail and moan with a saying:
“Oh, message of immortality promised by our ancestors—where are you?”
The Richardson’s brought medicine (Carol was a registered nurse) and Don brought steel axes and saws which were vastly superior to their stone tools. He traded the people tools for their help in building their house among them. All the time, the Richardsons focused on learning the language of the Sawi peoples, ever eager to translate the story of Christ into their language.
BACKFIRE
In time, they could finally tell the story of God giving his son to save us. But something backfired, for when he told them about Judas betraying Jesus, they cackled—they loved Judas—he was their favorite, because for these people highly valued treachery. These were the same people who had cannibalized Mavo, so Judas—not Jesus—came off as the hero. They asked for the story again and again, only to celebrate Judas’ betrayal above all else.
The Richardsons were deeply discouraged and feared they’d never get beyond this cultural boundary. They prayed that they might yet find a way to tell the story of Jesus through the Sawi culture that could strike the right nerve. And it came, but it came through tragedy.
TRIBAL SKIRMISHES
Warriors of Hainam (Mavo’s people) challenged Kamoor to battle. The women of the village sounded the alarm and all the warriors quickly gathered.
There was much bad blood between these villages with many old scores to settle, including the murder of Mavo. The challenge was accepted by Isai, the warrior chieftan, with many threats and much boasting. The Richardsons found themselves surrounded with wounded and many dead. They implored Isai to end the conflict to no avail. They finally set down an ultimatum: either Isai and his warriors stop fighting or they would move to another Sawi village.”
Isai and his people wanted steel tools and medicine, so they agreed to make peace. But how can peace be made among villages whose greatest virtue is treachery, deception, and betrayal? How would any offering of peace be believed by their enemies in Hainam?
THE PEACE CHILD
Isai arranged a ceremony. Hainam and its warriors stood across from Kamoor and its warriors—all were prepared for a very solemn ceremony. Painfully, chief Isai took his own infant son—his only child—from his wife. She wailed with the loss. Isai walked his infant son down the line of his warriors. After each one touched the child, Isai offered his son to the chief warrior of Hainam, who accepted him as the parro—The Peace Child—and walked him down the line of his own warriors, each of whom touched him. The child was given into the care of a Hainam woman who would raise him as her own. As long as the child lived, the peace would be kept, and all the wrongs of the past would be as though they had never been.
Next, the two chiefs, standing side by side, were bound together by a warrior’s bow placed around them. When the bow string was cut, the peace was sealed. Then all the warriors of both sides cheered together as one. Don could now deliver the good news
“In the same way,” said Don, “God saw there could be no peace unless He gave His Son.”
For the Sawi, the peace lasts only as long as the child lives, but God sent the once-and-for-all Peace Child—and He will never die.
Isai, the chief, became the first Sawi Christian. He in turn shared the good news with the people, saying “Our ancestors’ promise of immortality has now arrived!” Jesus is God’s peace and eternal life for all who believe.
AFTERMATH
Don finished his translation of the New Testament into Sawi, and theThe Word spread. Before long, Sawi villagers from all over who had feuded endlessly for hundreds—even thousands—of years now gathered to worship in Jesus’ name. They gathered with music, joy, and fellowship—just like here.
Isai became one of several lay preachers, and for communion they had to use a tin can for a communion cup, because the people had no other drinking vessels.
THE BODY AND BLOOD OF GOD
How can we begin to imagine what these people feel when they take communion? It is far beyond us. We take a piece of bread and a sip of wine with some symbolic understanding of what we eat and drink. But these Sawi Christians experience something unthinkably large. When they are offered “The body and blood of Jesus Christ,” they know and feel that they are bringing into themselves the life-force of divinity. They take eternal life into themselves and the Spirit of God into their life. When they sip from the cup, it isn’t a measly splash of grape juice, but the lifeblood of God Almighty entering into their own bloodstreams.
Our text from John cannot avoid the cannibalistic imagery, no matter how hard you try. Verse 53:
“Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”
You may want to think of it as “merely metaphorical,” but Jesus leaves no room for that. Verses 55 & 56:
“My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”
Given the chance to explain and clarify, Jesus does not sidestep the gruesome imagery, but embraces it, which was so repugnant to the Jews that he lost disciples over it.
I tell you this morning, the Sawi of Irian Jaya in Papua New Guinea are closer to the gospel truth of Jesus than the Jews, and most evangelicals as well.
I love this text because it offends our civility and self-importance. We would be perfectly normal in asking, “Why is this even in the Bible?” Yes, why indeed would Jesus speak in such patent offenses to our sensibilities?
A couple possible reasons:
- Because we need to have our civilized sensibilities violated and disrespected. We are not the center. What we think and like are not important, but rather what God says, no matter how hard we find it to swallow.
- Because Jesus is the stumbling block who divides us out from our personal preferences and cherished comforts. The Gospel should trouble and offend us or else we live only in service of our own pride and dignity.
- (My favorite) Because this is there for the Sawi people and everyone like them. It is their blessing and their transformation, for by these words their former lives as cannibals privilege them with a unique and deep spirituality which, again, you and I can only imagine and make guesses at.
TO THE TABLE
So let’s think about it. Let’s consider the words of Jesus which violate our civilized selves and transform our former sins into God’s glory.
Let us tremble at the Table, awake to the reality that our participation in this sacrament is neither civilized nor safe, but threatens us at the level of our souls. It is insufficient that we merely participate, for these elements—the bread and the cup—enter our bodies and become part of our chemistry. But that ain’t the half of it. We eat the flesh of God and drink His blood, and in doing so, we take His life-force into us—His lifeblood becomes our lifeblood—running through our veins with divine power and eternal life. And we receive His true, spiritual power and empowerment in doing so.
Do not tame what is essentially wild. Let us not mock God by making his bodily sacrifice a mere metaphor.
By the Holy Spirit, we receive nothing less than He Himself in this meal.
“Take!” He says. “Eat!” He says. Do you hear? Those are commands not gentle requests. Jesus is not user-friendly; He is The Lord. He means to remake us and transform us. There is no other way we can be saved—no other way we can be at peace with Heaven. †
SOME QUESTIONS
- What were some of the keys to the Richardson’s mission success?
- Look again at the text from John. There is clearly no way to “lawyer out” the cannibalistic imagery. Why do you think Jesus positively embraced what was so patently offensive the the Jews?
- How does Jesus and his gospel offend you, us, and our cultural sense of decency?
- Why is the disruption of our dignity necessary for spiritual transformation?
- How might you think differently about the Lord’s Supper given Jesus’ words and the experience of our Sawi brothers and sisters?