Negotiations with Myself and with God – Br. Curtis Almquist

SSJE Sermons

Commemorating Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961)

Br. Curtis Almquist

Micah 6:6-8

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? … He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

We commemorate today Dag Hammarskjöld, the much beloved Swedish diplomat and Secretary General of the United Nations. In the church calendar he is called “Servant of Peace,” having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961. Hammarskjöld led the United Nations in negotiating the release of U.S. soldiers captured by the Chinese in the Korean War; in addressing tensions in the Middle East, particularly on behalf of Palestinians; in disarming the conflict around the custody of the Suez Canal; in establishing the first U.N. Observation Group in Lebanon; and in negotiating the horrific wars in Southeast Asia which began looming large in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Much of his work he called “preventive diplomacy.” He died in September1961 in a plane crash in central Africa while negotiating a peace accord in the warring Congo.

Hammarskjöld was such a powerful witness to the Prophecy of Micah: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” In his journal entitled “Markings,” Hammarskjöld describes his entries as “negotiations with myself… and with God.” He writes, “At some moment I did answer Yes to [God] and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.”

Saying Yes to God is foundational in our stewarding the life God has given to us. It is possible to live life “kicking against the goads” (to paraphrase Saint Paul): resisting or resenting the hand we have been dealt in life. In saying Yes to God, I am not suggesting our being passive in life, letting life roll over us, choosing to be a “victim” in ways over which we actually have the power and dignity to make changes. I am saying that our life is a gift from God. God is God; God operates in our life. God invites us to co-operate in stewarding the life to which we have been entrusted, to the opportunities afforded us, and to the limitations which surround us. To say Yes to life… which is hugely challenging and, I would say, equally necessary… and quite possible if we are to live a whole life, the whole life that God has given us.

Blessed Dag Hammarskjöld, whom we remember today.