There is an aphorism about preaching that says the preacher “must hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” This is often attributed to the influential Swiss theologian Karl Barth, whom Time Magazine in the 1960s called “the greatest living Protestant theologian.” Truth is, however, that he never really said it. What he actually said, in an interview with Time in 1963, was, “Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”[1] In other words, try to understand events in the world through the lens of Scripture and take guidance from it as you seek to live in this world.

As I followed the news media the past few weeks, two stories stood out for me. One was the witness of the women who are the surivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s human trafficking enterprise. The other was the tale of the US Women’s Ice Hockey team who won the Olympic gold medal but were nonetheless made the butt of a joke by the president. It seemed to me that John’s story of Jesus’ long conversation with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well offers us a lens through which to view these news stories. So I started making notes for a sermon along those lines.

And then the United States bombed Iran with the Secretary of Defense insisting in a news conference on Monday that “prayer plays a role in ‘every decision’.” Mr. Hegseth concluded that presser by addressing American troops directly saying, “May Almighty God watch over you and His providential arms of protection extend over you. Godspeed, warriors, and keep going.”[2] As I heard the Secretary’s words, I was reminded of something else Professor Barth said fifty years earlier than that advice about reading newspapers. In a sermon in August of 1914 he said:

It is simply out of the question that God ‘helps’ the Germans or the French or the English [or the Americans!]. God does not even ‘help’ us Swiss. God helps justice and love. God helps the kingdom of heaven, and that exists across all national boundaries. … The foolish mixing of patriotism, war enthusiasm, and Christian faith could one day lead to the bitterest disappointment … We will not join in drinking this intoxicating potion. We want to look steadfastly and unwaveringly here to God, who loves everyone equally, who is above all the nations, from whom all have similarly departed, and from whose glory they have fallen short – the God who in like manner wants to draw all people to himself and gather them under the rule of his good and holy will.[3]

That the person to whom Jesus spoke respectfully was a woman who then became an evangelist to her people and, according to legend, a great martyr and an equal to the apostles,[4] while enormously meaningful seems of less importance now than that she was a Samaritan.

John parenthetically remarks in our lesson that “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.”[5] This is a very mild and understated way to describe a relationship better described as abject hatred! As the notes in one study bible put it, “Hatred between Jews and Samaritans was fierce and long-standing.”[6] Despite this enmity, Jesus the Jew talks with the Samaritan woman and then stays with the Samaritan community for two days.

America’s enmity with Iran is similarly “fierce and long-standing.” It perhaps goes back as far as August of 1953 when the duly elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh “was removed from power in a coup organized and financed by the British and U.S. governments.”[7] It certainly extends back to Iran’s Islamic Revolution in November of 1979 when “militant Islamic fundamentalist Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Teheran and took hostage the 66 Americans inside.”[8] And perhaps the United States still has reason to fear potential hostile action by Iran, but that enmity and fear cannot justify war. Nonetheless, our government has launched what its spokesmen have called “a preventive war against an imminent Iranian threat to US national security.”[9] But we Episcopalians cannot accept that justification. As our General Convention said more than seventy years ago:

Believers in a God of Justice and Love as revealed in Christ cannot concede that war is inevitable… [But] voices are occasionally raised suggesting that a preventive war would afford a short-cut through our present dilemma;… if this advice were accepted, the United States would be placed in an indefensible moral position before the world, as well as violate the fundamental teachings of Christ. Therefore … we unalterbly oppose the idea of so-called “preventive war.”[10]

Recently, the Rt. Rev. Robert L. Fitzpatrick, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Hawaii, in a pastoral letter to his diocese, shared a reflection on the current military action in light of Christian “just war doctrine.” I’d like to quote exensively from his letter:

In the history of Christian theology there has been long reflection on when a war might be just. Just war doctrine was developed by St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) and systematized by St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274). They articulated several criteria that [must] be met simultaneously for military action to be “just.” The Iran strikes raise serious problems for me in several ways.

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Just war doctrine requires that war be waged in response to a real, grave, immediate, and present injury. War must not be fought for speculative or preventive causes looking to a hypothetical future. It appears that intelligence assessments reportedly saw no imminent threat from Iran at the time of the strikes. The action appears to have been motivated more by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, possible development of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM), and regional influence than any immediate attack on the United States. Just war ethicists have traditionally been deeply skeptical of preventive war — war fought against a future hypothetical threat — as distinct from preemptive war against an imminent one.

War must be fought for peace and justice, not for geopolitical advantage or at the behest of allies. The attack came after a lobbying effort by Israel, raising questions about whether the motivation was genuinely defensive or driven by regional power politics.

This is perhaps the clearest failure under just war criteria. Aquinas held that only legitimate governing authority may wage war, and in the American constitutional context, that means Congress. The White House did not seek authorization from Congress to carry out the strikes.

The UN Charter framework is somewhat more clear-cut in its formal legal terms. Article 2(4) of the Charter prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” There are only two recognized exceptions: action authorized by the UN Security Council under Chapter VII (which authorizes collective security measures), and self-defense under Article 51 in response to an armed attack.

Neither exception appears to apply cleanly here. There is no indication the Security Council authorized the strikes — and given Russia and China’s veto power, such authorization would have been impossible. On self-defense, Article 51 requires an “armed attack” to have occurred. The administration’s justification rested on Iran’s nuclear program and support for proxy groups, not a specific armed attack against the United States. A preventive strike to forestall a possible future threat does not meet the Article 51 standard under mainstream international law interpretation.

The killing of Ayatollah Khamenei adds an additional dimension. The targeted assassination of a sitting head of state is widely considered a violation of international law, potentially including the Vienna Convention – a widely recognized treaty governing treatment of heads of state and diplomats – and customary international humanitarian law’s protections for protected persons.

Bypassing the deliberative body representing the people as defined by the Constitution, ignoring the UN Charter, and paying no attention to established international law seems to violate the spirit of “proper authority” as most Christian ethicists understand it.

Just war requires that all peaceful alternatives be exhausted. The U.S. had held talks with Iran in Geneva just days before the strikes, with some signs of progress but without a significant breakthrough. Launching massive attacks while diplomacy was still underway is very difficult to square with the last-resort criterion.

Just war forbids fighting a war that will only produce greater chaos. The President acknowledged “the lives of courageous American heroes may be lost,” and at this time the conflict had already spread to ten countries, with Iran attacking American allies across the Persian Gulf and Middle East. The strategic endgame remains undefined.

The strikes face challenges on at least five of the traditional criteria for a just war: just cause (no imminent threat), proper authority (no congressional authorization and acting in violation of the UN Charter), last resort (diplomacy was ongoing), proportionality (massive scale and assassination of a head of state), and reasonable chance of success (undefined objectives, rapidly spreading conflict).[11]

I submit to you that Bishop Fitzpatrick’s conclusion is well-founded: our country’s actions in Iran do not meet the ethical criteria of a just war.

Today, we stand with our newspapers in one hand and our Bible in the other. In the media, we read stories of strong women triumphing over the trauma of sexual predation but being disbelieved and stories of strong women triumphing in sports but being disrespected; in the Bible today, we read of a woman respected by Jesus and believed by her neighbors. We would like to reconcile these stories, but before we can, our attention is pulled away by other stories in the media.

In the news, we see our nation rushing to war with a hated and feared enemy; in today’s gospel lesson, we see our Lord reaching out in love to his people’s hated and feared enemies. We cannot reconcile these pictures. We cannot engage in the “foolish mixing of patriotism, war enthusiasm, and Christian faith,” and “will not join in drinking this intoxicating potion.”[12] Like the Secretary of Defense, we pray that God will watch over our armed forces and protect them, but where Mr. Hegseth wished them “Godspeed” and urged them to “keep going,” we wish them God’s Peace and pray that they come home. Amen.

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This homily was offered by the Rev. Dr. C. Eric Funston on the Third Sunday in Lent, March 8, 2026, to the people of St. Hubert’s Episccopal Church, Kirtland Hills, Ohio, where Fr. Funston was guest presider and preacher.

The lessons for the service were Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; and St. John 4:5-42. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.

The illustration is “Christ and the Samaritan Woman” by Vincenzo Catena, circa 1525, in the collection of the Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC.

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Notes:
Click on footnote numbers to link back to associated text. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations from Scripture are from the New Revised Version Updated Edition.

[1] Barth in Retirement, Religion, Time Magazine, May 31, 1963, p. 58, 60.

[2] Ryan Foley, Pete Hegseth says he prays for US troops, ‘biblical wisdom’ amid conflict in Iran, The Christian Post, March 04, 2026.

[3] Karl Barth, Sermon preached August 30, 1914, A Unique Time of God: Karl Barth’s WWI Sermons, William Klempa, tr. (Westminster John Knox, Louisville:2016), p. 100.

[4] See Therese Koturbash, Photini, The Samaritan Woman at the Well and One of the First Active Apostles, Women’s Ordination Worldwide, February 27, 2020.

[5] John 4:9b (NRSVUe)

[6] The Word in Life Study Bible (Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville:1993), p. 340.

[7] Aug. 19, 1953: U.S. and Britain Topple Democratically Elected Government of Iran, Zinn Education Project, undated.

[8] Gregory L. Schneider, Jimmy Carter and the Iran Hostage Crisis, Bill of Rights Institute, undated.

[9] Richard Falk, An Unlawful War, The Nation, March 4, 2025.

[10] Resolution on Preventive War (adopted September 16, 1952), Journal of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America 1952 (DFMS, New York:Digital Copyright 2022), p. 259.

[11] The Rt. Rev. Robert L. Fitzpatrick, The Bishop’s Reflection on Just War Doctrine and Current Military Action in Iran, Diocese of Hawaii, March 3, 2026.

[12] See note 3, supra.