They had spent three years with
the Nazarene. Watching him, listening to him, walking with him, healing with
him, eating and sleeping with him: how could they have missed this message
about the sword?
When Jesus is arrested in the
Garden of Gethsemane, we discover (Luke 22:49) that the disciples -at least
some of them- are carrying swords. "Lord, should we strike with our
swords?" they ask Jesus. Before Jesus can answer one of them pulls out his
sword and cuts off the right ear of a servant of the high priest. (Matthew and
Luke are polite enough not to mention that the impulsive, violent one is Simon
Peter. The writer of John lets us know Peter is the one who resorted first to
the sword.)
"No more of this!"
Jesus shouts (Luke 22:51) as he touches the man's ear and heals him. In Matthew
26:52, Jesus says, "Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the
sword will die by the sword."
I'm writing this a few days after
several Las Vegas police officers were murdered by a couple driven out of their
right minds by right-wing paranoid fantasies. Today brings the news that there
has been another school shooting, this time in Oregon.
I am -like so many of you-
heartbroken by this seemingly unending series of mass murders by gun in our
nation. My first impulse is to react to some of the more extreme positions of a
gun lobbying organization. My second impulse is to discuss what the founders of
the republic intended when they talked about the right to bear arms, and quote
those law experts who say that is about the right to a militia but not every
person's right to own an AK-47. I will resist those impulses and focus on who
we are as followers of the Galilean.
I'm not going to address what a
gun lobbying organization may say or do. I'm not going to pretend to be an
expert on the Bill of Rights. What about a more radical approach? Let's just
point to the Nazarene. Let's point to The Book. Let's go back to who we are and
whose we are.
Jesus, when he sees violence done
in the Garden, shouts, "No more of this!" And then, in another
account, the Nazarene says, "Put your sword back in its place, for all who
draw the sword will die by the sword."
So if Jesus is the Prince of
Peace, if Jesus is the One who refuses to resort to the sword even when he is
about to be arrested (he knows things are going to go badly in the hearing
before the Sanhedrin and Pilate), then what does that say about how we are to
view violence? Doesn't it say something about our community having the courage
to not use violence as a way of expressing frustration or exerting power?
Beyond avoiding the use of the
sword, we are called to be peacemakers. We are to carry the seeds of God's
peace out into the world. We are to go to those who have something against us.
We are not to slap back when we have been slapped. We're with the Prince of
Peace. We are his people. We are the sheep of his pasture. We know his voice.
Another shooting. I want to
shout, "No more of this!" I sit in my office and pray
-again- for those whose lives
will never be the same because of what has happened today. And I whisper,
"Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy."
In Christ and for Christ,
Mark
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