Love awakened

In this is love: not that we have loved God,
but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
1 John 4:10

Love is essentially God’s gift. Our love is a response to that gift and should reflect God’s love.

Today’s Gospel shows the love of God, Jesus full of compassion, feeling in the depths of his being for the people, without a shepherd. In his love he sought to feed them – but not without the cooperation of the disciples.

Shantidas

Thirty five years ago today, on January 5, 1981, Lanza del Vasto died. An Italian he studied philosophy but really didn’t find his meaning in life until after going to India and meeting with Gandhi and other holy men. His pilgrimage is related in Return to the Source.

Gandhi gave him the name “Shantidas,” the Servant of Peace. Later, he and his wife Chanterelle, with others founded the Community of the Ark, as a kind of Noah’s Ark in the midst of the violence of the times.

The community eschewed many modern conveniences and sought to live a nonviolent life, finally establishing a community in a beautiful and isolated valley in southwest France. They lived without electricity (except to grind their wheat), families and single people, with a regimen of work and prayer.

But they did not isolate themselves from the world. Lanza del Vasto and the community participated in many nonviolent campaigns in France. He also went to Rome in the early sixties to fast for peace; he was given an advanced copy of Pope John XXIII’s peace encyclical, Pacem in Terris.

When I visited the community in 1973, I participated in the daily life of the community, praying and working in the garden. But the last day and evening I spent with community at a demonstration in the nearby Larzac, where the people were fighting against the militarization of their lands.

Shantidas’ message was not an easy one, but I think it was based in his deep faith in Christ, a faith which opened itself to all faiths.

An example of this is noted in this short description of love from his Principles and Precepts of a Return to the Obvious:

Learn that virile charity that has severe words for those who flatter, serene words for those who fight you, warm words for the weary, strong for the suffering, clear for the blind, measured for the proud, and a bucketful of water and a stick for the sleepers.

Love should wake us up to feel with the compassion of God and be of service to God’s people.

it is not easy – as Dorothy Day reminds us by her citation from Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov:

Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thin compared to love in dreams.

May we wake up and love!

 

Nonviolence and courage

On October 2, 1869, Mohandas Karamchad Gandhi was born.

We know him better as Mahatma Gandhi, but Mohandas became the Mahatma, the Great-Souled One, only after going through a series of events that purified his soul and moved him to respond in loving nonviolence to the injustices around him.

When I was an undergraduate student, I came across Gandhi and Nonviolence, Thomas Merton’s selection of quotes from Gandhi’s Nonviolence in Peace and War.

What struck me then was Gandhi’s insistence that nonviolence is not passivity. Nonviolence – ahimsa – is an active response to injustice, even to the point of giving one’s life.

Gandhi insisted that it was not nonviolence to give in to injustice. For him it was better to resist violently than to let the violent continue their oppression and death-dealing. Of course, nonviolence is better and preferable.

As he wrote:

A non-violent man or woman will and should die without retaliation, anger or malice, in self-defense or in defending the honor of his women folk. This is the highest form of bravery. If an individual or group of people are unable or unwilling to follow this great law of life, retaliation or resistance unto death is the second best though a long way off from the first. Cowardice is impotence worse than violence. The coward desires revenge but being afraid to die, he looks to others, maybe to the government of the day, to do the work of defense for him. A coward is less than a man. He does not deserve to be a member of a society of men and women.

This insight has been important for me since I tend to avoid violence and conflict. But Gandhi makes it clear that true nonviolence – ahimsa – is satyagraha, holding on to truth – even at the cost of our lives.

And so today, remembering the birth of Gandhi, I feel called to reflect on courage and resistance to evil – out of love and intent on the truth.

It’s not easy. It’s a continual conversion, a continual letting go, a continual asceticism. It’s, for me as a follower of Christ, a way of following Jesus, who gave himself up even to the Cross – out of love.

Courage and nonviolence

Do not throw aside your boldness…
You need patient endurance to do the will of God…
Hebrews 10: 35-36

 Today is the international day of peace and nonviolence.

On January 30, 1948, Mohandas Gandhi, the Mahatma (the Great-souled one), was assassinated by a fanatic.

Gandhi had led the people of India in a long nonviolent campaign for independence. He also sought an end to the caste system and the marginalization of the so-called “untouchables.” In addition, he sought reconciliation between Hindus and Moslems.

The first writings of his that I remember reading were in the collection of Thomas Merton, Gandhi on Nonviolence.

What most impressed me was Gandhi’s insistence that nonviolence demands courage. A coward cannot be a practitioner of nonviolence. It is easier for a soldier to struggle nonviolently than for a coward. A soldier knows that he (or she) must be willing to sacrifice one’s life for others.

The votary of nonviolence must be courageous and willing to struggle, willing to die. If she or he cannot, it is better to use violence than to flee, as noted int hse two quotes of Gandhi from Merton’s book:

A non-violent man or woman will and should die without retaliation, anger or malice, in self-defense or in defending the honor of his women folk. This is the highest form of bravery. If an individual or group of people are unable or unwilling to follow this great law of life, retaliation or resistance unto death is the second best though a long way off from the first. Cowardice is impotence worse than violence . The coward desires revenge but being afraid to die, he looks to others, maybe to the government of the day, to do the work of defense for him. A coward is less than a man. He does not deserve to be a member of a society of men and women.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. Violence is any day preferable to impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become nonviolent. There is no such hope for the impotent.

Nonviolence is a weapon of those without power – but it is not weakness.

Many think of nonviolence as passivity; probably for this reason, Gandhi called his method Satygraha – the force, the strength, of truth.

In Brazil, the method has been called firmeza permanente – permanent firmness.

In many ways this phrase mirrors what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews advocates:

Do not throw aside your boldness …
You need patient endurance/steadfastness to do the will of God.

May we learn boldness and endurance to live as followers of Christ and be true instruments of peace.

The poor and peace

El Greco’s St. Martin

St. Martin of Tours, whose feast is celebrated today, is well known for a simple act of charity.

He had been forced to join the military, probably in part due to his father being a member of the military. One day, in Amiens, in the cold of winter, he encountered a beggar. Having nothing more than his cloak, he cut it in half and gave one half to the poor man. That night in a dream he saw Christ clothed in the cloak; Christ affirmed the charity of this simple act: “Martin, still a catechumen, has covered me with this cloak.”

Martin then proceeded to be baptized.

But baptism brought another challenge.

Martin refused to go into battle. “I am a soldier of Christ. It is not lawful for me to fight.”

He was accused of cowardice and imprisoned, though he was subsequently released from military service.

Martin shows us that the way of Christ is care for the poor, sharing what we have, and refusing to kill, even our enemies.

Neither of these acts is easy, but love of the poor and the love of the enemy should be the marks of a follower of the poor man of Nazareth who died on a cross, forgiving his enemies.

They are also what we need today.

Today is also Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of World War I, the war to end all wars.

Recalling this, I want to share the words of General Omar Bradley, which compliment the example of St. Martin:

“With the monstrous weapons man already has, humanity is in danger of being trapped in this world with its moral adolescence. Our knowledge of science has clearly outstripped our capacity to control it. We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Mankind is stumbling blindly through spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death….

“…the world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience, Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace; more about killing, than we know about living.”

Would that we learn how to live and love as Martin showed us, following in the steps of Jesus.

Following our deepest impulses

Joy and growth come from following our deepest impulses,
however foolish they may seem to some, or dangerous,
and even though the apparent outcome may be defeat.
A .J. Muste

A. J. Muste, who died at the age of eighty-two on February 11, 1967, was one of the most important leaders of active nonviolence in the US in the twentieth century. Born in Holland, A. J. (Abraham Johannes) had been a Dutch Reformed minister in Michigan until his pacifist opposition to World War I led his congregation to dismiss him as their pastor.

Though he is relatively unknown, he had a major impact on efforts for peace, in part during his role as executive secretary of the U.S. Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith pacifist group. But he made a major impact on peace efforts after he left that role.

I have seen pictures of him climbing over a fence to protest nuclear weapons, standing with Dorothy Day to witness the burning of draft cards during the Viet Nam war. The year before he died he made a trip to North Viet Nam to see the devastation wrought by US bombs.

He seems to have been a gentle soul, though resilient in his struggles for peace.

Some may think all this was foolhardy – but as he said to a reporter questioning a vigil outside a nuclear weapons base, “I don’t do this to change the world. I do it to keep the world from changing me.”

He followed his deepest impulses and is an example to many of us who still hold the dream of nonviolence and justice, who see the wisdom of one of his most famous statements:

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.

Justice and peace shall kiss

El Greco’s St. Martin

St. Martin of Tours, whose feast is celebrated today, brings together two aspects of early Christianity that we would sometimes like to forget.

St. Martin is most known for cutting his cloak in half to give to a beggar in the cold of winter. That night he had a dream of Christ, clothed in the cloak. His concern for the poor continued throughout his life.

But St. Martin also demonstrates the early church’s opposition to war. Martin had been forced to become a soldier, probably because his father was a military tribune. But, faced with the prospect of killing others in battle, he told his commander, “I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight.”

He offered to go into battle the next day unarmed. Instead he was jailed. He was subsequently released and became a monk and then the bishop of Tours.

His love for peace and nonviolence led him to go on a peacemaking visit to Candes, even though he knew he was dying.

Martin shows us that we are called to love and care for all – to care for the poor and to love even our enemies, not kill them.

Today is Armistice Day, a day originally established to remember the end of what later became know as the First World War. In the US it is Veterans Day.

But Saint Martin of Tours is a challenge to war and injustice. He calls us to imitate the poor and nonviolent Jesus, his Master and ours.

But St. Martin was not the only former soldier to warn about war. General Omar Bradley once said:

“With the monstrous weapons man already has, humanity is in danger of being trapped in this world with its moral adolescence. Our knowledge of science has clearly outstripped our capacity to control it. We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. [Humanity] is stumbling blindly through spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death….

“…the world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience, Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace; more about killing, than we know about living.”

Would that we knew the ways of peace. (Luke 19: 42)

International Day of Nonviolence

Because today is the anniversary of Gandhi’s birth in 1869, it is also the International Day of Nonviolence.

In their 1983 Pastoral Letter on Peace, The Challenge of Peace, the US bishops wrote some words that may provide us with some challenge and inspiration today as we seek to follow the non-violent Jesus.

111. Moved by the example of Jesus’ life and by his teaching, some Christians have from the earliest days of the Church committed themselves to a nonviolent lifestyle. Some understood the gospel of Jesus to prohibit all killing. Some affirmed the use of prayer and other spiritual methods as means of responding to enmity and hostility.

115. In the centuries between the fourth century and our own day, the theme of Christian non-violence and Christian pacifism has echoed and re-echoed, sometimes more strongly, sometimes more faintly. One of the great non-violent figures in those centuries was St. Francis of Assisi. Besides making personal efforts on behalf of reconciliation and peace, Francis stipulated that laypersons who became members of his Third Order were not “to take up lethal weapons, or bear them about, against anybody.”

116. The vision of Christian non-violence is not passive about injustice and the defense of the rights of others; it rather affirms and exemplifies what it means to resist injustice through non-violent methods.

117. In the twentieth century, prescinding from the non-Christian witness of a Mahatma Gandhi and its worldwide impact, the nonviolent witness of such figures as Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King has had profound impact upon the life of the Church in the United States.

May the God of Peace guide our lives and hearts to live as people of peace.

 

The discomfort of loving enemies

Neither of today’s lectionary readings (Colossians 3: 12-17 and Luke 6: 27-38) should provide comfort to the militarists – nor to most of us.

Paul (Colossians 3: 12) puts the call to love and forgiveness at the center of what it means to be a disciple:

Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.

But Jesus in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6: 27-38) makes it distressingly real:

To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you….
… love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful.

In the midst of cries for war, vengeance, and the use of violence, the follower of Christ should be the person who seeks reconciliation and peace.

But peace does not mean ignoring injustice, ignoring criminal acts. It means seeking new imaginative ways to work for peace and justice in the world.

The Christian choice is not between aggression and submission. It is the choice to find new and imaginative ways to be on the side of the victims, without seeking the conversion of the victimizers.

The choice for life is the choice for breaking down barriers, even as we identify with the victims.

I think John Paul Lederach put it well in The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace:

Transcending violence is forged by the capacity to generate, mobilize, and build the moral imagination.… the moral imagination requires the capacity to imagine ourselves in a web of relationships that includes our enemies; the ability to sustain a paradoxical curiosity that embraces complexity without reliance on dualistic polarity; the fundamental belief in and pursuit of the creative act; and the acceptance of the inherent risk of stepping into the mystery of the unknown that lies beyond the far too familiar landscape of violence.

The mystery of imaginative, sacrificial reconciliation has been shown to us in Jesus, who refused to kill his enemies, but suffering for them (that is, for us) with love that offers a way to go beyond false divisions and dichotomies that separate us into enemies.

This is not easy. But it is the way of discipleship to which Paul call us (Colossians 3: 14-15) – “putting on love” and “letting the peace of Christ control out hearts.”

 

Dreams, nightmares, and a call to conversion

Fifty years ago, in 1963, thousands gathered in Washington, DC, calling for justice for African-Americans.

I remember watching it on a black and white television at home in Darby, a blue collar suburb of Philadelphia.

Martin Luther King’s speech inspired many of us with his dream of a country that lived out its belief that “all men [and women] are created equal.”

His speech laid out the biblical roots of this dream as well as the cost of trying to live this dream.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places made plain, and the crooked places be made straight and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

But Martin Luther King also saw the nightmare that has always been a possibility for the United States and other nations.

In ”Beyond Vietnam,” a speech a year before his death, he warned of what the US had become in the world.  He pleaded for an end to the Vietnam War:

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

And he identified the roots of this madness, this malady, this sin in the giant triplets of “racism, materialism, and militarism.”

But, like a good prophet he offered a way out:

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

Today as the US remembers Dr. King’s vision, the US government is considering the use of military violence in Syria and continues to support with arms and training repressive regimes.

King’s dream has been robbed of his prophetic power – the power to give us something to live for as well as the power of knowing what we must turn from if we want to live this dream.

And so we who are citizens of the US should take into account what Jesus says in today’s Gospel (Matthew 23: 29-31):

 Woe to you teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous. You say: “Had we lived in the time of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” Thus you yourselves confess to be descendants of those who murdered the prophets.

The nonviolent imagination of Jesus

If anyone strikes you on the right cheek,
turn the other to him as well.
Matthew 5: 39

 For many years I have thought that violence is a symptom of our lack of imagination.

 And so it was reaffirming to read John Paul Lederach’s The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, where he writes:

Transcending violence is forged by the capacity to generate, mobilize, and build the moral imagination.… Stated simply, the moral imagination requires the capacity to imagine ourselves in a web of relationships that includes our enemies; the ability to sustain a paradoxical curiosity that embraces complexity without reliance on dualistic polarity; the fundamental belief in and pursuit of the creative act; and the acceptance of the inherent risk of stepping into the mystery of the unknown that lies beyond the far too familiar landscape of violence.

We followers of Christ have been so taken in by the redemptive myth of violence that we fail to see the imaginative power of today’s lectionary reading from Matthew 5: 38 – 42. We take it as a mere private morality, with no political or social intent.

But it was blacks facing fire hoses and more in the south who mobilized the nation against segregation. It was Christians in Chile who also faced fire hoses as they stood before places of torture who prepared the war for the fall of a dictator. It is the young people of Turkey who faced tear gas and fire hoses who may, I pray open up the way to justice and democracy there.

Walter Wink wrote of the power of Jesus’ examples in the Gospels. See especially his small book Jesus and Nonviolence: a Third Way.  There he offers these aspects of that third way that we might practice – in our personal lives as well as in our struggles for justice, truly imaginative responses and initiatives:

• Seize the moral initiative.
• Find a creative alternative to violence.
• Asset your own humanity and dignity as a person.
• Meet force with ridicule or humor.
• Break the cycle of humiliation.
• Refuse to submit or to accept the inferior position.
• Expose the injustice of the system.
• Take control of the power dynamic.
• Shame the oppressor into repentance.
• Stand your ground.
• Force the Powers to make decisions for which they are not prepared.
• Recognize your own power.
• Be wiling to suffer rather than to retaliate.
• Cause the oppressor to see you in a new light.
• Deprive the oppressor of a situation where a show of force is effective.
• Be willing to undergo the penalty for breaking unjust laws.
• Die to fear of the old order and its rules.

I think theologian Diana L. Hayes sums it up well in her reflection for today in Give Us This Day:

Turning one’s cheek does not mean surrendering to bullies. It means learning how to stand, strong in faith, and overcome anger and hatred with love and compassion.