Dear Friends,
Nowhere in the Gospel does Jesus ever advocate violence. In
the Garden of Gethsemane, where Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus, Jesus says,
“no more” and heals Malchus.
Jesus is a non-violent teacher of non-violence. In the
Sermon on the Mount, for example, Jesus offers two imaginative non-violent
responses to violence.
“When someone strikes you on one cheek,” He says, “turn the
other cheek.” The theologian Walter Wink offers insight into the meaning of
that call. When people in the military would strike their inferiors, it would
be with a backhanded slap to the left cheek. To turn the other cheek was, in
effect, to say to the violent person: if you hit me on my right cheek, it means
you acknowledge I am your equal. This would give the violent person pause.
The second admonition of Jesus was equally clever. “When
someone asks you to go a mile with them, go two.” Again, from Walter Wink we
learn that the someone in that admonition was actually a Roman soldier. By
Roman law, the soldier could press a civilian to carry his ninety pounds of
gear for one mile, but not more. For the civilian to carry it more than a mile
might sound generous. In fact, the soldier could be found disobedient to the
law. The civilian undermined the military in a non-violent way.
A unique characteristic of the 20th Century was
the international rise of non-violence to solve problems. Gandhi and Martin
Luther King Jr., the Mennonites and Quakers were prime proponents of non-violence.
Their protegees included the American Trappist monk Thomas Merton, who told us,
“The way to silence error is by truth and not by violence.”
This decade of the 21st century has found
Americans descending deeper into violence on our streets, with guns, killing
multiple people who are strangers for ideological reasons or out of rage.
Abortion, domestic abuse, senseless aggression all arise from and lead to
violence.
Are we helpless? Not really, but we do have to exert and
discipline ourselves for action.
Training in non-violent ways of problem – solving is
necessary at a personal level. So too are learning empathetic listening and
assertive, non-judgmental, non-destructive speech. These require a discipline,
which we might need to do in tandem with others. If you have a computer, go to
several sites to see where groups of people are learning and sharing the
practice of non-violence. Braver Angels is a citizens organization
uniting red and blue Americans in a working alliance to depolarize America. (The
term Braver Angels comes from Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural speech in 1861.) Go
to the Center for Non-Violence Communication or Global
Citizens. On the Global Citizens website, you can read how 100,000
Estonians in 1988 gathered for five nights of group singing to protest Soviet
rule. It worked.
As Americans, we can be creators of and joiners in movements
of non-violence. The time to do this work is now. Let the peace of Christ which
binds us together be the source of our strength as we learn to live in love and
peace with one another.
~Sister Joan Sobala
