Debrief

I knew going into this year’s Lenten Compact that it was going to be a challenge.  It was.  Every day, I was either confronted with my own violence (for me it is was more about domination and coercion than physical violence) or with the violence we accept as “normal” in our culture.  During the past 40 days, our nation got involved in another civil war (Libya), there were more murders in Chicago, the US House passed a budget that guts services to the poor and the marginalized.  While I was focused on Lent, the rest of the world went on as normal.  I grieved a lot over the past 40 days.

I appreciated that as we moved closer to Easter, the Scriptures we read shifted from a focus on violence to a focus on the “new creation” and God’s order of “shalom”.  With all the violence in and around me, I long for God’s reign.  And my Easter celebration was all the more hopeful as I considered that at the cross, the violence was exposed and absorbed and at empty tomb, the new day of God’s peace-full reign had begun.  Praise God!  My joy and hope is knowing that once God’s newness burst forth, nothing and no one can stop it.  And one day, the violence will end and God’s reign will be complete.  Maranatha!

Day 40

Today is the final day of Lent.  But will it be my final day to be nonviolent?  I hope not.  Today’s Scripture (1 Peter 3:8-12) gives me some incentive to stay on the course of peace.  I’d like a long life filled with God’s blessing, fulfilling relationships and happiness.  And if I’m seeking peace and pursuing it, I’m not only going to get a blessing; I’m giving a blessing to those around me.  Others will benefit. Doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God will bring joy to the world.

Fellow travelers, don’t become weary in working for peace.  In due time, we will reap a harvest.  We shall overcome…someday.

Day 39

April 22, 2011.  It is Good Friday.  It is also Earth Day. I began my day thinking that these two emphases are related.

Earth Day is a call to care for the planet that sustains us.  That is there an “Earth Day” exposes the truth that we  have abused it and polluted it and raped it for our own purposes.  We have done violence to the earth.  We have sinned against it.  Earth Day is a call to repentance.

Good Friday also calls us to repentance.  All we like sheep have gone astray.  In our arrogance and self-centeredness, we have lived for our own ends to our own destruction.  Our violence against the earth is just one example.  And Christ hangs on a cross, exposing our brokenness.  But the One on the cross also reveals the way of restoration.    We come to the cross because it is there that we can die to sin and live for righteousness.  (1 Peter 2:24-25)  It is at the cross that we are healed so we can live a new life–a life in restored and new relationship to God, to ourselves, to one another, and even to the planet.

Day 38

One early church father observed that when Jesus told the disciple, “Put your sword away”, Jesus disarmed every Christian. (Matthew 26:52).  In fact, until 175 AD, Roman soldiers who became Christians left their commission behind.  Gradually though, the church took up arms once again.  And once the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity(312 AD), the armies of Rome became the armies of God.   Within 75 years, St. Augustine developed the “just war” theory and articulated rules of engagement for Christian armies.

How far we’ve come!  Today, Christians serve in the US military all the time and we provide them with spiritual support through a system of military chaplaincy (paid for by the US government).  The iconic building at the Air Force Academy in Colorado is a church (ok, we call it a chapel, but that’s semantics).  A majority of evangelical Christians supported George W. Bush’s pre-emptive war in Iraq.  Militarism is alive and well in the church.

At the start of the war in Iraq, a political cartoonist noted  that George W. Bush’s favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ. The cartoon depicted Dubya pondering which weapons to use in Iraq: daisy cutters?  cluster bombs? cruise missiles?  The caption read, “The president considers the question: WWJD–what  would Jesus drop?”

I think it’s time to consider Jesus’ words again: “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”  It’s time for Christians to put the sword away and live by new rules of engagement.  How about, “Love your neighbor.”

Day 37

Why doesn’t he say anything?  Why doesn’t he protest the way he is being treated?  Why doesn’t he defend himself?  Why doesn’t he fight back?  His silence, his non-resistance, confirms what we’ve always believed–he’s weak.  (Isaiah 53)

Or maybe he’s just been beaten down so long that he figures, “what difference is protesting going to make?”  Or maybe he has sized up the situation and knows his fists are no match for the guns pointed at him.  Or maybe there is a power in silence that we are not aware of.

Fire needs fuel–wood and oxygen.  Once the wood is gone, the fire burns itself out.  Once the oxygen is gone, the fire cannot sustain itself.  The servant’s silence sucks the oxygen out of the room.  There is no fuel for the fire.   How often we add fuel to the fire by our reactions and responses–the timely insult, the sarcastic barb, the witty comeback, the punch in the face.  Our response only justifies more aggression.  Silence has the power to extinguish the violence.

Day 36

Blessed are the Shalom-makers!  (Matthew 5:9)  One of the speakers at the SCUPE Congress, “Peacemakers in a Culture of Violence”, observed that God has called us to peace-making, not peace-keeping.  Peace keepers maintain the status quo, make sure that nothing upsets the equilibrium, keep conflict from erupting.  Peace-makers, on the other hand, are world-changers.

The church, unfortunately, has often been satisfied to keep the peace and has taught us be nice and polite and non-confrontational.  The church has become a collaborator in maintaining the culture of violence.   But God calls us to a much more challenging task–pulling down strongholds and taking captive every argument and pretension that inhibit the coming of God’s shalom.

Peace-making requires us to name the powers that bind and confront the powers that enslave.  Peace-making is prophetic and dangerous.  It means standing with the victims of violence.  It means spending ourselves on caring for the wounded.  It means calling for an end to the bloodshed.  It means boycotting those who perpetrate the violence and profit from it.  It means action.  It means going before “Pharaoh” by the power of the Spirit and saying, “Let my people go!”

Let the church rise!

Day 35

Today, I woke up to snow on the ground!  It’s April 18!   This winter has been brutal and never-ending.  It makes me think of C. S. Lewis’ line in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe that under the curse of the White Witch it was always winter in Narnia, but never Christmas. Will it ever end?

Actually, this winter has become an apt metaphor for how I feel about our culture of violence.  Will it ever end?  I’ve become so weary this Lent watching the continuation of violence in its myriad forms.  This morning, I saw the trailer for Kung Fu Panda 2 and I groaned in my spirit.  Yet again, we are marketing violence to children as comedy. Will it ever end?  During Lent, our nation got involved in yet another war.  Will it ever end?  Last week, the US House passed a budget plan that actually increased defense spending while gutting funds for WIC and public housing maintenance.  Will it ever end?  Today, Tax Day, at least 30% of my taxes will directly support the killing of our enemies (and more than a few women and children who happen to get in the way).  Will it ever end?

I read Isaiah 65:17-25 again.  The answer is YES!  God’s word is YES!  The curse is reversed.  The winter of violence will give way to Easter shalom.  Nothing can stop it.  Be glad and rejoice in what God is creating.

Day 34

I love the vision of a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1-6).  We have done a superior job of messing up the old heaven and the old earth.  It is almost beyond repair.  At least a sixth of the world’s population has no access to safe drinking water.   God didn’t do that, we did.  Climate change is happening at an increasing pace caused at least in part by human acts of  deforestation and burning of fossil fuels.  Who needs to smoke cigarettes when you can get lung cancer just by breathing?  And there is a clear link between the suffering of the environment and the suffering of the poor.  The poor always suffer first and they suffer most.

John’s vision is not original.  Isaiah first envisioned the coming of a new heaven and earth (Isaiah 65:17ff).  It is a powerful vision of justice, equity, public safety, health from infancy to old age, fulfilling work (yes, work can be fulfilling!), and clean drinking water (FREE, too!).  The vision even extends to the rest of creation–the animals, the land.  WOW!  And the best part:  God dwells among us.  Which means that the vision won’t fizzle out after a few weeks.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait until God’s new creation becomes a full reality.  And in the meantime, I’m going to live toward the vision.  Since it’s coming, I want to be ready.

Day 33

One of my favorite hymns is “It Is Well With My Soul”.  When peace like a river attendeth my way; when sorrows like sea billows roll.  Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, “It is well, it is well, with my soul.”

While I was reading Isaiah 60:17b-22, I found myself drawn to the strange description of life without the sun and moon.  Nothing seems more predictable than the rhythm of daytime and nighttime.  The sun comes up, the sun goes down.  No surprises there.  Nothing to rattle my nerves or cause a seismic shift in my plans. I like the uninterrupted pattern.  I know what to expect.  But that is not what well-being (peace/shalom) looks like.  Peace is not found in the rhythm of predictable regularity, but the gift of God’s presence.  Well-being is fully experienced when the Lord is our everlasting light–when we revolve around God with our eyes fixed upon God.

Life is life–full of joys and sorrows, frustrations and fulfillment, uncertainties and hope, struggle and rest, demanding obligations and refreshing surprises.  Even so, it is well with my soul.  God is the source of my well-being.

Day 32

I turned on the television this morning and the lead story was about a woman believed to have been abducted in rural Tennessee after a home invasion.  This is the world I live in–a world where no place is safe, where harm is ‘normal’, where the ones with the guns control the outcomes.

And then I read today’s Scripture (Isaiah 11:6-10).   Lions with lambs, leopards with goats, bears with cows, children with cobras.  THIS is a world I know nothing about.  Don’t get me wrong, it sounds amazing and wonderful, but it is also totally alien to my experience.  Imagine a world where predator and prey do not fear one another; where generational enemies live as friends; where there is no harm or destruction; where power is not abused.  This is certainly a new age–a glorious vision of Sabbath rest and shalom–made real  through the knowledge of the Lord and the Root of Jesse.

I’m glad I read this passage.  It is a reminder that what I see on television every day is not the way it will always be.  The new day of peace which dawned that first Easter morning will come into fullness.  One day.  Imagine.