November 6, 2005

The God of Peace

Luke 6:27-36

“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
There is no denying the fact that as God’s Messianic deliverer, Jesus was a bitter disappointment to His contemporaries. He did not come “with destruction from the Almighty,” nor did He lead God’s “warriors to carry out [his] wrath” as both Isaiah and John the Baptist had envisioned (Isaiah 13:3-6; Matthew 3:1-10). He did not, as the disciples had hoped, wield ‘a terrible and swift sword,’ laying waste to the hated Roman occupiers, nor did He order the genocidal destruction of any peoples or nations. He had no intentions of establishing God’s reign on earth by unleashing a tidal wave of violence and bloodshed.

To the contrary, Jesus was the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke: “He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:6-7). The angelic hosts that appeared to the shepherds did not warn people to “flee from the coming wrath,” but rather sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests” (Matthew 3:7; Luke 2:14).

It is surely a fact of inexhaustible significance that Jesus never used His supernatural, miracle-working power to hurt, maim, coerce, conquer, or destroy. He was rather the embodiment of God’s Servant who “will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” (Isaiah 42:2-3). It is not holy warriors whom Jesus called “sons of God” but “peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9). Jesus spoke the word of “peace” upon those He healed, and assured a prostitute that “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (Mark 5:34; Luke 7:50).

Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they had failed to recognize “what would bring you peace” (Luke 19:41). Under the ominous shadow of the cross, Jesus said to His disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you” (John 14:27). The first word the resurrected Christ spoke to His traumatized disciples as they huddled behind closed doors was, “Peace be with you!” (John 20:19; 26). The first and easily most radical revelation about God that Jesus brings us is:

I. Our God is nonviolent.

Mennonite theologian John Dear reminds us that “Jesus [began] his public work with the scandalous, radical, earth-shaking news: Our God is nonviolent, and is liberating us all, beginning with the poor and oppressed, from our addiction to violence and death.” (John Dear, God is Non-Violent (pub. data?), 32.) In the New Testament God is never described as a Warrior (see Exodus 13:3), but is often called “the God of peace” (Romans 15:33; Philippians 4:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 3:16; Hebrews 13:20). In his sermon to the household of Cornelius Peter declared, “You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him” (Acts 10:36-38). The sign that “God was with [Jesus]” was that He did not wound and destroy, but rather that “he went around doing good and healing.”

Paul began his letter to the Romans with the greeting, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father” and concluded with the benediction, “The God of peace be with you all. Amen” (1:7; 15:33). He counsels believers to “live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18; 14:19; 1 Corinthians 7:15). In listing the fruit of the Spirit, “peace” follows immediately after “love” and “joy” (Galatians 5:22).

Over against the prophetic portrayal of God as full of fury against sinners, stands the golden text of Christian devotion and theology, “For God so loved the [sinful and wicked] world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The God reflected in and refracted through Jesus did not come “into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world” (John 3:16-17). He sent His Son so that fallen and frail human beings “may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). He is a God who “is kind to the ungrateful and wicked,” and “merciful” to sinners (Luke 6:36). According to Paul, God “demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The God who “predestined [us] to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Romans 8:29) is one “who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

As the full and final embodiment of God’s nonviolent nature, it is not surprising that Jesus forbade the use of violence of any sort. He sent His disciples out on their preaching and healing mission as vulnerable as “lambs among wolves.” He instructed them to carry no staff for self-defense. They were to pronounce peace upon whatever house or city they entered. They were to be bearers of “good news” and agents of healing. If they were not welcomed, they were to leave without recrimination. When reviled, they were not to retaliate but bless (Luke 9:1ff, 10:1ff).

To Peter who had wielded his sword in an abortive attempt to defend the Master, Jesus said, “Put your sword back into its place . . . for all those who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:52-53). Peter must have taken Jesus’ rebuke to heart, for decades later he wrote, “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:21-23).
Jesus’ revelation about God’s essential, nonviolent nature of pure love is that

II. Loving enemies helps us escape the vengeance trap.

Few qualities of the human spirit are as intractable as the desire for vengeance. The law of reciprocity is written deep within the psyche. To be violated incites an immediate and instinctual reaction to strike back, to redress the grievance in kind, and to thereby attempt to re-establish equilibrium. Moses not only legitimized vengeance but cast it in the form of a principle that has provided the moral justification for all ‘law and order’ societies ever since, including our own. It is to meet violence with violence: “Thus you shall not show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Deuteronomy 19:21; Exodus 21:23; Leviticus 24:20). The laws of vengeance have become so much a part of all families, nations, and cultures that we cannot even imagine it any other way.

The problem with the Mosaic system is that violence begets violence. Though Moses’ laws of vengeance had as their intention the limitation of reciprocal violence so that it would not spiral out of control, in real life it rarely works that way. John Wesley asks, “For who knows, when the sword is once drawn, where it may stop? Who can command it to be put up into its scabbard, and it will obey him? Who knows upon whom it may light, [perhaps] yourself?” (John Wesley, Works (sermon: "A Lover of Peace").)

“If everyone practices ‘an eye for an eye,’” said Gandhi, “soon the whole world will be blind.” It even leads to the convoluted logic of the Israeli taxi driver who said, “We should beat [the Palestinians] on the heads. We should beat them and beat them and beat them until they stop hating us.” (Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 201.) The larger danger is that we become what we hate. “Whoever fights monsters,” warned Nietzsche, “should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” (Ibid., 197.) Responding to evil by evil means both compounds the evil and remakes us into its image.

Jesus shows us another alternative beyond responding to aggressors with either ‘fight’ or ‘flight.’ Walter Wink calls it “Jesus’ Third Way.” (Ibid., 175)

III. Jesus’ nonviolent strategy is to overcome evil with good.

Jesus refused to redress Jewish grievances by the use of coercive political or military power. He did not defend himself or His cause by violent means. Jesus set himself squarely against Moses’ laws of violent retribution when He said:

You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.” But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person [by evil means]. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who ask you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you (Matthew 5:38-42).

Jesus was not encouraging doormat pacifism but rather that His followers actively oppose evil by nonviolent means. Turning the other cheek and going the second mile in that culture of Roman oppression were effective strategies of shifting the initiative from the aggressor to the victim. By responding to evil with good, it is the aggressor who is put on the defensive. To the believers in Rome immersed in a super-power culture dominated by violence, Paul wrote, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone . . . Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:17-21).

In the dark days of South African apartheid, a white man spat in the face of a black woman walking toward him on the sidewalk in a whites-only suburb. She immediately pushed her two small children toward him and said, “And now for these.” He turned and walked away flustered.

Mahatma Gandhi said the only people on earth who do not see Jesus and His teachings as nonviolent are Christians. Not so the earliest believers. They were so sure the call to be a disciple of Jesus was a commitment to nonviolence, that for the first three centuries, they tried to literally “follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). The church fathers, especially Tertullian and Origen, were outspoken advocates of nonviolence. They argued that Christ has absolutely forbidden any sort of violence, even against the greatest wrongdoers. For Tertullian, love of enemies was the distinguishing feature of Christianity. He testified that Christians of his generation would, like their Master, rather be killed than kill. And killed they were, by the tens of thousands, in wave after wave of fierce Roman persecution.

What differentiated early generations of Christians was their conviction that the call of Christ was not to conquer but convert, not to fight but forgive, not to destroy but heal, not to recriminate but reconcile, and not to beat the drums of war but work ceaselessly for peace. Yet armed with no rhetoric other than the gospel of peace and no weapons but love, these followers of the Prince of Peace conquered Rome in three centuries without drawing a sword.

It is not surprising that John Wesley, committed as he was to the doctrine and experience of perfect love, would be repulsed by war. In his anti-war tract to his fellow Englishmen on the eve of their hostilities against the American Colonies, Wesley described himself as “a lover of peace.” (The Works of John Wesley (Kansas City, Mo: Nazarene Publishing House, n.d.), XI, 119.) He cannot be labeled as a pacifist in that he allowed for the role of government in protecting its citizens from felons within and from aggressors without (Romans 13:1-7). He would have agreed with President Jimmy Carter that war is sometimes a necessary evil. And we are right to honor those who have laid down their lives to protect the freedoms and security that we enjoy, and support those who continue to put their lives on the line for our sakes.

Yet at the same time, Wesley would remind us, as he did his fellow countrymen, that even ‘necessary’ war is a “monstrous evil,” as anyone who has fought in a real war can attest. He viewed war as an expression of the basest sort of human depravity, and of “the utter degeneracy of all nations from the plainest principles of reason and virtue, of the absolute want, both of common sense and common humanity, which runs through the whole race of mankind.” (Ibid., 222.) That “there is war in the world!” is a sure sign of the intractable nature of original sin. (Ibid., 221.) Most reprehensible for Wesley was that Christian “brother goeth to war against brother; and that in the very sight of the Heathen. Surely this is a sore evil amongst us.” (Ibid.,122.)

The kingdom Jesus came to inaugurate is the nonviolent realm of God’s gracious, self-giving love and gentle care. Why will “the gentle” inherit the earth? Because God is non-coercive. Why will “the merciful” receive mercy? Because God is merciful. Why will “peacemakers” be blessed? Because they partake of their heavenly Father’s nonviolent nature. Why should we be “perfect” in love for all human beings? Because our “heavenly Father is perfect” in love for all (Matthew 5:5-9, 48; Luke 6:27-37; 1 John 4:21).

Which raises an important question: in the hard, geopolitical world of violence and ‘wars and rumors of wars,’ does the way of Jesus stand a chance? The surprising answer is

IV. The power of nonviolent revolutions.

In his insightful and challenging book Engaging the Powers, Walter Wink demonstrates that nonviolent revolutions have done more to shape world history than all the wars and violent social upheavals. The twentieth century, for instance, was the most violent in history. Some historians claim that more people were killed in the two great world wars than in all the wars of previous centuries combined.

What is seldom noticed, however, is that the twentieth century also saw more nonviolent revolutions than at any other time in history, and that these did far more to change the shape of the world for the better than all its violent upheavals. Among these were the first-time ever enfranchisement of women, the rise of labor unions contributing significantly to creating the most prosperous middle class in history, and the ennobling changes brought about by the Civil Rights movement. Not only did India gain its independence from Great Britain but 16 dictatorships in South America were toppled principally through nonviolent means. Apartheid, one of the most discriminatory and inhumane social systems ever instituted, was abolished in 1994. For the first time ever, all of South Africa’s citizens were brought into the political process. Because the principle actors on all sides were committed to Jesus’ strategy of nonviolence, it occurred without the bloody race war that everyone predicted.

During the darkest days of the Cold War when it seemed as if Communism was set in concrete for a thousand years, Christian Fuehrer, an East German Lutheran pastor, invited his parishioners to gather to pray for peace every Monday evening in 1982. By 1989 there were four Lutheran churches holding prayer meetings at the same hour. And then a miracle happened. Attendance began to swell. After each prayer meeting the four groups joined together and walked through the dark streets holding lighted candles and singing hymns.

Alarmed, the secret police surrounded the churches and sometimes roughed up the marchers in an effort to intimidate them by a show of force. But the crowd of singing and candle-carrying marchers kept growing: hundreds, then thousands, then 50,000. As Oct. 9, 1989 drew near, political pressure reached a critical mass, for that was the fortieth anniversary of the Communist state in Eastern Germany. The political leaders feared that the marches would spoil their party. So police and army units moved into Leipzig in force. East German leader Erich Honecker gave them instructions to shoot the demonstrators. Leipzig’s Lutheran bishop warned of a massacre.

When time came for the prayer meeting at the Nikoli Church, 2,000 Communist Party members rushed inside to occupy all the seats. The church opened its seldom-used balconies and a thousand protesters also crowded inside. Party members intent on disrupting the service realized for the first time that Christians were not fire-brand revolutionaries but were praying for peaceful change. Not one word was spoken that in any way could have been interpreted as advocating the violent overthrow of the Communistic regime.

No one knows for sure why the military held their fire that night, but everyone credits the prayer vigils in Leipzig for kindling the process of momentous change. On that Monday night 70,000 people marched peacefully through downtown Leipzig. The following Monday 120,000 marched, singing and carrying candles. A week later the crowd had swelled to 500,000, nearly the entire population of Leipzig. The prayer meetings and marches spread to other cities. Soon one million people were marching peacefully through East Berlin. Police refused to fire on the demonstrators. Utterly humiliated, Erich Honecker resigned.

At midnight on November 9, something occurred for which few had dared to dream. A gap opened up in the hated Berlin Wall. East Germans streamed through the checkpoints past passive border guards, who up until this night had always obeyed their “shoot to kill” orders. Not a single life was lost as singing and praying people, marching peacefully with lighted candles, brought down a diabolical atheistic government. That set in motion a chain reaction in which every Communist government in Eastern Europe fell in less than two years. Even the mighty and feared Soviet Union collapsed like a house of cards with scarcely a shot being fired. Communism, the most diabolical social ideology ever prompted by Satan and devised by godless men, “fell from heaven like lightning” (Luke 10:18). It occurred not because nuclear-tipped missiles and smart bombs had been unleashed to do their deadly business, but because of praying people willing to light candles against the darkness. (Philip Yancey, “The Walls Come Tumbling Down,” in Finding God in Unexpected Places (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Publications, 1997), 133-136.)

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).