Gospel: Matthew 26:47-56
I wanted to take a break from our Gay and Lesbian Christianity series to
address the war that has just erupted in the last few days. Events like
this war bring up important issues for us Christians—questions about the
rightness and wrongness of war, of what our role should be in war, and
even questions around patriotism and loyalty to one’s country. It has
been a difficult time for many of us, as we sought to figure out what God
would have us to do in this time of war. And it has brought the question
up of whether or not any war is justified in God’s eyes.
Well, I wanted to explore that dilemma for us Christians in this sermon. I
don’t think I will necessarily be giving you easy answers, or even answers
that many of you would agree with. I give you a perspective that is my
own, a perspective born from listening to the stories about Jesus and
how he reacted the violence that often raged around him—and violence
that was often directed towards him. And yet, I also want to acknowledge
that there is much gray area when it comes to how to react to violence
and war as a disciple of Jesus. And there are going to be Christians who
sincerely disagree with the conclusions that I have formulated, so know
that I acknowledge that.
You know, in the passage we just heard from the Gospel of Matthew, we
see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, waiting for the Roman guards
to come and take him away to his death. He knows what must happen
and so he has resigned himself to the fate laid out for him. But his
disciples don’t know or don’t understand his destiny—and when the
Roman soldiers come to take him away, they react as many of us would
react to this situation—they resist and one of them pulls out a sword and
in the scuffle, one of them cuts off the ear of the slave of the high priest.
One of the things I’ve noticed is that only of the Gospels actually names
which disciple cuts off this poor slave’s ear—the Gospel of John says it
was Peter who committed this act of violence. The other three Gospels
do not name who actually did the deed—they all just refer to a “disciple,”
which is really highly unusual, especially if it was indeed such a high-
profile disciple like Peter. Perhaps there was much shame around such
an act, the first three writers of the Gospels didn’t want to share who had
done such a thing—in fact, the Gospel of John was written probably at
least 20-30 years later than the either Luke or Matthew were written. In
any case, it seems unusual that it was such a secret that it takes the last
Gospel written to reveal who the actual disciple was that committed this
violent act.
Nonetheless, Jesus reacts to this act of violence, violence that was
meant to protect him from those who were surely going to visit violence
upon him, he reacts to this violence by telling his own disciples to stop it,
that those who take up violence, the sword, will die by the very sword,
the very violence they visit upon others. “Put your sword back into its
place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” What Jesus
says is rooted in the spiritual principle found in many of Jesus’
teachings—you get what you give away, the forgiveness you give will be
the forgiveness you receive. Here the ambiguity begins—Jesus’
disciples are carrying swords with them, presumably for protection from
the many highway robbers that lined the roads of Jesus’ day. The
disciples are not forbidden to carry weapons, but they are seemingly
explicitly forbidden to use them, especially in an act of violence, even an
act of violence meant to protect Jesus. Maybe they were just forbidden
to use them in this particular instance—and yet, Jesus doesn’t seem to
be saying that with his statement that “all who take the sword will perish
by the sword.” Maybe it was just in this instance that he told his disciples
that they shouldn’t defend him—or themselves, because it was part of a
greater plan. I really don’t know, to be honest.
But I do want to give you some perspective from the history of the
church, very briefly, of course. One of things most of us don’t know is
that serving in the military was actually forbidden by the church for the
first 300 of years of its existence. In another words, if you were a
Christian in first 300 years of the life of the church, the church forbade
you to join the Roman army. Now, there may have been many
complicated reasons why this was the case—as a Roman soldier, you
might be required to worship the emperor as a member of the military, or
Christians might have been considered Jews, who were given permission
not to have to serve in the military. But certainly there were reasons that
had to with their faith as Christians—Christianity was a religion that
followed a leader who did not resist his own violent death—and Jesus’
had told his own disciples not to return violence for violence. Whenever
Christianity finally became the state religion of in the mid-4th century, the
church changed its mind about Christians serving in the military.
Obviously, you can’t have the official religion of the Roman Empire
forbidding military service! It would be the end of the military! So, Saint
Augustine, one of the great fathers of the church, developed theological
theory that said that, indeed, there were times when the church could
endorse the necessity of war—he developed “just war” theory. It stated
that if certain conditions were met, and all avenues for peaceful
resolution were closed, there were times when the church could give its
moral permission to fight a war. This was a reversal of the position that
the church had held for 300 years, a position that seemed rooted in its
earliest teachers and preachers.
Well, obviously most of the church accepted Augustine’s ideas about
how wars could possibly be OK in the eyes of the church. But there
have always been small groups of Christians who have resisted this idea
that some wars could be just—the Quakers and the Mennonites are
good examples of these types of groups, small groups of Christians who
have attempted to live out the position of the early church. But is that
earliest position of the church the one we should follow, as Christians in
the 21st Century? Can we realistically choose to follow Jesus’ example
in the Garden of Gethsemane?
Well, some Christians have, in this century, followed that example.
People like Martin Luther King, with his call to resist injustice and
violence with non-violence, is a powerful example of someone who was a
disciple of Jesus who chose to a different path than violence.
Somewhere down the line he decided that the violence had to stop, that
he would not return the violence visited upon him with yet more violence.
People were literally trying to bomb his home—and he didn’t return that
violence with yet more violence. He understood Jesus’ principle—
violence begets more violence, taking up the sword will only cause the
sword to be used against you, eventually. The endless cycle of violence
is found in all those places in the world where vengeance is done by one
group of people against another people, and it just seems to go on and
on—this cycle of hate and violence. It will only end when we give up our
need for vengeance. And yet, I wonder if I could do that—if someone
had done violence against me, could I choose against revenge? Is it
possible? If it is a choice, so many people are not making that choice
against vengeance, are they?
I personally struggle with how Jesus his lived his life—gently, peacefully,
lovingly. Not because I don’t want to live that way, but because living
that way is as hard as it seems. I mean it just makes sense that the only
way you can stop violence being visited upon you is to visit violence
upon the person striking you. It just seems stupid to let someone beat
me up—but, of course, Martin Luther King taught us that you can still
resist evil without having to do evil; you can resist violence without
having to do violence. Still, it goes against all my human instincts, and
even against logic, good human logic. And yet, here is this Jesus, living
a life of peace, choosing not to resist the violence visited upon him with
yet more violence. It is a difficult thing to follow this Jesus, to choose his
way resisting the evils of the world without perpetuating yet more evil,
more violence, more hatred, yet more excuses for people to seek
revenge against each other.
There are a couple of things I have thought about over the years—some
principles, that help me get a perspective on the current crisis, the
current war.
1) First, as much as I love my country, or my nationality, or whatever
group or people I feel most connected to—I know this truth as well: My
country, my people, my group, whatever, all of it will one day be lost to
history. My nationality will one day be a thing of the past—my whole
country will one day only be found in the history books—it is the nature
of history that countries come and they go. So, I must always put my
final allegiance with the church, the one thing that lasts forever, God’s
people, found in their many forms in the world—Catholics, Protestants,
Orthodox, and many others. All nations rise and fall, fight and collapse,
even my country will do that one-day, but the church, in its many forms,
is eternal. This truth reminds me to never get too wrapped up in
patriotism, because in the end, the only that really demands our
complete loyalty is the church, Christ’s presence in this world, the only
loyalty that will not be swept away by history.
2) Secondly, at the very least, we should never glorify war. Perhaps
armies are needed, perhaps human sinfulness is so deep that we simply
cannot choose Jesus’ way of peace—but there can be no doubt that we
must grieve the moment humans pick up weapons to kill other humans.
God doesn’t see our country, or our cause, no matter how just or right it
may be—God sees us humans, divorced from our race, ethnic
background, or country, God sees us waging violence against each
other, and God’s heart just breaks into a million pieces. And our hearts
should break now. This is no time for flag-waving, for swearing our
allegiance to a flag or a cause—this is a time for repentance and grief,
because God’s children have continued the path of hate and violence,
when Christ called us to a path of love and peace.
3) Thirdly, another truth surely comes out of commitment to follow Christ,
especially when it comes to times of war: Jesus tells us to pray for our
enemies, and so we are to pray for the people who may wish us great
harm. And so we must do the same. And when hear people say that
they are praying for our side, we should probably say to them—“well, I
am doing that as well, but I am also praying for the other side as well—
after all, they are children of God, as much as I am.” And when we pray
for people whom we have been told to hate because they were the
enemy, it changes us and it gives us God’s view of the world, God’s
perspective on these matters. From God’s point of view, from inside our
hearts and from the deep vastness of outer space, there are no lines
carving up the earth, that we see on our human maps—there are no
borders, no political philosophies, no ethnic groups—there are just
humans, consistently choosing to settle their differences with violence,
differences often rooted in our own human greed and pride.
I wish it was simpler, being a disciple of Jesus, but it isn’t, is it? I know
that our faith does call into question the ease with which we humans
seem to greet war and violence—following Jesus does that, at the very
least. Some Christians say that war and violence are never a Christian
response—that is my perspective, though it is a perspective that I feel
very uncomfortable with and one that makes no sense to me. But I don’t
know if following Jesus is supposed to make me feel confidence and self-
secure, or for it to even make sense—perhaps to follow Jesus is to push
me into places that are very uncomfortable for me as a human. And
know that there are other Christians that feel that there are times when
war is just, is justified, and they are probably a majority, though the vast
majority of Christians with these beliefs don’t believe that this current war
is justified, that this war does not meet Augustine’s criteria for just war.
Whatever our position, it is Jesus’ life that we must pay attention to—his
life of gentleness and peace and forgiveness. Whatever the conclusion
we come to about this war or any war, we must be able to make that
decision makes sense when we compare it to Jesus’ life and words. That
is all that really matters. Amen.
