What Would Jesus Do? “Live by the sword and die by the sword,” is a saying derived from Jesus’ telling Peter to put away his sword as Peter was trying to defend Jesus from the Roman soldiers who had come to arrest him. Jesus who lived a life of preaching and practicing nonviolent love is telling his followers one more time that those who live by violence will die by violence. Many Jewish people of his time did not follow his teaching or heed his words and, as predicted, Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE (AD).
However, the followers of the Way of Jesus, refusing to participate in violence, survived. And despite great suffering and death triumphed and in 313 Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire built on violence declined but Christianity built on nonviolent love of Jesus flourished.
History has taught us over and over again that violence begets violence yet people and nations like the USA place their faith in military might and violence.
The tragic suffering and death at the Boston Marathon today recalled this lesson of history for me today. The United States is the greatest military power and the world and yet we imprison more of our population per capita than any other nations yet violence, like today, increases.
Some say, and I believe, the USA Empire, like the Roman empire, is declining and all the weapons of war in the world cannot save it but in fact hasten its death.
After 9/11 I remember going to a workshop at local community college to try to understand not to justify this terrible terrorist action and where all the hatred against USA was rooted. This effort was soon lost as we turned to violence and war in response. Now we do not even try to understand the sources of such violence. The first thing we say after a tragic event is that we will get ‘justice’ on those who committed such an evil act. Justice, in our vernacular, means punishment and maybe even death, which might mean more violence.
The more persons we imprison the more the more there are to imprison. A community organization is trying to offer treatment and recovery to nonviolent criminals, like crimes related to alcoholism and drug use. History, especially in the early Nixon years, has proven this as a more effective and less costly way to reduce crime. But many will not hear about it. They want justice, which means more violence.
What can we do in such a world where violence is rampant and the way of the land? As Christians we can follow Jesus and resist and refuse to participate in violence. This might mean nonviolence like civil disobedience and suffering and even death like it did in the civil rights struggle.
Mario Savio, a student activist in the 60’s suggested a way to stop the machine of violence we face. “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
Pray for the people who suffered violence in Boston today. Pray we can learn from history that Violence begets Violence and Nonviolent Resistance and Love brings Peace.
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