Junk food for the spirit

Over the years, my test for whether something is of God or isn't has gotten to be very simple. It is Galatians 5:22-23. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." If something emenates from the will of God, it doesn't have to bring all of these fruits at once-but it should bring health to the Body of Christ and to the world. I have a tough time seeing where either the death of Saddam Hussein or a planned surge of troops in Iraq gives us either justice or an end to the bad fruits of the Iraq war. As Shane Claiborne points out in the editorial borrowed from Jim Wallis's blog below, redemptive violence is a myth-junk food for the spirit, which leaves us starving for bread-and under all of our fiery bluster, a little ashamed.
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From God's Politics - a blog by Jim Wallis and friends

Thursday, January 04, 2007
Shane Claiborne: Communicating Through a Noose
"What do you think of that man?" the old guy asked in a raspy voice as I settled in next to him on the plane. He pointed to the face of Saddam Hussein on the front of his newspaper with a headline story of the looming execution. I gathered myself, and prepared for what could turn out to be a rather chatty plane ride. I replied gently, "I think that man needs some love." And the rather boisterous gentleman sat still, perhaps not exactly the response he predicted. Then he said pensively, "Hmmmm. I think you're right..." And finally, he whispered in a forlorn tone, "And it is hard to communicate love through a noose."

Sometimes we just need permission to say, "It's not okay to kill someone to show everyone how much we hate killing." As Christian artist Derek Webb sings, " Peace by way of war is like purity by way of fornication. It's like saying murder is wrong and showing them by way of execution." I am encouraged by how many Christians I hear voicing an alternative to the myth of redemptive violence in light of the recent killing of Saddam, folks who love Jesus and have the unsettling feeling that Jesus loves evildoers so much he died for them, for us. I have heard many evangelicals who see Saddam's execution as the ultimate act of hopelessness and faithlessness – after all it is humanity stepping in to make the final judgment, that this human created in God's image is beyond redemption. And for those who believe in hell, executing someone who may not yet know of the love and grace of Christ is doubly offensive.

It is rather scandalous to think that we have a God who loves murderers and terrorists like Saul of Tarsus, Osama bin Laden, or Sadaam Hussein – but that is the "good news" isn't it? It's the old eye for an eye thing that gets us. But the more I've studied the Hebrew Scriptures the more I am convinced that this was just a boundary for people who lashed back. As the young exodus people are trying to discover a new way of living outside the empire, God made sure there were some boundaries, like if someone breaks your are, you cannot go back and break their arm and their leg. If someone kills hundreds of your people, you cannot kill 160,000 of theirs.
We've learned the eye for an eye thing all too well. A shock and awe bombing leads to a shock and awe beheading. A Pearl Harbor leads to a Hiroshima. A murder leads to an execution. A rude look leads to a cold shoulder. An eye for an eye we have indeed heard before and learned its logic all too well. But Jesus comes declaring in his State of the Union Sermon on the Mount address (Matthew 5): "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,'" but there is a another way. No wonder Jesus wept over Jerusalem because the people "did not know the things that make for peace."

Gandhi and King used to say, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves the whole world blind" (and with dentures). The gospels tell the story of a group of people who have dragged forward an adulteress and are ready to stone her (this was the legal consequence). Jesus is asked for his support of this death penalty case. His response is this... "You are all adulterers. If you have looked at someone lustfully, you have committed adultery in your heart." And the people drop their stones and walk away with their heads bowed. We want to kill the murderers, and Jesus says to us: "You are all murderers. If you have called your neighbor 'Raca, Fool' you are guilty of murder in your heart." Again the stones drop. We are all murderers and adulterers and terrorists. And we are all precious.

When we have new eyes we can look into the faces of those we don't even like, and see the One we love. We can see God's image in everyone we encounter. As Henri Nouwen puts it: "In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, their smile is my smile." We are made of the same dust. We cry the same tears. No one is beyond redemption and no one is beyond repute. And that is when we are free to imagine a revolution that sets both the oppressed and the oppressors free. The world is starving for grace. And grace is hard to communicate with a noose.
Shane Claiborne is a founding partner of The Simple Way Community, a radical faith community that lives among and serves the homeless in Kensington, North Philadelphia. He is a Red Letter Christian and the author of The Irresistible Revolution.
posted by God's Politics @ 10:22 AM Permalink

A President and The Great Commandment

"In his homily, Episcopal minister Robert G. Certain touched on the fractious debate in the church over homosexual relationships, and said Ford thought the issue should not be splitting Episcopalians. Certain was Ford's pastor at St. Margaret's Church in Palm Desert, Calif.
"He asked me if we would face schism after we discussed the various issues we would consider, particularly concerns about human sexuality and the leadership of women," Certain said. "He said that he did not think they should be divisive for anyone who lived by the great commandments and the great commission to love God and to love neighbor" The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 3, 2006 President Gerald Ford, who died last week, seems like an anachronism in our age of "take no prisoner politics." He was, according to those who knew him well, an unassuming, decent man with a deep desire to bring healing to a country that was mired in the legacy of a failed war and a conspiracy, Watergate, driven by paranoia and fear. A man of great courage, a Yale graduate and a football hero, Jerry Ford was a public servant in a way that seems old-fashioned in these years of destructive Congressional partisanship. Although it has now become obvious. for example, that he disapproved of President Bush's invasion of Iraq, he chose not to speak out while he was alive-but seems to have been aware of the need to set the historical record straight. His pardon of President Nixon is still controversial in a nation which reveres justice and the rule of law-but it is evident that the man who did it was impelled by a strong sense that he was called to model forgiveness to a nation that sorely needed to experience cleansing. It was wonderful to see President Carter give a eulogy in Michigan today before Gerald Ford was laid to rest near his Presidential Library. Carter and Ford remind us that finding common ground with those across the political aisle strengthens this country when it is rent by division. But, as Carter showed us this afternoon when he echoed the words above, they also show us something else-that it is possible to be a professing Christian and a politician without becoming an exhibitionist or a partisan. Ford's words about his denomination, the Episcopalians, might seem very naive to those who have taken sides on the left or the right of this ruinous campaign for victory in the great Anglican shell game. But, in the most basic sense, he and Carter are absolutely correct-if we loved each other, and God, with humility and trust, we would not be so divided. One of the saddest things about the ongoing friction in the Episcopal Church is that it would be extremely unlikely, under these conditions, to produce another Gerald Ford-the country's good servant, to paraphrase Sir Thomas More-but God's first.

Thank you for the kind words

I want to say a warm "thank you" to all of the "Rev Gals" who have welcomed me to their 'blog circle. I look forward to reading your blogs and getting to know you better. Here's to a wonderful year-may the Incarnate Word lead us in paths of grace-and give us guidance, companions and bandaids when we stumble.