it’s enough to make me (want to be) a pacifist
the terrible danger of folly
“When those who were around [Jesus] saw what was coming, they asked, ‘Lord, should we strike with the sword?’ Then one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. But Jesus said, ‘No more of this!’ And he touched his ear and healed him” (Luke 22:49–51).
Jesus said, “No more of this!”
The event from Luke’s gospel takes place on the night in which Jesus is betrayed and arrested. The disciples gathered around him are alarmed. Jesus has been a wanted man for quite some time, and by extension, they also are under suspicion. The big boys, the ones with weapons and words and weapons, are closing in. The pulse rate of Jesus’ students kicks into high gear. The reptilian parts of their brains glow white hot.
Their rabbi is in danger! A weapon is drawn. Permission is sought, but the inner reptile screams, “Do it!” A slave’s ear is parted from his head. A desperate justice is raging. The next seconds are crucial.
Jesus acts. He issues a command. To whom does he speak? And what is his tone of voice? But wait, what is this he’s doing? Jesus, you do understand what they will do to you?
(And dare I say he was a Jew? Okay, I dare say.)
Unbeknown to most of those present, Jesus has just been agonizing over what should happen if the terrible moment arrives. “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done” (v. 42).
He isn’t a masochist. He doesn’t have a death wish. Most importantly, he has no idea I would be writing this almost twenty centuries later. (Hey, I’m trying to be humble here!)
Indeed, twenty centuries later, I have participated in very serious discussions of the pros and cons of the use of violence — often from the rugged risks of a classroom.
I once imagined the journalistic thrill of war zone reporting. Movies like Under Fire fired my imagination. The Year of Living Dangerously suggested a dangerous way to spend my years. However, I didn’t pursue journalism, let alone war zone journalism. It seemed a little too close to… war.
We aren’t short on pundits and experts weighing in on strategies and political ramifications of outbreaks of violence. Folks with weighty credentials are asked to analyze the thoughts of those orchestrating the action. What does he hope to gain? (It almost never is a “she.”) What response from his allies is he expecting? What about his opponents?
And so on.
When faced with violence, even the most level-headed of us usually lose composure. Especially when that idiot cut me off in traffic! I suppose if we were having a nice, pleasant lunch, the idea of calling my dining companion an “idiot” likely wouldn’t occur to me. But getting into that car changes everything.
Returning to journalism and “journalism,” picture that fateful evening in the Garden of Gethsemane displayed on television and appearing throughout the internet. I can’t imagine a calm and dispassionate report. Nor would I add, should such be expected. If there weren’t a sense of alarm and astonishment, I would say something is horribly out of order.
Still, we too often become gripped by what defies reason. And that is no accident. We are encouraged to become prisoners of hate, even though its purveyors would vehemently deny it. “Where is the outrage?” We are to jettison rationality. Evil hates clear thinking. The scriptures speak of those who “go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).
Often accompanied by my discussions of the pros and cons of using violence have been considerations of pacifism.
I remember a scene from the movie Witness, starring Harrison Ford. I won’t go into all the details, other than to say it’s an excellent movie. The scene I’m thinking of has Ford’s character, a Philadelphia cop, living among the Amish in Lancaster County. The Amish are taking a trip to town when some knuckleheads show up and start messing with one of them. They’re daring him to fight. The Amish fellow offers no resistance.
Ford and an elderly gentleman are riding in a carriage. He says to Ford, “It is not our way.” Ford responds, “But it’s my way.” He gets out of the carriage and after being provoked punches the lead knucklehead in the face.
During discussions of pacifism, the just war theory sometimes makes appearances. It has a long history with numerous factors, among them being war with a just cause, it being a last resort, and it being a proportional response, that is, of roughly equal magnitude — even in cases of retaliation.
Deuteronomy 20 contains rules of warfare, a sort of ancient forerunner to the Geneva Conventions. It begins with encouraging the Israelites not to fear, because God goes with them.
There are various types of deferment, such as one who has built a house yet not dedicated it, one who has planted a vineyard yet hasn’t harvested it, one who is engaged yet still hasn’t married.
The last one might be a surprise. “Is anyone afraid or disheartened? He should go back to his house, or he might cause the heart of his comrades to melt like his own” (v. 8). I’m not sure how eager someone would be to use that one, to run the risk of being labeled a coward. Still, there is a certain wisdom in that practice.
Next there follow instructions on offering terms of peace.
Finally, the chapter ends with the destruction of crops. “If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may take food from them, you must not cut them down… You may destroy only the trees that you know do not produce food…” (vv. 19–20). Cropland has often been destroyed by salting the land.
As I indicate with my title, all of this murder and mayhem is enough to make me (want to be) a pacifist. I’m very close to being a pacifist. Very close. I believe if the just war traditions were strictly observed, the end result would look very much like pacifism. Having said that, I am aware just war theory tends to be quite difficult to translate into reality.
We rely on our guts and knee jerk responses when faced with violence and war. We betray our minds and spirits — and the willingness to really listen to the other. We are captured by ideology. We see this at universities and businesses. We shame and “cancel” those who disagree, or who at least point out more than one legitimate viewpoint. It helps if we can dehumanize the other — if we can reduce them to slogans and sound bites.
I hope I don’t need to say this, but our political system has become so corrupt and so immature that extremists on the right and left shut down lucid conversation. Being moderate, refusing to blindly toe the party line, increasingly is portrayed as an insult.
I really believe this: war is stupid. War is foolish. It is wasteful. It wastes resources. It wastes life: plant, animal, and of course human. It wastes possibility.
Eight decades ago, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the Nazis in 1945, compared folly to evil. He was a Lutheran pastor involved in what was called the Confessing Church. In contrast, there were the German Christians, who were supporters of government policy. Bonhoeffer’s thoughts are outlined in an essay in the book Letters and Papers from Prison.
He wrote, “Folly is a more dangerous enemy to the good than [is] evil. One can protest against evil; it can be unmasked and, if need be, prevented by force. Evil always carries the seeds of its own destruction, as it makes people, at the least, uncomfortable. Against folly we have no defense. Neither protests nor force can touch it; reasoning is no use; facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved.” (8)
Folly isn’t a question of intelligence. It is a question of character. There are PhDs who are some of biggest fools who ever lived. There are those with no formal education, maybe even illiterate, who are the wisest people to ever tread the earth.
But there is light in the darkness. Bonhoeffer affirms “it is quite clear…that folly can be overcome, not by instruction, but only by an act of liberation… The Bible’s words that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Psalm 111:10) tell us that a person’s inward liberation to live a responsible life before God is the only real cure for folly.” (9)
One cannot be educated out of being a fool.
What are we to do about the hair-trigger, seeing-red that tends to infect us? What can we do about the spirits of strife and murder that run loose among us? Culture, economics, education, psychology, sociology, mental illness — they all and more are contributors. Still, strife and murder are indeed spirits. Bonhoeffer was right. Liberation, salvation, is needed.
This month, we have seen events that defy any claim to sanity. How indeed do we explain the vicious crimes of the terrorist group Hamas and the apparently overwhelming response of the Netanyahu government? That’s not to mention the places around the globe where this same kind of sinister crap goes on all the time.
It is road rage taken to runaway levels.
It feels like demonic power at work. I understand there are those who use their brains to dream up these sick thoughts, but acting on them is a whole different level of depravity.
Returning to that idiot in traffic, I can imagine ramming his car with mine. But I’m not going to do it! (Unless I’m in an absolutely crazy mood that day.)
Just as we cannot be educated out of being a fool, we cannot be educated at dealing with the demonic on our own. We need Jesus Christ and his indestructible life and his indestructible power, given to us by the indestructible might of the Holy Spirit.
Earlier I said evil hates clear thinking. Something else evil hates is joy. Evil hates humor, and I consider a healthy sense of humor as part of the image of God in which we have been made. I’m not speaking of the nasty, petty, snarkiness that passes for humor. The pointing of the finger… Not laughing with but laughing at… Tearing people down… Evil loves that.
However, evil hates joyful humor. Evil fears it.
In his book, The Thorny Grace of It, Brian Doyle speaks of humor. He says, “Humor will destroy the brooding castles of the murderers and chase their armies wailing into the darkness. What you do now, today, in these next few minutes, matters more than I can tell you. It advances the universe two inches. If we are our best selves, there will come a world where children do not weep and war is a memory and violence is a joke no one tells, having forgotten the words.”
I find that to be quite a challenge. To be my best self, knowing that all creation goes with me and cheers me on!
Humor is a mighty weapon. It has the power to turn things upside down. It doesn’t knock people down, like laughing at someone who slips on a banana peel. But like Doyle says, it turns war and violence upside down, where they eventually fade away. Humor can take courage.
In a strange and awesome way, we see death turned upside down until Jesus Christ is resurrected. And yet, he is but the first in line to be resurrected. He leads us.
Going back to the night of betrayal and arrest, Jesus healed instead of responding with the sword. At the cross Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them,” instead of calling out for vengeance. Jesus was sent to save the world, instead of being sent to condemn it.
…Jesus said, “No more of this!”
