Here is a biblical text. The scene: Jesus and his disciples have gone to the garden of Gethsemane. This is taken from Matthew 26.
47 While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. 48 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” 49 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.
50 Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.”
Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. 51 With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
52 “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. 53 Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”
Matthew 26:52 is the key phrase in this passage.
There is no date 26:52. However, Feb 26 is 2-26. 2×26=52. So, I have decided that Feb 26 is “Draw the sword and die by the sword” day.
I have decided to initiate a prize for a sermon. I will offer $1000 for a sermon preached on Feb 24 (closest Sunday) which satisfies the following conditions:
- The Sermon must take as its text the Matthew 26:52 passage.
- The Sermon must include the healing of the ear that Peter cut off after he disobeyed the wish of Jesus.
- The Sermon must discuss the gun culture and discuss Jesus’ view of that gun culture.
Any thoughts on this?
I don’t do sermons and I don’t do pacifism even though I have a Masters in Peace Studies. But I do think that violence almost always favours the most ruthless and the most powerful, and to try to meet the violent in kind usually pitches the less well armed, resourced, skilled, and ruthless into a losing battle regardless of the merits of the cause. The aggressor virtually always has the advantage because he can choose his time and place and ensure he has the superior weaponry.
And so it is absolutely idiotic for the gun lobby to claim the massacre could have been averted or mitigated if the head teacher had had a gun. What use is a hand gun against a semi-automatic rifle? And if the assailant had known the head teacher might have had a gun, what was to prevent him from bringing a few hand grenades or from attacking the head teacher/armed guard first?
In the case of the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus almost certainly averted a massacre if the biblical account is accurate and “a large crowd armed with swords and clubs” had descended on Jesus and a few lightly armed and unarmed followers. Jesus, knowing the politics at play, knew his days were numbered in any case and there was no need to drag his followers down with him.
But he also had a larger and more important message. Israel had recently been conquered and occupied by the Roman empire and any attempt at armed resistance was futile and more likely to cause mass extermination than anything else. Refusing to ally himself with the “nationalist” Maccabean cause, Jesus instead counseled to “love your enemies” and “to give to Caesar what is Caesars” – in his own coin. He even befriended the Roman soldier’s servant and homosexual lover…
Sometimes the realities of power don’t give you any options and it is best to take your losses on the chin and live to fight another day. But Jesus’ message was anything but a pragmatic tactical one and much more about the nature of violence itself. You violate yourself when you visit violence on others even when it is (rarely) in justifiable self defense. Your whole being and culture becomes imbued with that violence.
The USA today has defined itself as the biggest enforcer around and justifies itself in reference to the (rare) injustices that have been visited against it. In so doing it has internalized the logic of Bin Laden and doing onto others what you imagine they might want to do to you.
It wasn’t the 9/11 hijackings which dehumanized the USA, or the heroic efforts of the passengers to prevent them. It was the subsequent US response to 9/11 which dehumanized the US and which reinforced the culture of violence already endemic in parts of US society.
Those who bring arms into civil society are more likely to kill and be killed. They are also much less likely to be able to form loving relationships with others in society because their relationships are mediated by power and fear.
Jesus ultimately faced his very real fears and gave his followers a road map to follow. Most, unfortunately, side with the mob or the empire. They kill Jesus every day in their own lives, and yet they never succeed.
I am an atheist and a unitarian. As such, I regard the scriptures as simply a series of stories with a moral force. However, what we have here is a specific force which has become untethered to moral or societal control. It is a force for evil.
I wish to rediscover a moral compass behind our interest in these weapons. Hence my thought of the Sermon prize.
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comment is almost a sermon. Interesting.
Unfortunately Bush did not act alone and Blair takes quite some blame. Don’t forget the gullible allies of Rumsfeld in “Old Europe” are very much complicit. Terror, Rendition, Torture.
The blow-back is seen in the development of the Arab uprising today. America and the West are the satanic version of evil to most muslims.