Winning the hearts and minds of the enemy

I was at lunch the other day and came across this t-shirt on a man. I asked if it would be okay if I took a picture of the back of the shirt.

He asked if I was going to "use it in an NAACP lawsuit" against him. 

I said, "No, but I am a pastor at a local United Methodist church."

He nodded and said, "In that case, go ahead."  

The interesting thing in this exchange is this man thought the shirt was more challenging to the message of the NAACP than that of the Prince of Peace who said to love your enemy.

I have studied the "Just war" theories in the Christian tradition and found them logical but difficult to square with the teachings of Christ. I understand that there are other faithful Christ followers who think differently. While I work to try to better understand the position of the use of violence, I struggle with the reality that it is impossible to win the hearts and minds of our enemies if the parties are dead.

What is the power of prayer?

Matthew 6:5-6 has Jesus saying the following:

 ‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.'

The usual talk that I have heard around this text is often centered around pubic/private prayer, and this is a fine conversation topic. One of the things that I would want to highlight is just how subversive this is to economics. 

That is right. Economics. 

In the days of Jesus, pious Jewish people would give offerings to God through an animal or grain sacrifice. These sacrifices were not things that you could bring form home to offer up. These sacrifices had to meet a set of criteria to be acceptable and so you would buy your sacrifice on site there at the temple. This purchase had a "temple tax" attached to it so that with every purchase you got the sacrifice but also paid the temple. The temple had a monopoly, and monopolies are susceptible to corruption and abuse. This is part of the reason Jesus turns the tables over in the temple - as a critique of the exploitation of the monopoly.

http://www.azquotes.com/quote/714284

And so you may be able to see that when Jesus calls for private prayer, it is not just a critique of prayer for "show" but a subversive act of protest to the economic system of temple prayer. If we stopped paying the temple taxes in order to have the right sacrifice or the right person or the right "words" then the monopoly falls. 

The same was true for Martin Luther and his critique of the practices of indulgences (money paid to the church in order to receive favor/forgiveness/blessing). The Church had a monopoly on the sale of indulgences and fell prey to the corruption of being a monopoly. 

Prayer has been and will be a tool for justice and action. Or as Gandhi said, “Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.” 

This is in part what I understand to be the power of prayer. When understood and applied it can undercut entire economic systems. Bring a temple structure to her knees or spark a Reformation. 

My kid punched a kid, so I punched him to teach him a lesson

I have brown eyes but my wife has blue eyes. I have brown hair but Estee has blonde. I have fine hair but Estee has full hair. I have oily skin but Estee is has normal skin. When you look at our boys you can see each of their parents in their body. 

One has blue eyes, blonde hair, oily skin and full hair. The other has blue eyes, brown hair, normal skin and fine hair. There is a residue of each of their parents in their lives. 

This is how DNA works.

While we know this about biology, this is also true about psychology. I was raised in a home with a mother who is a "hugger" and a father who highly values commitment. I am a mix of these two things. There are times I catch myself acting exactly like like my mother or father. The circumstances in my past are present in the present. 

When we create something, be it a child, artwork or even a society, there is a residue of the creator(s) in the created. When a child grows up in an environment that deals with anger by being abusive toward women, chances are that child will not know how to deal with anger other than to abuse women. The residue of the ones who help create that child will be present in that child throughout life. 

It is important to remember when we create solutions to problems, even problems of violence, we need to be very aware of the ways we create the solution. The things that go into that solution will be present in that solution. If we use chocolate chips in a batter and expect that after all the ingredients go into the oven that they chocolate will some how be absent in the cookie, we are fools. If we use violence to solve a problem and expect violence to some how be absent in the future, we are fools. 

I do not know the way forward in dealing with violence. I do know that if we use violence then we will only create solutions that in turn will have the seeds of violence within it. If we want to eradicate violence, let us begin with eradicating violence in the solutions we create. 

The empty tomb of Jesus is Bad News

Christianity has taught that the empty tomb of Jesus is not just good news but The Good News. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the defining moments of the story of Jesus and it shows us that death does not have the last word. That life and light cannot ever be overcome. This is indeed Good News. 

But it is also bad news. 

We are a people who are trapped by scapegoating and sacrificing others in order to "eradicate" problems in the world. We are always on the lookout for the person or persons that are responsible for the problems in the world and then doing our best to demonize those persons so that our scapegoating actions are justified. We all know that the President of the USA has power but the President is not all all mighty puppet master that can make the sun rise and gas prices low. We like to think that the POTUS has all sorts of power to "fix" the world or at least our problems. If we read biographies or memoirs of previous POTUS we quickly see just how limited their power is. 

And yet, we blame them for all sorts of problems which we think they caused. Low stock market? Housing bubble? Middle East crisis? Health care costs? All of these and many others are beyond the actions of the POTUS. These are complicated problems that require massive solutions that one person cannot do on their own. 

We are a species that is addicted to finding scapegoats in our world. We are addicted to blaming and shaming and killing others. Ae are a species that is addicted to filling tombs with people who are the "problem". 

When the tomb is empty, it is Good News. But it is also bad news for us who are addicted to scapegoating and sacrificing others. The empty tomb says that God does not accept sacrifices and scapegoats. It says that the tombs we try to fill will forever be emptied, that our thoughts on who is to blame and who is the problem are incomplete. 

The empty tomb is bad news because it pricks the hearts of us all that the way we are working to bring about peace has been and is all wrong. We have to find a "more excellent way". We have to give up filling the tombs with victims before an empty tomb can be Good News.