Jesus And Nonviolence
After a potential violent confrontation between two participants in a spirituality group I was leading (see posting entitled, ”Welcoming Prayer”), I came back the next week with some thinking from a book entitled, Jesus and Nonviolence, A Third Way, by Walter Wink. Yet once again, it is a very evocative book.
I read this quote from scripture to the group. (everyone present was Christian)
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for any eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evil-doer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.” (Matthew 5:38-41)
Walter Wink goes on to say “there are three general responses to evil: passivity, violent opposition, and militant non-violence articulated by Jesus himself….Jesus abhors both passivity and violence as responses to evil.”
“Why then does he counsel these already humiliated people to turn the other cheek? Because this action robs the oppressor of the power to humiliate. The person who turns the other cheek is saying, in effect, ‘Try again. Your first blow failed to achieve its intended effect. I deny you the power to humiliate me. I am a human being just like you. Your status does not alter that fact. You cannot demean me.”
“Then the oppressor has been forced, against his will, to regard this subordinate as an equal human being. The powerful person has been stripped of his power to dehumanize the other.”
“Why then does Jesus counsel them to give over their inner garment (their cloak) as well? This would mean stripping off all their clothing and marching out of court stark naked!”
“Under the apartheid regime in South Africa, the authorities had for a long time sought a way to destroy a particular shantytown, without success. Then one day, after most of the men and women had left for work, the army arrived. The soldiers announced that the few women there had five minutes to gather their things and then the bulldozers would commence to work. The women, perhaps sensing the prudery of the farm boys who largely made up the army, stood in front of the bulldozers and stripped off all their clothes. The army fled.”
“Why would Jesus advise them to walk the second mile? Imagine then the soldier’s suprise when, at the next mile marker, he reluctantly reaches to assume his pack and say, ‘Oh, let me carry it another mile.’ Normally he has to coerce his kinsmen to carry his pack, and now you do it cheerfully and will not stop! You have taken back the power of choice. The soldier is thrown off balance by being deprived of the predictability of your response.”
So, the group of participants talked about it that night. It was hard for them to see. But, I couldn’t blame them. Our society doesn’t operate this way. To them, this seemed really foreign thinking, just as it does to the rest of us.
We brought it down to a practical level. One of them brought up a recent incident on a bus, where someone kept staring at him, as if trying to provoke a fight, and then followed him off the bus trying to taunt him. Eventually, the bus driver called police. With some creativity, we came up with the idea that he could have disarmed this individual with humor. He could have said, “I apologize, I must really look ugly to you for you to stare at me like that. I will try to do a better job next time of looking nicer before getting on the bus.” We all laughed but also agreed that it might have made for a different ending than a call to the police.
