Exploring the Connections

A Different Way of Reading the World

by Simon Barrow

Ekklesia News Service, September 9, 2009

One of the many ironies of modern life is that, wired in the technology of recognition and representation, we find it ever more difficult to perceive others, the world and ourselves in any kind of hopeful way. After God – as many see it – we are not just wallowing in the dark, we are also blinded by the light.

Recently I watched the extraordinary film version of Philip K. Dick’s noir fantasy, A Scanner Darkly, which draws its title (via St Paul’s “through a glass darkly”) and several of its key verbal references from a scriptural storehouse of language which fewer and fewer people now recognise in its traditional context – but which may still turn out to be vitally important to human flourishing as it is rediscovered in fresh ways.

The book and the movie concern a dystopian, reverse world in which the ability to view everything leads to top-down control and paranoia, where people end up spying on themselves, where identities are ‘blurred’ physically and mentally, and where the one agency that is supposed to be combating the evil of narcotic dependency is actually promoting it.

The readings for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost (Isaiah 35:4-7a, Psalm 146, James 2:1-13, Mark 7:24-37) also contain a whole series of dramatic reversals concerning darkness and danger. But in a remarkably different way.

In the ancient Hebrew tradition, from which Christian as well as Jewish understandings are forged, the prophet is above all else a ‘Seer’, a visionary – one whose vocation is not so much to predict the future (that belongs to God alone) as to enable us to see the fullness of reality, the world as it really is or could be.

What the prophetic imagination does is to “re-describe reality” with what is missing filled in. It suggests that if the present could be seen truthfully, the transforming possibilities of God would be all too apparent, inviting us to repentance – a radical change of heart and direction.

In this sense the vision of shalom presented by Isaiah and by the Psalmist reveals the opposite of what now is, in the form of a promise. A world of oppression, injustice and suffering is neither inevitable nor necessary. To defy the order of death and to envision a realm of peace based on the restoring of right relationships among people, with the natural world and with God is – despite all appearances to the contrary – to go with the final grain of the universe as sheer gift.

If only we could recognise it, say the biblical writers, there is a divine reversal going on. When mercy is shown, when the stranger is welcomed, when right is done, when abusive power is resisted, when the hungry are offered food, the prisoners release and the homeless shelter – in those moments of faithfulness to God’s underlying purposes, despite the suffering and brutality around us, a new world beckons.

In Psalm 146, the divine call is clear: to exalt the humble, and to watch over the most vulnerable in the land (the sojourner, widow, orphan). The creative God is also a redeemer. The final verse sets the cry for justice and a dramatic reversal of fortune – the plans of the wicked are thwarted – within a vision of the gentle realm of God.

In Isaiah 35 the Day of the Lord, the moment where right judgement trumps false pretensions, means deliverance from the confinement of despair, hopelessness, and God-forsakenness. The context, as in chapters 40-55, is one of exile and longing. The theme is not so much vengeance as vindication. Those who have followed a thorny path, refusing to believe that all is lost, are proved right after all. Those who put their trust in thrones and chariots were actually staring at themselves in distorted mirrors, rather than finding their true selves within the image of God.

Likewise, says the Epistle of James, when Christian communities are bolstered with self-regard, when they bask in the approval of the rich and powerful and convince themselves that the correct belief alone will justify them, they deceive themselves. This is especially the case when they simultaneously deny justice and dignity to those on the margins, to labourers, to people living on the edge – those who present to us the tangible judgement of God on the way we arrange our lives and our world.

In his 1977 book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, which prefigured much of the more recent concern among evangelical churches for people and planet, Ron Sider tells the story of a US pastor who causes great offence in the pews by delivering a fearsome manifesto denouncing the wiles of the rich and the mistreatment of poor people and workers. His congregation in turn accuse him of sedition and of ‘pulpit politics’. But he points out to them that, in fact, every word he has used is sourced directly from the likes of Isaiah, from Amos and from James. They call themselves biblical people, but the Word is apparently unknown to them when it comes to acting justly, seeking mercy and walking humbly before God as a social reality.

Yet the uncomfortable fact is that more often than not the Gospel reverses our ‘normal’ judgments, our idea of what is ‘natural’ and ‘right’. If we are to judge correctly, and not find ourselves hoist with our own legalistic petard, we need to discover what it is to live and to have faith with integrity, says the Epistle of James. This means seeking the knowledge of God that comes to us through merciful action, not through pious sounding words or recourse to the protection of religious tradition. In these terms, the Christian message is un-common sense – something rare and precious – rather than mere ‘conventional wisdom’.

Writing about the recent row over the decision by a Scottish court to allow the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber, Ali al-Megrahi, to die at home rather than in prison, Quaker writer Jill Segger (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10119) cuts to the heart of the matter for those of us who would dare call ourselves Christians. “Mercy reflects God to us in a unique manner,” she says. “It invites us to share in the wholeness for which we were created. If we permit ourselves to become caught up in the power games between Holyrood, Westminster, Washington and Tripoli, we will miss the truth.”

The Seer stares long and hard at reality with all its agonising contradictions, but without losing sight of the deeper reality we call love. That is incredibly hard to do. Sinking to fashionable cynicism and resorting to realpolitik are much more acceptable paths, though we often pretend to decry them when it is convenient to us.

Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill is, in the eyes of many who see the world primarily through the lens of vengeance (either because of their suffering, or less creditably because of their worldview), a scoundrel or a fool. But there is surely genuine courage and insight in his way of trying to weigh the true odds: “Our justice system demands that judgement be imposed but compassion be available. Our beliefs dictate that justice be served but mercy be shown.”

Of course when we seek to act in the light of the Gospel’s way of seeing, we will not always know whether what we are doing is right. Sometimes we will mess things up. The facts and fallibilities of any given situation will always be questionable, ‘open to judgement’. What is most important is that we too are open to judgement, and that we are clear about the character of right-dealing tempered by mercy that lies at the heart of flesh which is God’s, made available to us in Christ and in the quality of community that bears his name.

Which brings us back to Mark’s Gospel. Here Jesus, operating on foreign territory (the Roman-ruled Decapolis), finds himself on the wrong end of a conversation with a woman who – the writer makes abundantly plain – is both a Gentile and, according to the more rigorous religious beliefs of the Jewish community, ‘unclean’ (because outside the Law).

So Jesus rehearses to her the conventional judgement on her status in the starkest terms imaginable. Ironic or not, it is little short of an insult. But the Syrophoencian woman turns the tables and demonstrates a true understanding of the mercy of God towards those outside the system, those in desperate need.

Her faith brings Jesus up short, and contrasts vividly with the legalism of some of his own inheritance. But perfection for God is found in brokenness restored, not in infallibility and immutability. As Leonard Cohen sings, “Everything has a crack in it. That’s what let’s the light in.” So it is that (remarkably, in our limited vision, perhaps) Jesus allows this woman both to shape and to participate in the Messiahship that people rightly come to recognise in him. A new kind of wholeness is achieved – one that was not available at the beginning of the encounter. A divine reversal takes place.

What we discover here is that, in God’s household, one ordered by grace rather than mortgage, everything that stands in the way of abundant life and the sharing of that life is cast aside. This often causes scandal to the conventionally religious.

In Mark’s account, Jesus offers healthcare to all, including those outside the Law, and cautions those he heals not to let on lest the authorities find out. But the Good News and the threat it causes to those who wish to control God’s mercy for their own purposes will not be contained.

The question we need to ask of ourselves, of our churches, and of the plans we have for the future, is therefore something like this: Are we willing to receive the pattern of ‘divine reversal’ that is God’s way in the world? Are we willing to be vehicles for a love that crosses boundaries, breaks barriers and inconveniently opens our hearts to others? Or do we prefer the safety that comes from trying to wrap up the Gospel in institutions and practices that protect us from the disturbing Word we meet in Christ?

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© Simon Barrow is co-director of Ekklesia. www.simonbarrow.net This article is adapted from an address given at St Stephen's Anglican Church, Exeter, on Sunday 6 September 2009.

How turning the other cheek defies oppression

by Walter Wink
Ekklesia News Service, May 4, 2009

You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if anyone would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. (Jesus in Matthew 5:38-41, Revised Standard Version)
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Many who have committed their lives to working for change and justice in the world simply dismiss Jesus' teachings about nonviolence as impractical idealism. And with good reason, it seems, on first sight.

At a surface level, "turn the other cheek" suggests the passive, Christian doormat quality that has made so many Christians cowardly and complicit in the face of injustice. "Resist not evil" seems to break the back of all opposition to evil and counsel submission. "Going the second mile" has become a platitude meaning nothing more than "extend yourself." Rather than fostering structural change, such attitudes encourage collaboration with the oppressor.

Jesus never behaved in such ways, however. Whatever the source of the misunderstanding, it is neither Jesus nor his teaching, which, when given a fair hearing in its original social context, is arguably one of the most revolutionary political statements ever uttered.

When the court translators working in the hire of King James chose to translate antistenai as "Resist not evil," they were doing something more than rendering Greek into English. They were translating nonviolent resistance into docility. The Greek word means more than simply to "stand against" or "resist." It means to resist violently, to revolt or rebel, to engage in an insurrection.

Jesus did not tell his oppressed hearers not to resist evil. His entire ministry is at odds with such a preposterous idea. He is, rather, warning against responding to evil in kind by letting the oppressor set the terms of our opposition.

A proper translation of Jesus' teaching would then be, "Do not retaliate against violence with violence." Jesus was no less committed to opposing evil than the anti-Roman resistance fighters like Barabbas. The only difference was over the means to be used.

There are three general responses to evil: (1) violent opposition, (2) passivity, and (3) the third way of militant nonviolence articulated by Jesus. Human evolution has conditioned us for only the first two of these responses: fight or flight.

Fight had been the cry of Galileans who had abortively rebelled against Rome only two decades before Jesus spoke. Jesus and many of his hearers would have seen some of the two thousand of their countrymen crucified by the Romans along the roadsides. They would have known some of the inhabitants of Sepphoris (a mere three miles north of Nazareth) who had been sold into slavery for aiding the insurrectionists' assault on the arsenal there. Some also would live to experience the horrors of the war against Rome in 66-70 C.E., one of the ghastliest in history.

If the option of fighting had no appeal to them, their only alternative was flight: passivity, submission, or, at best, a passive-aggressive recalcitrance in obeying commands. For them no ‘third way’ existed.

Now we are in a better position to see why King James' servants translated antistenai as "resist not." The king would not want people concluding they had any recourse against his or any other sovereign's unjust policies. Jesus commands us, according to these king's men, to resist not. Jesus appears to say that submission to monarchial absolutism is the will of God. Most modern translations have meekly followed the King James path.

Neither of the invidious alternatives of flight or fight is what Jesus is proposing. Jesus abhors both passivity and violence as responses to evil. His is a third alternative not even touched by these options. The Scholars Version translates antistenai brilliantly: "Don't react violently against someone who is evil."

Jesus clarifies his meaning by three brief examples. "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Why the right cheek? How does one strike another on the right cheek anyway? Try it. A blow by the right fist in that right-handed world would land on the left cheek of the opponent. To strike the right cheek with the fist would require using the left hand, but in that society the left hand was used only for unclean tasks. As the Dead Sea Scrolls specify, even to gesture with the left hand at Qumran carried the penalty of ten days penance. The only way one could strike the right cheek with the right hand would be with the back of the hand.

What we are dealing with here is unmistakably an insult, not a fistfight. The intention is not to injure but to humiliate, to put someone in his or her place. One normally did not strike a peer in this way, and if one did the fine was exorbitant (four zuz was the fine for a blow to a peer with a fist, 400 zuz for backhanding him; but to an underling, no penalty whatever). A backhand slap was the normal way of admonishing inferiors. Masters backhanded slaves; husbands, wives; parents, children; men, women; Romans, Jews.

We have here a set of unequal relations, in each of which retaliation would be suicidal. The only normal response would be cowering submission. It is important to ask who Jesus' audience is. In every case, Jesus' listeners are not those who strike, initiate lawsuits, or impose forced labour. Rather, Jesus is speaking to their victims, people who have been subjected to these very indignities. They have been forced to stifle their inner outrage at the dehumanizing treatment meted out to them by the hierarchical system of caste and class, race and gender, age and status, and by the guardians of imperial occupation.

Why then does Jesus counsel these already humiliated people to turn the other cheek? Because this action robs the oppressor of power to humiliate them. 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 (gender, race, age, wealth) does not alter that. You cannot demean me."

Such a response would create enormous difficulties for the striker. Purely logistically, how can he now hit the other cheek? He cannot backhand it with his right hand. If he hits with a fist, he makes himself an equal, acknowledging the other as a peer. But the whole point of the back of the hand is to reinforce the caste system and its institutionalized inequality.

The second example Jesus gives is set in a court of law. Someone is being sued for his outer garment. Who would do that and under what circumstances? Only the poorest of the poor would have nothing but an outer garment to give as collateral for a loan. Jewish law strictly required its return every evening at sunset, for that was all the poor had in which to sleep. The situation to which Jesus alludes is one with which his hearers would have been too familiar: the poor debtor has sunk ever deeper into poverty, the debt cannot be repaid, and his creditor has hauled him into court to wring out repayment.

Indebtedness was the most serious social problem in first-century Palestine. Jesus' parables are full of debtors struggling to salvage their lives. It is in this context that Jesus speaks. His hearers are the poor ("if anyone would sue you"). They share a rankling hatred for a system that subjects them to humiliation by stripping them of their lands, their goods, finally even their outer garments.

Why then does Jesus counsel them to give over their inner garment as well? This would mean stripping off all their clothing and marching out of court stark naked! Put yourself in the debtor's place; imagine the chuckles this saying must have evoked. There stands the creditor, beet-red with embarrassment, your outer garment in one hand, your underwear in the other. You have suddenly turned the tables on him. You had no hope of winning the trial; the law was entirely in his favour. But you have refused to be humiliated. At the same time you have registered a stunning protest against a system that spawns such debt. You have said, in effect, "You want my robe? Here, take everything! Now you've got all I have except my body. Is that what you'll take next?"

Nakedness was taboo in the Judaism of the time. Shame fell not on the naked party but the person viewing or causing one's nakedness (Genesis 9.20-27). By stripping you have brought the creditor under the same prohibition that led to the curse of Canaan. As you parade into the street, your friends and neighbours, startled, aghast, inquire what happened. You explain. They join your growing procession, which now resembles a victory parade. The entire system by which debtors are oppressed has been publicly unmasked. The creditor is revealed to be not a "respectable" moneylender but a party in the reduction of an entire social class to landlessness and destitution.

This unmasking is not simply punitive, however; it offers the creditor a chance to see, perhaps for the first time in his life, what his practices cause-and to repent.

Jesus in effect is sponsoring clowning. In so doing he shows himself to be thoroughly Jewish. A later saying of the Talmud runs, "If your neighbour calls you an ass, put a saddle on your back."

The Powers That Be literally stand on their dignity. Nothing takes away their potency faster than deft lampooning. By refusing to be awed by their power, the powerless are emboldened to seize the initiative, even where structural change is not possible. This message, far from being a counsel of perfection unattainable in this life, is a practical, strategic measure for empowering the oppressed. It provides a hint of how to take on the entire system in a way that unmasks its essential cruelty and to burlesque its pretensions to justice, law, and order.

Jesus' third example, the one about going the second mile, is drawn from the enlightened practice of limiting the amount of forced labour that Roman soldiers could levy on subject peoples. A soldier could impress a civilian to carry his pack one mile only; to force the civilian to go further carried with it severe penalties under military law. In this way Rome tried to limit the anger of the occupied people and still keep its armies on the move. Nevertheless, this levy was a bitter reminder to the Jews that they were a subject people even in the Promised Land.

To this proud but subjugated people Jesus does not counsel revolt. One does not "befriend" the soldier, draw him aside, and drive a knife into his ribs. Jesus was keenly aware of the futility of armed revolt against Roman imperial might. He minced no words about it, though it must have cost him support from the revolutionary factions.

But why walk the second mile? Is this not to rebound to the opposite extreme: aiding and abetting the enemy? Not at all. The question here, as in the two previous instances, is how the oppressed can recover the initiative, how they can assert their human dignity in a situation that cannot for the time being be changed. The rules are Caesar's but not how one responds to the rules. The response is God's, and Caesar has no power over that.

Imagine then the soldier's surprise when, at the next mile marker, he reluctantly reaches to assume his pack (sixty-five to eighty-five pounds in full gear). You say, "Oh no, let me carry it another mile." Normally he has to coerce your kinsmen to carry his pack; now you do it cheerfully and will not stop! Is this a provocation? Are you insulting his strength? Being kind? Trying to get him disciplined for seeming to make you go farther then you should? Are you planning to file a complaint? To create trouble?

From a situation of servile enforcement, you have once more seized the initiative. You have taken back the power of choice. The soldier is thrown off-balance by being deprived of the predictability of your response. Imagine the hilarious situation of a Roman infantryman pleading with a Jew, "Aw, come on, please give me back my pack!" The humour of this scene may escape those who picture it through sanctimonious eyes. It could scarcely, however, have been lost on Jesus' hearers, who must have delighted in the prospect of thus discomfiting their oppressors.

Some readers may object to the idea of discomfiting the soldier or embarrassing the creditor. But can people engaged in oppressive acts repent unless made uncomfortable with their actions? There is, admittedly, the danger of using nonviolence as a tactic of revenge and humiliation. There is also, at the opposite extreme, an equal danger of sentimentality and softness that confuses the uncompromising love of Jesus with being nice. Loving confrontation can free both the oppressed from docility and the oppressor from sin.

Even if nonviolent action does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor, it does affect those committed to it. As Martin Luther King, Jr attested, it gives them new self-respect and calls on strength and courage they did not know they had. To those with power, Jesus' advice to the powerless may seem paltry. But to those whose lifelong pattern has been to cringe, bow, and scrape before their masters, to those who have internalized their role as inferiors, this small step is momentous.

Jesus' different way

If we wanted to summarise what has been said so far about Jesus’ ‘third way’ alternative to violence on the one hand and passivity on the other, we might say that its tactical and strategic essence is:

* Seize the moral initiative.
* Find a creative alternative to violence.
* Assert your own humanity and dignity as a person.
* Meet force with ridicule or humour.
* Break the cycle of humiliation.
* Refuse to submit or to accept the inferior position.
* Expose the injustice of the system.
* Take control of the power dynamic.
* Shame the oppressor into repentance.
* Stand your ground.
* Force the Powers into decisions for which they are not prepared.
* Recognize your own power.
* Be willing to suffer rather than retaliate.
* Force the oppressor to see you in a new light.
* Deprive the oppressor of a situation where force is effective.
* Be willing to undergo the penalty of breaking unjust laws.

It is too bad Jesus did not provide fifteen or twenty more examples since we do not tend toward this new response naturally. Some examples from political history might help engrave it more deeply in our minds:

In Alagamar, Brazil, a group of peasants organized a long-term struggle to preserve their lands against attempts at illegal expropriation by national and international firms (with the connivance of local politicians and the military). Some of the peasants were arrested and jailed in town. Their companions decided they were all equally responsible. Hundreds marched to town. They filled the house of the judge, demanding to be jailed with those who had been arrested. The judge was finally obliged to send them all home, including the prisoners.

During the Vietnam War, one woman claimed seventy-nine dependents on her United States income tax, all Vietnamese orphans, so she owed no tax. They were not legal dependents, of course, so were disallowed. No, she insisted, these children have been orphaned by indiscriminate United States bombing; we are responsible for their lives. She forced the Internal Revenue Service to take her to court. That gave her a larger forum for making her case. She used the system against itself to unmask the moral indefensibility of what the system was doing. Of course she "lost" the case, but she made her point.

During World War II, when Nazi authorities in occupied Denmark promulgated an order that all Jews had to wear yellow armbands with the Star of David, the king made it a point to attend a celebration in the Copenhagen synagogue. He and most of the population of Copenhagen donned yellow armbands as well. His stand was affirmed by the Bishop of Sjaelland and other Lutheran clergy. The Nazis eventually had to rescind the order.

It is important to repeat such stories to extend our imaginations for creative nonviolence. Since it is not a natural response, we need to be schooled in it. We need models, and we need to rehearse nonviolence in our daily lives if we ever hope to resort to it in crises.

Maybe it would help to juxtapose Jesus' teachings with legendary community organizer Saul Alinsky's principles for nonviolent community action (in his Rules for Radicals) to gain a clearer sense of their practicality and pertinence to the struggles of our time. Among the rules Alinsky developed in his attempts to organize American workers and minority communities are these:

(1) Power is not only what you have but also what your enemy thinks you have.

(2) Never go outside the experience of your people.

(3) Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy.

Jesus, like Alinsky (or perhaps the other way round!), recommended using your experience of being belittled, insulted, or dispossessed in such a way as to seize the initiative from the oppressor, who finds reactions like going the second mile, stripping naked, or turning the other cheek totally outside his experience. This forces him her to take your power seriously and perhaps even to recognize your humanity.

Alinsky offers other suggestions. Again we see the parallels:

(4) Make your enemies live up to their own book of rules.

(5) Ridicule is your most potent weapon.

(6) A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.

(7) A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.

The debtor in Jesus' example turned the law against his creditor by obeying it, following the letter of the law, but throwing in his underwear as well. The creditor's greed is exposed by his own ruthlessness, and this happens quickly and in a way that could only regale the debtor's sympathizers, just as Alinsky suggests. This puts all other such creditors on notice and arms all other debtors with a new sense of possibilities. Alinsky's list continues:

(8) Keep the pressure on.

(9) The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

(10) The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure on the opposition.

Jesus, in his three brief examples, does not lay out the basis of a sustained movement, but his ministry as a whole is a model of long-term social struggle that maintains a constant pressure. Mark’s Gospel depicts Jesus' movements as a nonviolent blitzkrieg. His teaching poses immediate and continuing threats to the authorities. The good he brings is misperceived as evil, his following is overestimated, his militancy is misread as sedition, and his proclamation of the coming Reign of God is mistaken as a manifesto for military revolution.

Disavowing violence, Jesus wades into the hostility of Jerusalem openhanded, setting simple truth against force. Terrified by the threat of this man and his following, the authorities resort to their ultimate deterrent, death, only to discover it impotent and themselves unmasked. The cross, hideous and macabre, becomes the symbol of liberation. The movement that should have died becomes a world religion.

Alinsky, whose stock in recent times has been raised by the fact that US President Barack Obama used to be a community organiser in Chicago, incidentally, offers three last suggestions:

(11) If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through to its counter-side.

(12) The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

(13) Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.

Alinsky delighted in using the most vicious behaviour of his opponents - burglaries of movement headquarters, attempted blackmail, and failed assassinations - to destroy their public credibility. Here were elected officials, respected corporations, and trusted police, engaging in patent illegalities to maintain privilege.

In the same way, Jesus suggests amplifying an injustice (turning the other cheek, removing your undergarment, going the second mile) to expose the fundamental wrongness of legalized oppression. The law is "compassionate" in requiring that the debtor's cloak be returned at sunset, yes; but Judaism in its most lucid moments knew that the whole system of usury and indebtedness was itself the root of injustice and should never have been condoned (Exodus 22.25). The restriction of enforced labour to carrying the soldier's pack a single mile was a great advance over unlimited enforcement, but occupation troops had no right to be on Jewish soil in the first place.

Jesus was not content merely to empower the powerless, however. Here his teachings fundamentally transcend Alinsky's. Jesus did not advocate nonviolence merely as a technique for outwitting the enemy but as a just means of opposing the enemy in such a way as to hold open the possibility of the enemy's becoming just as well.

To Alinsky's list I would like to add another "rule" of my own: never adopt a strategy you would not want your opponents to use against you. I would not object to my opponents using nonviolent direct actions against me, since such a move would require them to be committed to suffer and even die rather than resort to violence against me. It would mean they would have to honor my humanity, believe God can transform me, and treat me with dignity and respect.

Today we can draw on the cumulative historical experience of nonviolent social struggle. But the spirit, the thrust, the surge for creative transformation that is the ultimate principle of the universe-this is the same one we see incarnated in Jesus. Freed from literalistic legalism, his teaching reads like a practical manual for empowering the powerless to seize the initiative even in situations impervious to change.

To risk confronting the Powers That Be with such clown-like vulnerability, to affirm at the same time our own humanity and that of those we oppose, to dare to draw the sting of evil by absorbing it-such behavior is unlikely to attract the faint of heart. But to people dispirited by the enormity of the injustices that crush us and the intractability of those in positions of power, Jesus' words beam hope across the centuries. They especially resonate in our current time of turmoil – an age of war, terror, poverty, injustice and environmental degradation.

What Jesus’ injunction, example, resistance and vindication by God says, among other things, is this: We need not be afraid. We can assert our given human dignity. We can lay claim to the creative possibilities that are still ours, burlesque the injustice of unfair laws, and force evil out of hiding from behind the facade of legitimacy.

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© Walter Wink is a biblical scholar and advocate of radical, nonviolent social change toward justice and peace. He is Professor Emeritus of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, USA. http://www.walterwink.com/ Among many other books, he is author of Jesus and Nonviolence: The Third Way (Fortress Press, 2003).

This article is adapted with grateful acknowledgement from The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, edited by Paul Loeb (Basic Books, 2004). See: www.theimpossible.org.

Palestinian Christians refusing the cycle of hate

By Emma Halgren
Ekklesia News Service, May 1, 2009

"A land is nothing without people, and people are nothing without a land." That's the maxim followed by Palestinian farmer Daoud Nassar. And when he speaks of the intimate connection between people and their land, he is talking from hard-won experience.

Nassar, a Palestinian Christian, lives with his family on 42 hectares (100 acres) of fertile land west of Bethlehem. His grandfather bought the land in 1916 and the Nassar family has farmed there ever since, growing olives, almonds, grapes, pears and figs.

In 1991, Daoud Nassar learned that the Israeli authorities were planning to confiscate three quarters of his land – a practice that is illegal under international law, but nonetheless widespread on the West Bank.

Since then, the family has been locked in a costly legal battle with the Israeli government, despite possessing all the land registration documents and other paperwork necessary to prove ownership, Daoud Nassar told a visiting ecumenical delegation on 10 March.

The ecumenical delegation – a Living Letters team travelling on behalf of the World Council of Churches (WCC) – visited the Nassar farm along with ecumenical organizations, church leaders and civil society groups in Israel and Palestine in March.

Amid the legal battles and harassment from surrounding Israeli settlers, the Nassar family has chosen a path of peace. It has opened up its land to locals and people from around the world to participate in educational and peace building activities.

The Nassar farm is part of a parcel of land, including eight nearby Palestinian farming villages, which Israeli authorities hope to annex in order to expand the Gush Etzion settlements, whose population is around 50,000.

Many West Bank families do not have the official documentation required to prove ownership of their land, let alone the resources to be able to fight lengthy court battles.

Since their first court appearance in 1991 to challenge the confiscation order, the Nassars have surprised the courts not only with the thoroughness of their documentation, but with their persistence. Daoud Nassar estimates that the family and supporters of the project have spent around 145,000 US dollars in legal and other fees and attended numerous court hearings – with the result that, for now, the land is safe.

"We refuse to be enemies"

The Nassar farm is already surrounded by Israeli settlements, and like many Palestinians, the Nassars have endured harassment, threats and attacks from nearby settlers. In one such attack, Daoud Nassar's mother was threatened with a gun. In another, settlers uprooted 250 olive trees from the property.

It is acts like this, Nassar says, that may easily fuel violence among Palestinians. For many others, the only possible options seem to be to resign themselves to the situation, or to emigrate.

The Nassar family decided there should be another option – to refuse to be enemies. So they established on their land a project called the Tent of Nations (http://www.tentofnations.org). Its overarching aims are to build bridges between people of different backgrounds and between people and land.

"We wanted to move away from a circle of blame, and channel our frustration into something positive," Daoud Nassar told the Living Letters team.

The Israeli authorities have forbidden any permanent infrastructure development on the site, as well as access to the electricity grid and public water, so the Nassars have refurbished seven underground caves, painting them, fitting them out with comfortable rugs and cushions and connecting them to electricity from a generator so that they could be used for meetings and other gatherings. There are now plans to install solar panels and build wind turbines on the farm.

Since the establishment of the project in 2000, the Nassars have garnered significant local and global support. Children from Bethlehem are given the opportunity to reconnect with the land through tree planting and helping with the grape and olive harvest.

A women's project equips women from the nearby village of Nahalin with English, computer and craft skills. Restrictive permit systems prevent many women from leaving the village for education or work, so the women's project provides a rare opportunity for them to pursue an education.

Each year, the Nassars run a tree planting campaign on the farm. In 2009, the goal is to plant 1000 trees on the land, with the help of the hundreds of people – including local Palestinians, Israeli peace activists and international supporters – who visit the site.

Volunteers also visit the farm throughout the year to help with the grape, almond, fig and olive harvests and to take part in artistic projects.

Building bridges

In a show of solidarity, members of European Jews for a Just Peace visited the property in 2003 and planted 250 olive trees to replace those ripped out by settlers.

At the local level, Nassar says, the activities of the Tent of Nations have gone at least some way towards promoting understanding between Palestinian and Israeli people. In early 2008, a woman from a visiting group of peace activists invited her friend from a nearby Israeli settlement to come and visit the Tent of Nations. The woman had been living in the settlement for nine years but was not aware that there were Palestinians living in the surrounding areas. The visit gave her a powerful insight into the living conditions of the Palestinians in the region.

Actions like these may not change the reality of the Occupation, but they are a small step towards better relationships between these deeply divided groups, said Daoud Nassar.

He hopes that his project will encourage other Palestinians not to see themselves as victims, but rather to look at the future with some hope. "What we are trying to do here, in a simple way, is to motivate our people, and show them there is a future," he said.

------------

(c) Emma Halgren is a member of the Uniting Church in Australia, and a communications intern at the World Council of Churches (http://www.oikoumene.org/).

Asian churches call for US military withdrawal from Afghanistan

Ekklesia News Service, April 9, 2009

At a time when the United States is trying to rally North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies behind its South Asian strategy, which includes reinforcing military presence in Afghanistan with thousands of extra international, mainly US, troops, participants at the International Consultation on Peace, Security and Development in South Asia have called "for the withdrawal of US-led international combat troops from Afghanistan".

The consultation took place in Bangalore, India, from 30 March to 2 April 2009.

Participants also appealed "to the international community to ensure that the resultant power vacuum may be filled by a UN-sponsored peacekeeping force with Asian forces as major players". This strategy, the statement says, "will help the country's transition towards stability".

"The overwhelming presence and reliance on 52,000-strong foreign forces in Afghanistan has created more animosity among the local people as well as in neighbouring Pakistan. This situation creates an atmosphere ripe for extremist groups to exploit the religious sentiments of ordinary people and involve them in committing more violence," the statement says.

Analyzing what they see as "one of the most volatile regions of the world," participants at the consultation stated that "South Asia has become a hotbed of the war on terror and a victim of the strategic interests of major power blocs keeping the region in constant turmoil and uncertainty".

With the "US-led war on terror" being an overall defining framework for the region's conflicts, "resentments against foreign forces" are "growing among various sectors in society, especially as they feel that peace and security in South Asia are today defined in terms of American [US] strategic interests and objectives".

The consultation condemned "all forms of terrorism both by state and non-state actors in the South Asia region". It also expressed "concern over the emerging religious extremism and fundamentalism in all South Asian countries". Among the "silver linings which provide hope," the consultation's statement mentions a number of "democratic transitions and electoral processes," like those that have taken place recently in Bhutan, Maldives and Nepal.

The statement of the International Consultation on Peace, Security and Development in South Asia can be found here: http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=6743

ROTC comes to St. Francis

by John Dear SJ
On the Road to Peace, March 31, 2009

Last Friday night, I delivered the annual ethics lecture at St. Francis University, a modern campus near Altoona nestled among Pennsylvania's rolling hills. It's an idyllic landscape for a school of peace. There, before some hundreds of students and faculty members, I focused attention on the world's violence and then reflected on the Franciscan alternative of nonviolence and the stunning life of the nonviolent Jesus. His, I said, is our path for living in these times.

But I've come upon news that left me appalled. Last month the university announced it would bring ROTC to the campus -- the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, a program to train the young in the art of war. I'm not the only one smarting by this intrusion upon Franciscan ideals. Many are disappointed. One is Franciscan Fr. Kevin Queally, a former secretary general of the Franciscans in Rome, who has worked seven years at St. Francis as assistant vice president for mission effectiveness and integration. He resolved to express his objection by resigning. What a loss! And what a sad sign of the times that another Catholic university -- named for Francis, no less -- has militarized.

In first raising objections, Fr. Kevin addressed the faculty in an open letter:

The question of having ROTC on campus goes to the mission of the university, and the Franciscan goals of higher education and values. We continue to put our mission statement forward as something which guides the institution. It is difficult to reconcile our claim that we have "a spirit for peace and justice" and that "university programs and activities foster such Franciscan values as ... respect for diversity and the uniqueness of individual persons, understanding of ethical issues, and reverence for all life," when we plan to invite on to campus a group that teaches things which go against these values. One example: reverence for all life precludes killing people.

Fr. Kevin did not go so far as to suggest the university be "pacifist," even though, as he says, "many of the personages we put forth as role models are pacifists, such as St. Francis and Dorothy Day."

The issue here is whether the program belongs on this campus, given our mission and values we proudly proclaim, the Franciscan goals and values which we print up on posters and place all around the campus. How can we claim to have a "spirit for peace and justice" when we would invite military exercises and training on campus to teach strategies for warfare and prepare young men and women for killing in battle?

The university's goal of instilling "Reverence for all Life and for the Goodness of All Humanity" would be completely violated. Could St. Francis University still claim to strive to revere life in all its forms, to treat all with dignity and respect when a program of military training is housed on campus? ... The university claims to strive to resolve conflict nonviolently and to work for justice within our society and our world. We work to build up God's people everywhere, to reconcile, and to act as instruments of peace in the communities we serve.

This roiling of the placid waters has, of course, two sides to it. One administrator gave me the official view of things. Some students train with the army already, off campus, he said. Bringing the army to the campus will let officials influence and supervise.

I heard him out, but I'm still convinced his position is naïve. It smacks of moral compromise; it comes off as a pretext to justify financial gain. My own order, the Jesuits, have employed the same argument for some 50 years, and in all that time they've done nothing to mollify military ways. All Jesuit ROTC programs manage to do is churn out well-educated warmakers -- and bring in millions for our institutions. Those students graduate not prepared to follow the nonviolent Jesus but to kill for the empire.

Fr. Kevin insists a Franciscan school should teach peacemaking ways and acclaim the noblest examples. The example of St. Francis, to begin with. The crusades in full swing, the Christian sword at the throats of the feared Muslims, Francis journeyed empty-handed into the war zone to offer friendship to the hated sultan. On Francis' return he barely escaped the wrath of Catholic soldiers.

"St. Francis University should espouse a form of peacemaking as exemplified by St. Francis, one without weapons, one which did not impose a nation's will by military might, one which respects the opponent and even befriends the so-called enemy," he wrote.

Fr. Kevin pressed his argument to university officials:

If some course were endorsing abortion or stem cell research, you would rightly say this cannot be at a Catholic university ... While everyone here at St. Francis University does not have to be Franciscan, the university does have to be Franciscan. Even your own example of Francis forbidding the lay Franciscans to carry weapons underlines this value. Inviting ROTC to campus is clearly a violation of the mission statement as written, a betrayal of Franciscan values and a selling-out of our Franciscan heritage.

A university official replied. He said Fr. Kevin's objection to ROTC is "passé." But Fr. Kevin has no interest in passing fashion. He insists peacemaking is at the heart of being Franciscan and Catholic, in season and out.

My address, I trust, furthered the debate. I shared stories about the Jesuit-run University of Central America in El Salvador. I was there in 1985, and in the surrounding countryside at the height of the American-backed civil war. And there I witnessed the stony-faced politicians and the bombing of villages and the displaced families and the roaming soldiers rooting out rebels. And amid the maelstrom stood the Central American University, declaring a contrary word. All its institutional power went into confronting war, denouncing killing and teaching peace.

In the United States there is nothing like it. And to my audience I commended the University of Central America as a model for every Catholic and Christian university and high school in the United States.

What would such an institution look like? It would refuse Pentagon money, for starters. Then it would refuse to teach the art of war and, against the tide, teach the methodology and spirituality of Gospel nonviolence. And it would offer some species of practicum in how to non-cooperate with the culture of war.

I'm sorry to see St. Francis University succumbing to the blandishments of our culture of war. I'm sorry to see good people, like Fr. Kevin, put up the good fight then feel they must leave. I wish everyone were working creatively instead to outline a new culture of peace, turn from the passe ways of war, and tutor new peacemakers.

Let's pray for the day when every Catholic and Christian campus will cut their ties with the U.S. military, become training grounds for creative nonviolence, and help us all follow the nonviolent Jesus into the Paschal Mystery of global transformation. That, I submit with Fr. Kevin, is our common mission.

New web site to serve Middle East peace activists

Ekklesia News Service, Feb 18, 2009
by staff writers

Friends of Sabeel-North America, a nonprofit group that works with Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land to educate American Christians on issues of justice and peace, has relaunched its peace activist web site, www.fosna.org.

FOSNA works with the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem to promote a vision for a "just peace" through a theological approach, nonviolence and international law. Sabeel addresses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as understood from within the Christian faith and in the context of a historical Gospel and the rediscovery of a Jesus who was fully divine and fully human, who was born under a brutal military occupation, lived under oppressive domination and was executed by occupation forces.

"There's a hope for meaningful change now with the new administration", said FOSNA's administrator, Sister Elaine Kelley, "so it is fitting that we make some changes too, particularly to assist newcomers to this issue who need the most up-to-date information and the best resources for their local church outreach programs and educational events."

The new site is a functional tool providing easy access to features that include the most recent news items on what the churches around the world are doing and saying on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and streaming videos of presentations from past Sabeel conferences, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu's keynote address at the October 2007 Sabeel conference in Boston.

The site also features alternative travel listings, updated regularly for those seeking a traditional pilgrimage alongside an insightful Christian witness and on-the-ground experience of life for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza under military occupation. This feature includes Sabeel trips as well as a comprehensive listing of trips offered by churches and other peace groups.

A section on Investment Activism ties in with the global movement on Morally Responsible Investment and related economic strategies to bring a just and nonviolent peace for Israel and Palestine. Resources include articles, church statements and resolutions, press releases and other items of interest.

"We have links to over 100 web sites of other groups working to change the situation in the Holy Land," said Sister Kelley. "This wide diversity of Christians, Muslims, Jews and seculars in the US, Palestine and Israel working together for the same outcome is itself cause for hope. It is our shared hope for the Holy Land and for the whole world."

Radical Catholic priest and peace activist faces excommunication

Ekklesia News Service

By staff writers
November, 20, 2008

A 70 year old Catholic priest who has led campaigns against torture, faces excommunication by the Vatican tomorrow following his active support for women's ordination.

Rev Roy Bourgeois, from Georgia in the US, said he plans to visit the Vatican personally this week to lobby against the formal excommunication.

Bourgeois is a nationally known peace activist, and has been targeted by the Vatican for participating in a ceremony in which Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a member of a group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests, was ordained.

The Vatican considers ceremonies for the ordination of a woman as a priest illicit and invalid.

According to the New York Times, Sevre-Duszynska is a veteran agitator for women’s ordination, and the 35th American woman to claim ordination from the increasingly vocal Womenpriests group. The Womenpriests group has been holding its own ordinations of women as priests, deacons and even bishops across North America and Europe, often in secret, starting in 2002 with a ceremony on a boat on the Danube River, reports the New York Times.

Bourgeois, born in Lutcher, Louisiana, began his annual protests to close the School of the Americas (SOA) in Fort Benning, an Army training school held responsible for human rights abuses in Latin America, in 1989. The institution was closed due to the protests, and in its place, the Pentagon opened the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Cooperation in 2001. Campaigners suggest that this was little more than a rebranding exercise and it still trains South and Central American police forces in the techniques of torture, repression, and counter-insurgency.

The protests are still held annually at the gates of Fort Benning, drawing more than 15,000 protesters last year. This week, from November 21-23, will be the 19th annual vigil to close the SOA. The deadline for Bourgeois’ excommunication is also Nov 21, reports the Associated Press.

In a letter to the Vatican, Bourgeois wrote: "I was very saddened by your letter dated October 21, 2008, giving me 30 days to recant my belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church, or I will be excommunicated.

"I have been a Catholic priest for 36 years and have a deep love for my Church and ministry.

"Women in our Church are telling us that God is calling them to the priesthood. Who are we, as men, to say to women, 'Our call is valid, but yours is not.' Who are we to tamper with God's call?" he continued.

"Sexism, like racism, is a sin. And no matter how hard or how long we may try to justify discrimination, in the end, it is always immoral.

"Hundreds of Catholic churches in the US are closing because of a shortage of priests. Yet there are hundreds of committed and prophetic women telling us that God is calling them to serve our Church as priests.

"If we are to have a vibrant, healthy Church rooted in the teachings of our Savior, we need the faith, wisdom, experience, compassion and courage of women in the priesthood."

"Working and struggling for peace and justice are an integral part of our faith. For this reason, I speak out against the war in Iraq. And for the last eighteen years, I have been speaking out against the atrocities and suffering caused by the School of the Americas (SOA). Eight years ago, while in Rome for a conference on peace and justice, I was invited to speak about the SOA on Vatican Radio. During the interview, I stated that I could not address the injustice of the SOA and remain silent about injustice in my Church. I ended the interview by saying, 'There will never be justice in the Catholic Church until women can be ordained.' I remain committed to this belief today."

If Bourgeois is excommunicated, he says he will remain active in SOA Watch and the church, Bourgeois told the AP. “I won’t be able to say Mass in Catholic churches, but my ministry in SOA Watch and speaking at colleges and churches will continue,” he said.

 

Full text of Rev Roy Bourgeois letter to the Vatican may be found here

From: Back from the Compost Pile

by Tom Fox
Editor's Box
National Catholic Reporter, October 17, 2008

~~~~~
We live in the 21st century and allegedly in a “civilized” society. And yet ... the United States of America spends more than $750 billion a year (about half the world’s total military spending) to support our military and military adventures. The numbers defy the imagination and should shame us to our bones. And it’s not as if we have pulled back from this madness. Just back in 2001, U.S. military spending was $350 billion.

Read carefully what James Madison wrote in 1795 near the birth of our nation:

“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes ... known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. ... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

All this is by way of recommitting ourselves to peace. We do this is in a modest way by offering to you this week our “Paths to Peace” special section. It reminds us we are not alone and not crazy for believing in another way. Peace.

MORNING REFLECTION: Jonah's Frustration

Today's Reading for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 989)
Psalms 18:1-20 (morning)        18:21-50 (evening)  
Jonah 3:1 - 4:11
Acts 27:27-44
Luke 9:18-27

Jesus tells his disciples that he must suffer the same fate as so many of the prophets before him.  God's people will not listen to him and heed his message.  He will be opposed and treated violently.  Yet he offers to those who will listen to him a path of service.  "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

The ending of Jonah makes a humorous counterpoint to the gospel reading today.  Jonah is the reluctant prophet who refuses to speak God's word and tries to flee.  Yet who can flee from God?  So Jonah goes to Nineveh.

For Israel, Nineveh is a symbol of evil.  (read Osama bin Laden)  More than once armies from Nineveh had attacked Israel.  Sargon II, who destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, had a palace at Nineveh.  Sennacherib, who destroyed Lachish and many other cities and starved many in his siege of Jerusalem, helped make Nineveh magnificent.  Nineveh is in modern Iraq, across the river from the city of Mosul.

When Jonah preaches, this foreign town of enemies listens to him.  Unlike the people of Israel, the Ninevites take the prophet's message seriously.  They proclaim a fast and repent in sackcloth.  (In a humorous exaggeration, even the animals participate, fasting and wearing sackcloth.)  Because they heeded the prophet's warning, "God changed his mind about the calamity that he said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it."

But Nineveh is the hated enemy.  These are the people who have destroyed Israel and insulted Israel's God.  Just because they heeded one prophet this one time, they are to be spared?!  Jonah is furious.  He wanted "shock and awe" rained down upon them -- fire and violence and destruction.  Jonah pouts outside the city, just hoping God will call down ruin upon it.

A bush appears in the desert of Iraq.  (Yes, it's a bad pun.)  The bush covers Jonah from the sun and sultry east wind.  But the next day, a worm withers the bush, and Jonah is exposed to the heat, while the city remains undestroyed.  Jonah is so miserable that he wishes he were dead.

"But God said to Jonah, 'Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?'  And he said, 'Yes, angry enough to die.'  Then the Lord said, 'You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night.  And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"

It's a great ending.  Funny and ironic.  God punches holes though Jonah's prejudice and his religious pride.  Jonah wants a triumphalistic God; a tribal God who will punish the other religions, especially those who have treated his people with such violence.  Instead, he recognizes that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, ready to relent from punishing.

Many commentators believe that this book was written as protest literature during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, and time of nationalism and ethnic purification. 

Imagine today how popular a short story might be featuring a gentle and forgiving end for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.  That's the flavor of the book of Jonah.  If you might be frustrated and angry with such an end, you can feel for Jonah as he sits beneath the bush in the Iraqi desert waiting for revenge.  But that's not God's way, says the story.

--Lowell

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

MORNING REFLECTION: Micah's Two Visions

Friday, October 10, 2008

Today's Reading for the Daily Office (Prayer Book, p. 987)
Psalms 140, 142 (morning)        141, 143:1-11(12) (evening)  
Micah 3:9 - 4:5
Acts 24:24 - 25:12
Luke 8:1-15

We have two of the most powerful moments of prophecy in today's reading from Micah. They probably come from different centuries and different voices, but they are preserved together, not unlike the collection of the prophet Isaiah. In classic form, Micah afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted.

The first oracle (3:9-12) comes from the eighth century prophet Micah, who pronounces God's judgment upon the leaders of the nation, "who abhor justice and pervert all equity." He speaks in a voice not unlike his contemporary Amos. Micah's complaint is toward the powerful and wealthy, the elite who have structured the economy to favor the rich while the interests of the poor are ignored. The gap between rich and poor widens.Dishonesty abounds. It's all about money.  Money talks. Money is power.  Money corrupts. "Its rulers give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets give oracles for money." It is a religious age. The Temple and the places of worship are well supplied and its leaders give great lip service to God. "They lean upon the Lord and say, 'Surely the Lord is with us! Nor harm shall come to us.'" Many commentators have said that the circumstances of eighth century Israel and today have some remarkable similarities.

Then Micah pulls the trigger. "Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height." Micah announces the fall of Jerusalem. 

But it didn't happen. Not that century at least. Micah's contemporary Isaiah made similar complaints about the nation's injustice, but believed that Jerusalem would not fall.  Isaiah was right, for the time being. Sennacherib of Assyria captured many of the fortified cities of Judah. But prior to overcoming Jerusalem, Sennacherib left the siege, apparently to handle another threat elsewhere. Jerusalem was spared, but the annual tribute that Sennacherib demanded impoverished the city and nation. 

Nearly a hundred years later, during another time of threat, the prophet Jeremiah also announced God's judgment upon the nation. He prophesied the fall of Jerusalem. Jeremiah was arrested on a charge of treason and faced a death sentence. His appeal, his primary defense was the word of the prophet Micah. Micah had also prophesied Jerusalem's fall, and he was not executed. His word was preserved as a prophet. Micah's word saved Jeremiah. And Jerusalem fell, just like Micah and Jeremiah had said.

We move to Micah 4. These are words to exiles following the fall. In a passage that is also preserved in Isaiah, we read of a vision of the glorification of Jerusalem. No more will the capital city be a source of injustice and greed, but "out of Zion shall go forth instruction." Wisdom and peace will dwell in the city. "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid." That is a beautiful vision.

So many have been inspired by the visions of Micah. When the two prophecies are combined, we have a witness that confronts the powerful and wealthy for their injustice, complacency and greed; and we have a witness that holds up an alternative vision on behalf of wisdom and peace. The prophets call us all to choose either power and control driven by money or equality and peace guided by wisdom. Micah preserves both words. They speak with ringing authority today as well.

--Lowell

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas