!1

LENTEN REFLECTIONS 2016

Following Jesus on the Path of Nonviolence

Practicing Gospel Nonviolence and Seeking God’s Reign of Justice and Peace

by John Dear

Education for Justice, project of Center of Concern

!2

CONTENT

A Note from Rev. John Dear 2

About Rev. John Dear 3

Ash Wednesday, February 10, 2016 4 - 7

First Sunday of Lent, February 14, 2016 8 -12

Second Sunday of Lent, February 21, 2016 13 - 16

Third Sunday of Lent, February 28, 2016 17 - 20

Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 6, 2016 21 - 24

Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 13, 2016 25 - 28

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, March 20, 2016 29 - 32

Holy Thursday, March 24, 2016 33 - 36

Good Friday, March 25, 2016 37 - 42

Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016 43 - 46

Second Sunday of Easter, April 3, 2016 47 - 50

!Center of Concern 1225 Otis Street, N.E.

Washington, DC 20017 USA +1 (202) 635-2757, ext. 132

efj@coc.org www.educationforjustice.org

Center of Concern researches, educates and advocates from Catholic social tradition to create a world where economic, political, and cultural systems

promote sustainable flourishing of the global community. Founded 1971. Copyright © 2016, Center of Concern.

www.coc.org

!3

Dear Friends,

Peace be with you!

This Lent, I invite you, along with our friends at Education for Justice and Center of Concern, to reflect on the nonviolence of Jesus as he walks from Galilee to Jerusalem and proclaims God’s reign of justice and peace. We offer you these reflections in the hope that you might use this holy season as a time to renounce violence, practice nonviolence toward yourself and all others, renew your commitment to the grassroots movement of justice and peace, and make new strides on your discipleship journey with Jesus to the God of peace.

“Nonviolence is the greatest and most active force in the world,” Gandhi once wrote. “One person who can express nonviolence in life exercises a force superior to all the forces of brutality. My optimism rests on my belief in the infinite possibilities of the individual to develop nonviolence. The more you develop it in your own being, the more infectious it becomes till it overwhelms your surroundings and by and by might oversweep the world.”

Gandhi considered Jesus the most active person of nonviolence in the history of the world, and believed that Jesus’ nonviolence continues to disarm and transform all of us. He thought it was the only hope for humanity. But he insisted that Christians need to go back to the Gospels, relearn the nonviolence of Jesus, and start practicing it in their own lives and engaging with it in the world.

That’s what I hope we can do during this holy season of Lent. For each of the Sunday and holy day readings, I offer reflections on the Gospel passages, plus reflection questions, a prayer, and action suggestions. You will notice, too, that I offer one extra week, the second Sunday after Easter, to keep us going on the journey of resurrection peace in the footsteps of the nonviolent Jesus.

My hope and prayer is that these reflections will help you to go deeper into Gospel nonviolence, renew your discipleship to the nonviolent Jesus, and recommit yourself to the long haul work of the grassroots movements for justice and disarmament. May we become, like Gandhi and King, apostles, disciples, prophets, teachers, and missionaries of Gospel nonviolence, and fulfill our vocations to be peacemakers, God’s beloved sons and daughters.

May the God of peace bless you abundantly!

Fr. John Dear

2

!4

About Rev. John Dear

“John Dear is the embodiment of a peacemaker,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote a few years ago when he nominated John for the Nobel Peace Prize. “He has led by example through his actions and in his writings and in numerous sermons, speeches and demonstrations. He believes that peace is not something static, but rather to make peace is to be engaged, mind, body and spirit. His teaching is to love yourself, to love your neighbor, your enemy, and to love the world and to understand the profound responsibility in doing all of these. He is a man who has the courage of his convictions and who speaks out and acts against war, the manufacture of weapons and any situation where a human being might be at risk through violence. For evil to prevail requires only that good people sit on the sidelines and do nothing. John Dear is compelling all of us to stand up and take responsibility for the suffering of humanity so often caused through selfishness and greed.”

John Dear has spent over three decades speaking to people around the world about the Gospel of Jesus, the way of nonviolence and the call to make peace. A Catholic priest, he has served as the director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the largest interfaith peace organization in the United States, and after September 11, 2001, as one of the Red Cross coordinators of chaplains at the Family Assistance Center, and counseled thousands of relatives and rescue workers. He has worked in homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and community centers; traveled in war zones around the world, including Iraq, Palestine, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, India, and Colombia; lived in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Northern Ireland; been arrested over 75 times in acts of civil disobedience against war; and spent eight months in prison for a Plowshares disarmament action. In the 1990s, he arranged for Mother Teresa to speak to various governors to stop the death penalty. He has two Master’s Degrees in Theology from the Graduate Theological Union in California, and has taught theology at Fordham University. 

John Dear has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Sun, National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and elsewhere. For many years, he wrote a weekly blog for the National Catholic Reporter, and is featured regularly on the national radio show “Democracy Now!” and the Huffington Post. He is the subject of the DVD documentary, “The Narrow Path” (with music by Joan Baez and Jackson Browne) and is profiled in John Dear On Peace, by Patti Normile (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2009).

His thirty books, including Living Peace, The Nonviolent Life, Lazarus Come Forth, The God of Peace, Jesus the Rebel, Disarming the Heart, Peace Behind Bars, The Questions of Jesus, You Will Be My Witnesses, Our God Is Nonviolent, The Sound of Listening, Seeds of Nonviolence, Walking the Way, Thomas Merton Peacemaker, Transfiguration, Mary of Nazareth, and his autobiography, A Persistent Peace, have been translated into ten languages. He has edited books about Daniel Berrigan, Mohandas Gandhi, Mairead Maguire, Henri Nouwen, Richard McSorley, and Horace McKenna.

John Dear is on the staff of Pace e Bene and organizes a national week of action for justice and peace every September called “Campaign Nonviolence.” See: www.campaignnonviolence.org. A former Jesuit, he was ordained in 1993 and is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Monterey, California. Currently, he lives in New Mexico.

For information or to invite John to speak in your church or school, visit: www.johndear.org.

3

ASH WEDNESDAY REFLECTION February 10, 2016

!5

Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning. Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to your God for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment. Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind a blessing. (Joel 2:12-18)

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites… When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” (Matthew 6:4-6)

4

!6

Mahatma Gandhi said that Jesus was the most active person of nonviolence in the history of the world, and yet the only people in the whole world who don’t know that Jesus is nonviolent are Christians. The holy season of Lent is a time to reclaim and practice the nonviolence of Jesus. This year, during these forty days, I invite us to renounce our violence and our complicity with systemic injustice and practice active nonviolence. I invite us to use this time wisely to grow in nonviolence so that we might better follow Jesus all the way to the cross and the new life of resurrection peace. We want to be faithful to the nonviolence of Jesus for the rest of our lives.

So this Lent, let’s be intentional, disciplined, and studious about Gospel nonviolence. These weekly writings, based on the Lenten Sunday and holy day Gospel readings, will focus on the themes of violence and nonviolence, that we might become more nonviolent, better followers of the nonviolent Jesus, and do our part in the nonviolent struggle for justice, disarmament, and peace.

The night before he was killed, Martin Luther King, Jr. told the Memphis crowd, “The choice is no longer violence or nonviolence; it’s nonviolence or non-existence.” He said unless every human being becomes nonviolent and works for a nonviolent world, we are doomed to our self-destructive violence. This is what we pledge to work on this Lent.

As we begin, we note the dire predicament of the world today: thirty wars being fought; 810 million people starving; almost four billion people in extreme poverty; as well as torture, executions, racism, sexism, drone attacks, unparalleled corporate greed, 16,000 nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction. This systemic violence and injustice has brought us to catastrophic climate change which threatens far more wars and poverty over the next century. And all this violence is inside us, too. We are all addicted to violence.

Given our global violence and systemic injustice, we look at Lent not as a time for childish activities like giving up candy or eating fish on Friday, but something more serious: a mature rededication to the nonviolent Jesus and his way of nonviolence so that we might practice what he taught and hasten a more nonviolent world.

As we begin these forty days, I encourage you to spend at least twenty to thirty minutes every day in silence with the nonviolent Jesus, and to do a little fasting and alms-giving today as part of our spiritual preparation and training.

During these forty days, I invite you to reflect on your life journey in light of the nonviolence of Jesus, to look deeply at your inner violence and where you need to grow in nonviolence. I also invite you to determine how you might follow Jesus by being more involved in the grassroots movements of nonviolence for disarmament and justice.

“I’m committed to nonviolence

absolutely. I’m just not going

to kill anybody, whether it’s in

Vietnam or here. I’m not going to burn down any building. If nonviolent protest fails,

I will continue to preach it

and teach it. I plan to stand by nonviolence

because I have found it to be

a philosophy of life that regulates

not only my dealings in the struggle

for racial justice, but also my dealings

with people, with my own self.

I will still be faithful to nonviolence.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

5

!7

We can examine ourselves, first as victims of violence and then as perpetrators of violence. How did we suffer violence—as children, from our parents and siblings, from school kids and from the culture of war, racism, sexism and violence? How have we been violent—to ourselves, to those around us, and in complicity with the violence of the world?

During Lent, we repent from violence, apologize to God and others for all the ways we have been violent, and turn from violence to nonviolence. We can “rend our hearts,” allow God to disarm our hearts, and try from now on to live with nonviolent hearts. That includes being nonviolent to ourselves.

The Gospel reading for Ash Wednesday is from Matthew chapter six, from the Sermon on the Mount. These teachings about alms-giving, prayer and fasting come within the larger context of Jesus’ holistic nonviolence. A few verses before, he commands us, “Offer no violent resistance to one who does evil,” and “love your enemies.” After these teachings, he offers a new commandment: “Seek first God’s kingdom and God’s justice and everything else will be provided for you.” The teachings here about avoiding hypocrisy are set within the larger framework of active, creative nonviolence.

This Lent, I invite you to reflect on nonviolence, study it, practice it and deepen in it. Ideally, I would recommend a serious reading of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7, which Gandhi read from every day for over forty years. I also urge you to study Gandhi, King, and other books on nonviolence.

You can also reflect on your life’s work for justice and peace, the ways you have supported the grassroots movements of nonviolence, and ways you could get more involved. Where have you seen the power of nonviolence, as Dr. King demonstrated? When have we responded to violence with nonviolence, as Jesus, Gandhi, and King taught?

These forty days offer a great opportunity to go forward with new vigor on the path of Gospel nonviolence, so that from now on you will try to be nonviolent to yourself, nonviolent to all people, nonviolent to all creatures and the earth, and part of the growing grassroots movement of nonviolence for disarmament and justice.

We will also try to take responsibility for the world of violence. During Lent, we acknowledge our complicity with the social sin of war, greed, poverty, racism, sexism, torture, executions, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction. We repent of our participation in the structures of violence and injustice, and determine that from now on, we will be part of the grassroots movements for justice, peace and nonviolence. Remember this: we are trying to repent of social sin and participate in God’s social grace of global nonviolence.

And so, on Ash Wednesday, we turn to the God of peace, repent of the sin of violence, war, and nuclear weapons, and pledge to follow the nonviolent Jesus and fulfill our vocation to be peacemakers, God’s beloved sons and daughters.

6

!

!8

REFLECTION QUESTIONS • How am I violent to myself, to others, to creatures, and to the earth? How can I

repent of my violence and become more nonviolent? How can I be more nonviolent to myself, to others, to all creatures, and to the earth?

• How have I been part of the grassroots movement for justice, peace, and the earth? How can I get more involved in the grassroots movements for justice, peace, and the earth?

• How can I spend the next forty days concentrating on the nonviolence of Jesus, and trying to become a better disciple of the nonviolent Jesus? What concrete steps can I take during Lent? How can I make this holy season of Lent a personal training time in Gospel nonviolence?

PRAYER

Dear God of Peace, thank you for these forty days of Lent. Bless me that I might use this holy season wisely to reflect on the life of the nonviolent Jesus, my own life, and how I might follow him more and more faithfully from now on. Help me to renounce violence once and for all, and to practice the nonviolence of Jesus. Bless these holy days of Lent that I might be more nonviolent to myself, cultivate interior nonviolence, spend time in prayer, and allow you to disarm my heart. Help me to be more nonviolent to all those around me, even to your creatures and the earth. Help me to get more involved in the grassroots movements of nonviolence for disarmament and justice. Give me the grace to accompany the nonviolent Jesus more and more on his campaign from Galilee to Jerusalem, to the cross and the resurrection, that I might truly be his nonviolent disciple and become who you created me to be—a peacemaker, your beloved son/daughter. Amen.

FAITH IN ACTION • Commit yourself to 20-30 minutes of silent prayer with the nonviolent Jesus every

day during Lent to pray over his nonviolence and how you can become more nonviolent. Keep a journal of nonviolence during Lent. Write about your inner violence and ways you try to be more nonviolent, more peaceful.

• Read a book or two on nonviolence during Lent, such as “Walking the Way: Following Jesus on the Lenten Journey of Gospel Nonviolence to the Cross and Resurrection,” by John Dear (23rd Publications) or “The Nonviolent Life,” by John Dear; or a biography of Gandhi, Dr. King, or Dorothy Day.

• Fast on Ash Wednesday; give a donation to a group working for justice, peace, and nonviolence.

• Engage in some kind of repentance of violence, perhaps by apologizing to someone you hurt; helping to reconcile people; or engaging in some kind of active nonviolence in the face of violence.

7

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT February 14, 2016

!9

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, One does not live on bread alone.”

Then he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant. The devil said to him,“I shall give to you all this power and glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours, if you worship me.”

Jesus said to him in reply, “It is written: You shall worship the Lord, your God, and God alone shall you serve.” Then he led him to Jerusalem, made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you, and: With their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him in reply, “It also says, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” (Luke 4:1-13)

8

!10

Today we consider the temptations of Jesus in the desert and our own temptations to violence. Question: How was Jesus able to be so perfectly nonviolent? I believe it’s because at his baptism he heard that he was the beloved son of the God of peace, and he decided to claim that truth as his fundamental identity, come what may. He went in to the desert where he fasted and prayed for forty days over that new identity. He was tempted to reject his identity and to turn to violence, but instead, he accepted who he is and went forth into the world to announce God’s reign of justice, peace, and nonviolence, and remain faithful to his beloved God of peace until his last breath.

Then, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus announced that everyone who makes peace and loves their nations’ enemies is also the beloved son or daughter of God! He offered that fundamental

identity to all of us! “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he said. “They shall be called the sons and daughters of God…. Love your enemies, that you might be sons and daughters of the God who lets the sun rise on the bad and the good and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” Every one of us is a beloved son or daughter of the God of peace and universal love, and like Jesus, we are invited to claim this core identity, and go forth into the world of injustice and war as people of peace, nonviolence, and universal love. This is the key to his nonviolence and ours as well!

The Lenten journey of Gospel nonviolence begins, then, in the desert with Jesus as he fasts for forty days, claims his identity, rejects the inner temptations to violence, and decides to be faithful to the God of peace, God’s way of nonviolence, and God’s word. (Lk. 4:1-13). As we accompany Jesus, the Gospel encourages us to renounce our own inner violence, claim our true identities as sons and daughters of the God of peace, and remain faithful to the nonviolent Jesus as we follow Jesus in steadfast nonviolence to our own Jerusalems and the cross of nonviolent resistance to empire.

“If you are the son of God,” the tempter says first to Jesus, “command this stone to become bread.” “It is written,” Jesus answers, “‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Matthew adds: “…but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.’”

“If you are the son of God...” Each temptation begins with this taunt. Throughout his public life, Jesus’ identity is challenged, even as he dies on the cross where passersby mock him with similar words, “If you are the son of God, come down from that cross.” The question of his identity and our identity is at the heart of the spirituality of peace, justice, and nonviolence.

The tempter, and the culture of war, always challenge our identities as beloved sons and daughters of God, saying: “Who do you think you are? If you are a child of God, a peacemaker, a person of justice, do something. Prove it. Give us results now. Be successful, be effective. Make a difference. Be relevant—otherwise, you cannot be who you think you are.” This is the voice of despair.

9

!11

The first temptation to violence is the temptation to despair. It says: “Quick! Do something. You’re on your own. You have no food, no security. There is no hope. You must take care of yourself. Turn this stone into bread.” It renounces patient trust in God and relies on its own power, which, in the end, amounts to nothing. Despair pushes us to inhuman, empty solutions, while hope leads us to attend to every word of God. Jesus remains human and refuses to give in to the magic of instant, inhuman solutions. He listens for the voice of God which spoke at his baptism. His quiet, patient trust in God gives him hope. He is hungry, but he does not panic or despair. He remains focused on God, and will go forward to work for justice and peace.

Like Jesus, we are tempted by the culture to change stones to bread, to bring about tangible results, to be effective in our work for justice and peace. But Jesus calls us back to the scriptures and urges us not to rely on our own powers, but on God and God’s word. God does all the changing and brings all the results. God makes the difference, not us. We are called not to be successful, but faithful to God and God’s word which works slowly, humanly, peacefully, not inhumanly, violently, forcibly like the Pentagon. We are not called to be powerful, but powerless, instruments only of the nonviolent power of God, God’s word. We are not called to be relevant, but as irrelevant as Jesus, hungry in the desert, dying on the cross. We take up the effectiveness of the cross, which as far as the culture is concerned, is complete lunacy, an absurd failure. To do this, we live by every word of God. We listen carefully for God’s voice. We take God’s word of nonviolence seriously, and go forth as peacemakers, come what may.

In the second temptation, the tempter showed Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world…” He says, “I shall give to you all this power and their glory, for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours, if you worship me.” Jesus says to him, “It is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and God alone shall you serve.’”

The second temptation is the temptation to domination. It is the temptation of imperial power. It urges us to be number one, to be emperor over all, owners of everything, in control of everyone, in charge of life itself. It is the temptation to be god—and it comes with a price: the loss of our souls. It requires the worship of false gods, the idols of death. As we dominate the world, and resort to imperial violence and nuclear weapons to maintain our imperial domination, we stop worshipping the living God and instead worship the false gods of violence.

Jesus rejects the temptation to dominate the world. The Gospel invites us likewise to reject the way of domination and empire and worship the living God of peace. This temptation questions our patriotic presuppositions. Our country prides itself on being number one in the world. As the world’s policeman and economic tyrant, we try to possess and control all nations, with some 740 military bases around the world and global surveillance. In the process, however, we find ourselves worshipping the false gods of violence. Though we claim to worship God, in reality, we place our hopes and security in our idolatrous weapons, in the power of violence. Our militarism insures our economic domination over the poor and we gain the world but lose our souls.

Real worship of God is not compatible with global domination. The Gospel urges us to renounce global domination, serve the poor, reclaim our souls and worship the God of peace and God alone. That means we have to dismantle our nuclear and conventional arsenals, relinquish our control over the world’s resources, get rid of our guns and serve the poor. All of us have to join this grassroots movement for justice, disarmament, and peace. That will be the sign that we worship the living God of peace.

10

!12

Finally, the tempter takes Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem and says, “If you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written: ‘God will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and ‘With their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered: “It also says, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

The third temptation of violence is the temptation to doubt. The voice of doubt says that God cannot be trusted. Jesus is tempted to doubt God’s abiding love and God’s way of nonviolence, to test whether or not God is really trustworthy, and whether or not nonviolence works, by doing violence to ourselves.

But Jesus refuses to doubt God or God’s nonviolence. He will not give in to the faithlessness that leads to violence and self-destruction. He remains faithful. He knows that when we doubt God’s abiding presence, we give in to the world’s chaotic violence. Doubting God’s trustworthiness leads to violence against ourselves and others. The tempter tries to trick the nonviolent Jesus into faithlessness and violence. But Jesus trusts God, whether hungry in the desert or dying on the cross. Thus, he does not do violence to himself or reject the way of nonviolence, or give up the struggle for justice and peace. His faith in God is the foundation of his nonviolence.

Likewise, the world tells us that God should not be trusted. It attacks our faith in God and God’s loving-kindness and pushes us to reject God’s way of nonviolence. The culture tells us that God does not care about us, that God cannot be trusted, that God is not there for us when we need God and that, in fact, God does not exist. As we abandon our trust in God, we fall prey to the world’s violence. “There is no God,” the culture insists, “no moral order, no reason to be nonviolent with ourselves or others. Why not step over one another, kill yourselves or wage war? Nonviolence does not work, God does not exist and, if God does exist, God cannot be trusted.”

The culture sows seeds of violence by tempting us to doubt God and destroy ourselves under its false pretenses. Once we give in to the voice of despair, the voice of doubt takes us down the spiral of violence. The culture does not understand God or God’s way of nonviolence. It can only urge us

to do violence. It insists that we give in to the addiction of violence. But Jesus stands firm. He believes in God and trusts in God. The act of trusting God rejects all forms of violence. Do not test God, he tells us. Be at peace with yourself and all others. Treat yourself nonviolently and all others, too. Trust God, and God’s way of nonviolence. All will be well.

Jesus’ prayer and fasting summon us to a spirituality of creative nonviolence, humility, vulnerability, voluntary poverty, selfless service, suffering love, steadfast trust in God and obedience to God’s word of peace. As we reject the temptations of despair, doubt, and domination, as we renounce every form of

violence, we become more human, more faithful, more trusting, more nonviolent. Like Jesus, we can walk into the world in a true spirit of love and compassion to serve those in need and proclaim God’s reign of justice and peace.

My hope and prayer is that, like Jesus, we can reject the temptations of violence, of despair, domination, and doubt; trust God, God’s word, and God’s way of nonviolence; and go forward as peacemakers on the way of the cross.

11

!13

REFLECTION QUESTIONS • When did you hear God say to you, “You are my beloved son/daughter?” How can

you reclaim that as your fundamental identity? How are you tempted to reject that identity, and claim some other identity—as an American, a conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, etc.?

• How are you tempted like the nonviolent Jesus to despair, domination, and doubt, and how can you reject those temptations? How can you live according to the word of God, trust God, and God’s way of nonviolence, and worship the living God more and more?

• How can you go forth like the nonviolent Jesus into the culture of violence and announce God’s reign of justice, peace, and nonviolence?

PRAYER

Dear God of Peace, help me to claim my true identity as your beloved son/daughter, that I might fulfill my vocation to be your peacemaker. Help me to reject the temptations of violence, of despair, domination, and doubt, as Jesus does in the desert. Help me to trust you, take you at your word, live according to your way of nonviolence, and worship you alone. Help me to go forth like Jesus to proclaim the coming of your reign of justice, peace and nonviolence, a new world without war, poverty, racism, sexism, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction. Amen.

FAITH IN ACTION • Spend some time alone in nature, sharing solitude with Jesus, and choose with him to

live always in peace and nonviolence as the beloved child of God.

• Make a list of things that give you hope, and ways you can choose to live in hope.

• Reflect on ways you can resist U.S. imperialism, militarism, and economic domination.

• Journal about your relationship with the God of peace, your image of God, and your image of yourself in light of God. How does that relationship inform your work for justice and peace?

12

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT February 21, 2016

!14

Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

But he did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen. (Luke 9:28-36)

13

!15

As we follow the nonviolent Jesus and carry on his campaign for justice and peace, he climbs the mountain, communes with God, and becomes the light of the world. With him, we are encouraged to carry on the campaign of justice and peace. This week we are invited to ponder the transfiguration of Jesus and our journey with him to the cross.

Jesus knows his days are numbered, that he must confront injustice in Jerusalem and that the ruling authorities are determined to kill him, so he makes one last side trip with three friends for a few days of prayer and solitude on the mountaintop.

Suddenly, his clothes become “dazzlingly white,” a biblical sign of martyrdom, and Elijah appears, representing the prophets, and Moses appears, representing the Law of God. Together they represent the entire Hebrew tradition. They start talking to Jesus, as Luke explains, encouraging Jesus to walk the path of nonviolent resistance from the mountaintop to the cross.

And how do the disciples respond? I think Peter, James, and John are like Curly, Moe, and Larry, the Three Stooges. In Luke's version, they are sound asleep. I think that offers a good image of the male-dominated church—sleeping through the Transfiguration of Jesus. We churchmen have been sleeping for two thousand years.

Instead of comforting Jesus and encouraging him on his journey to the cross, like Moses and Elijah do, Peter blurts out: “Master, it is good that we are here.” That is exactly the wrong thing to say! They are only concerned about themselves. They don't really care about Jesus, or the fact that he is going to Jerusalem to resist systemic injustice and face arrest and execution. “It is good that we are here,” we say to Jesus.

If they cared about Jesus, Peter would affirm Jesus as Moses and Elijah do, and say, “Jesus, it is good for YOU to be here, to receive this consolation and confirmation from the holy ones, before you go to your death. We want to encourage you, too, on your campaign of nonviolence, in your struggle for justice and peace. Tell us how we can help.”

Like a typical churchman, Peter tries to take control of the situation. “Step aside Moses and Elijah. We're in charge here. Forget about the cross Jesus, and all that talk about suffering and death. Let's build some houses here, maybe a retreat center, and stay here forever, far away from Jerusalem and the Temple, from the world and its injustice, from the cross and death.”

I think there is a part of Peter lurking in each one of us, more concerned about ourselves and our egos and our own fate than supporting the nonviolent Jesus as he goes forth to proclaim justice and peace. Like Peter, we all want to control God, to stay in a comfortable place, far away from our own Jerusalems. Like Peter, we want to avoid the cross.

If only Jesus would listen to us! That's what Peter says, and what we think too. Instead of accompanying Jesus back down the mountain into the messy confrontation with the authorities and its bloody outcome, we resist Jesus. We disobey Jesus. Eventually, like the disciples, we run away from him.

And, just at this moment, as Peter tries to prevent Jesus from going to Jerusalem, a cloud comes and overshadows them and the voice of God speaks from the cloud, gently telling the terrified disciples, “This is my beloved. Listen to him!”

14

!

!16

Here we have one of the clearest and most neglected commandments of the scriptures, the only time God personally, directly speaks to the disciples. The message could not be more to the point: “Be quiet and listen to Jesus. Hear what he has to say and do what he says.”

Who wants to listen to Jesus? We prefer to talk and tell Jesus what to do, like Peter. Deep down, we think Jesus is naïve, unrealistic, idealistic, and out of touch, that he could not possibly understand our situation or our personal problems or the world. At some level, we think we do not need Jesus, that we have all the answers.

Today the God of peace commands us to listen to the nonviolent Jesus. God calls us as a community to be people who listen to Jesus, people of prayer who attend to every word of Jesus, people who read the Gospels and take Jesus at his word, even if we do not understand him. From now on, we are not going to listen to the voices of the world, the voices of war, the voices of violence, the voices of injustice. We are going to listen to the voice of the nonviolent Jesus.

If we dare listen to Jesus, we hear a very specific, counter-cultural, but life-affirming message: “As the Father loves me, so I love you. Do not be afraid. Love one another. Love your enemies. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Be compassionate. Forgive one another. Hunger and thirst for justice. Offer no violent resistance to one who does evil. Turn the other cheek. Be peacemakers. Seek first God's reign and justice. Put down the sword, take up the cross and follow me. Peace be with you.”

The transfigured nonviolent Jesus walks down the mountain and continues his campaign of nonviolence to Jerusalem, where he will engage in civil disobedience to confront the injustice in the Temple, where the religious authorities work with the empire to steal the resources of the poor in the name of God.

We, too, need to leave our comfort zone and walk down the mountain with Jesus to face the cruel world of violence and injustice to our own Jerusalems. As followers of the nonviolent Jesus, we need to keep going forward, to confront systemic injustice and take up the cross for justice and peace.

Each one of us is summoned to listen to Jesus and follow him to Jerusalem where we will confront systemic injustice and institutionalized violence through his way of active nonviolence. As we do, we proclaim God’s reign of justice and peace, and carry out Jesus’ mission to bring about a more nonviolent world.

“The way of Jesus is the way of active

nonviolence against evil. He does not use

evil means to fight evil. As a Christian

I repent that we Christians have not

taught or lived the full gospel message

of Jesus’ nonviolence and love for enemies.

I am convinced, however, that we

are evolving into a new age,

and that in time, the Christian church

will again proclaim a theology

of nonviolence as the norm

for Christian life.” - Mairead Maguire

15

!17

REFLECTION QUESTIONS • How do we listen to Jesus, and how can we listen more and more faithfully? What

does Jesus say to us?

• How do we respond to his Gospel teachings: “As the Father loves me, so I love you. Do not be afraid. Love one another. Love your enemies. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Be compassionate. Forgive one another. Hunger and thirst for justice. Offer no violent resistance to one who does evil. Turn the other cheek. Be peacemakers. Seek first God's reign and justice. Put down the sword, take up the cross and follow me. Peace be with you.”

• Do we want to go down the mountaintop with Jesus to Jerusalem and the cross? What does that mean for us? What is the connection between our work for justice and peace and carrying the cross of Jesus?

FAITH IN ACTION • Take some public action for justice, disarmament, and the earth. Join a group, send

them a contribution, and pitch in and do some work for the cause.

• Attend some public vigil for justice, disarmament, and the earth. If there isn’t one nearby, organize one.

• Read Transfiguration by John Dear, with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Doubleday).

• Join Campaign Nonviolence, and begin now to plan a local action for justice and peace during the third week of September. Visit www.campaignnonviolence.org.

PRAYER God of Peace, thank you for sending Moses and Elijah to encourage Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem, even unto the cross. Help us to encourage and accompany Jesus, too, in his campaign for justice and peace. Help us to listen to Jesus and take him at his word. Bless us that we might be his faithful disciples, apostles, prophets, visionaries, and missionaries of justice, nonviolence, and peace. Amen.

16

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT February 28, 2016

!18

Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.

Jesus said to them in reply, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means!

But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” (Luke 13:1-9)

17

!19

This week, we hear again Jesus’ call to repent and return to God and one another. It is the same call he proclaimed after he emerged from the desert: “Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!”

I always associate this text with September 11, 2001. My parents were visiting Manhattan where I lived and had made reservations for breakfast that morning on the top of the Second World Trade Tower. But a few days before, they changed their mind, cancelled the reservations, and planned for breakfast elsewhere. When we heard about the attacks, they left town and I went downtown to volunteer my services. Eventually, I became one of the Red Cross coordinators for chaplains serving the grieving relatives at the Family Assistance Center.

But that night, I came home shaken like everyone else in New York City. I decided to read the Gospels in search of a consoling word from Jesus in light of the falling towers. When I came upon this text, I was shocked by his cold, harsh tone. “I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” I stayed with the text, though, and in the weeks ahead, as we started bombing Afghanistan, his words began to make more sense. As we drifted into anger, revenge, and war, they seemed urgent, fair, nonviolent, and wise.

In light of September 11th, I could imagine the nonviolent Jesus saying to each one of us North Americans: “I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” He’s talking about the real possibility of dying disconnected from ourselves and God, instead of fully alive, awake, mindful, and at peace with ourselves, all humanity, and God.

In this episode, Jesus is told about some poor people who were rounded up, tortured, and killed by the Roman soldiers and authorities. Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did, he warns. Then, he refers to eighteen people who died when a tower fell on them. Again, he says, unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

Remember Jesus is speaking within the context of an oppressed people under Roman occupation. Soldiers marched through the region, forced the men to join the army, raped the women, killed the children, burned their huts, and stole their food. The people lived and died in total poverty and violence, and would be subject to slave wages at the hands of rich contractors who built buildings like this tower, which was probably a military tower. In other words, Jesus is speaking to oppressed people like apartheid-era South Africans, Palestinians under the Israeli occupation, or poor people under the U.S. drone attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. People thought that those who died were being punished by God. Jesus said that wasn’t true, but that they must wake up and join his campaign of nonviolence for justice and liberation, otherwise they will die as these others did.

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tries to empower these oppressed people, as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. later did. He teaches them the methods of nonviolent resistance, and organizes them to work for their nonviolent liberation from oppression and empire. He wants everyone to wake up, repent of their complicity in systemic injustice and empire, and join his campaign of nonviolence to welcome God’s reign of peace. He wants us to be mindful, centered, and focused on God and God’s reign every moment from now on.

18

!20

If we do not repent and join his campaign of nonviolence for God’s reign, then we might die just like everyone else, still stuck in oppression. We will have wasted our lives, served injustice, oppression, and empire, and not entered God’s kingdom of peace and justice.

This is a main theme of Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, he tells us: “Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.” (Mt. 7:13-14)

Everyone takes the path of violence, greed, death and destruction, and most of them don’t even know it. Few take the narrow gate and road to life; that is, few walk the path of nonviolence. Enter that narrow gate, he begs us. Walk that narrow path, even if you are the only one. That is the way to life. Don’t walk the highway to death, even if everyone in the world is bustling off to war and destruction. Take the narrow path of nonviolence. Do no harm, do not kill, try to stop the violence and the killing, and work for a new world where no one is ever killed again.

“There is no hope for the aching world except through the narrow and straight path of nonviolence,” Gandhi said during World War II, referring to this Sermon on the Mount teaching. Few resist the push of the crowd and go against the crowd toward life and nonviolence. Most of us waste our lives in the madness of the world’s violence, thinking ourselves sane and normal.

The great icon of repentance and life against the grain is Franz Jägerstätter, the Austrian farmer who was one of a handful of Austrian men who refused to fight for the Nazis, after the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938. Nearly every Austrian eagerly joined the Nazi army and went off to the deaths, killing for Hitler. Franz Jägerstätter invoked Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount, turned himself in, was arrested, shipped off to a Berlin pr i son , t r i ed , condemned and beheaded. At his beatification Mass in 2007 in Linz, Austria, I celebrated with his wife and daughters the brave choice he made to enter through the narrow gate and take the narrow road to life. Though it seems he chose to die, in fact, he chose to remain nonviolent and not die with a gun in his hand, unlike the millions of others who died with guns in their hands. He chose how to live and how to die.

While in prison, Franz had a dream about a train full of people. Millions were rushing to board this train, when a voice cried out, “This train is going to hell!” Franz tried to stop people from boarding the train to hell, but everyone pushed by him to jump on board. When he woke, he realized that the train was Nazi Germany. Today, however, we name that train as the nationalistic, ideological spirit of death and destruction itself, which can possess all of us with the madness of violence and war.

Can we take Jesus at his word, repent from our complicity with violence and injustice, and walk the narrow path of nonviolence, like him, come what may? That is the question before us.

Jesus does not want us to live and die like everyone else, going along with the culture of violence, war, greed, racism, sexism, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction. He wants us to welcome his reign of nonviolence, seek God’s kingdom and God’s justice, and do our part to transform our world into a new culture of justice, peace, and nonviolence. That’s why he says, “Repent, turn around, change your lives, and join the campaign for justice and peace!” This Lent, that’s what we are trying to do.

19

!21

REFLECTION QUESTIONS • What does Jesus mean when he says, “If you do not repent, you will perish as they

did?” How do we repent, turn around, and change our lives? In what areas of our lives do we need to change?

• How can we repent of the social sin of war, greed, racism, sexism, injustice, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction? How can we repent of our violence and practice his way of nonviolence more and more?

• How can we teach others Jesus’ way of nonviolence? How can we help others turn away from the culture of greed, war and violence, and join Jesus’ campaign of nonviolence? How can we help promote Jesus’ way of nonviolence?

FAITH IN ACTION

• Join a national organization working to end environmental destruction, such as 350.org, Friends of the Earth, Catholic Climate Change, Greenpeace, or the Sierra Club. Make changes in your life to decrease your carbon footprint.

• Support www.witnessagainsttorture.org and its work to close Guantánamo prison.

• Support the Afghan Peace Volunteers, the youth group in Kabul that practices and promotes nonviolence. Visit Voices for Creative Nonviolence for more information: www.vcnv.org.

• Attend a Black Lives Matter peace vigil to oppose racism and police killings of unarmed African Americans: www.blacklivesmatter.com.

20

PRAYER God of Peace, thank you for coming among us in Jesus with your way of nonviolence. Help us to repent of our violence and take up his way of nonviolence, that we might walk that narrow path to life and peace. Help us to teach and promote Gospel nonviolence that more people might reject the culture of violence, greed, and war, and the killings will stop. Help us to live and die nonviolently as Jesus did, spending our lives

serving you, seeking your kingdom, and doing your will. Amen.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT March 6, 2016

!22

“My son, you are here with me always. Everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.” (Luke 15:1-3, 11-32)

21

!23

This week, as we try to follow the nonviolent Jesus, we hear the parable of the prodigal son, one of the greatest stories ever told. Jesus tells this parable in response to the Pharisees and Scribes, the religious authorities, who judge him for not being as holy as them, for violating the Mosaic cleanliness laws, saying, “This guy eats with sinners.” Jesus, we learn, is more concerned with the divine law of love, mercy, compassion, and nonviolence than with inhuman rules and regulations.

In the story of the two brothers and the generous, loving father, we can find lessons for our own relationship with God and one another, and how to live in the world. First, we can ponder the part of us which is like the younger brother who rejects the father. The younger brother asks for his inheritance, treats his beloved father as if he were dead, takes the money, and runs away. He wastes his life, until one day when he “comes to his senses” and turns back to the father.

Like the younger brother, part of us has also rejected God, run away from God, and wasted our life in selfish pursuits. But, like the prodigal son, we, too, are “coming to our senses.” We realize that sin doesn’t work, that supporting the culture of greed and war is a waste of our lives, and that we need to turn back to God. The prodigal son doesn’t know if his father is going to welcome him, but he turns back anyway because it is the logical, right thing to do. That is what we have to do, too—turn back to God, because it’s the logical, right thing to do. We need to reject our selfishness, narcissism, and greed, and return to life with God, which means to a life of loving service, Gospel peacemaking, compassion, and public work for justice and disarmament.

Second, we also recognize a part of ourselves in the older brother. Like him, we, too, are full of resentment, self-righteousness, judgment, and anger. Like the other brother, we followed the rules, did what we’re supposed to do, minded our own business, and did not rock the boat. We are full of our virtue and, like the Pharisees, we wish everyone else could be like us. And so, we look down on others who aren’t as good as we and we resent them. We’re full of our own self-righteousness. We have become arrogant, domineering, and entitled. We, too, have lost God.

Here Jesus addresses the religious authorities who think they are better than anyone else, who cling to their own rightness, who think they deserve everything. Like them, we are stuck in a sense of entitlement. We judge others. We have stopped being grateful or loving. Instead of rejoicing in the generosity and nonviolence of God, we complain and demand more for ourselves at the expense of our suffering sisters and brothers. We do not practice compassion, we are angry and proud and, so, we do more harm than good, even in the name of God.

As Henri Nouwen once observed, both brothers are wrong. Whether we are like the sinful younger brother or the resentful, dutiful older brother, we’re called to become like the compassionate, generous, and loving father.

22

!24

In this great parable, Jesus teaches us that God is outrageous with love, extravagant with love, reckless with love for us, like a generous father or a loving mother. God is on the lookout for us. God can’t wait for us to return home. God is filled with compassion for us. God wants to throw open his arms to embrace us. God wants to welcome us home and throw the best party we’ve ever been to in our honor. God wants to put a ring on our finger and start the music and make a toast and dance for joy because of us. And, if we refuse to come to the party, God is going to seek us out and come outside and plead with us to come on in. God wants us to celebrate life. God wants the whole world to live in God’s love and peace and celebrate with joy.

Jesus invites us to turn back to God, reject selfishness and resentment, and let go of our greed and our proud virtue. More, he wants us to celebrate life with God, and become like God, extravagant with nonviolent love for one another and every human being on the planet. Jesus wants us to show great compassion to everyone, to welcome everyone with open arms, to model nonviolence toward every human being.

What are the social, economic, and political implications of the parable of the Prodigal Son? I think this great parable invites us as a people to welcome everyone at our borders, to reform our broken immigration policy system, as well as to end mass incarceration and set up new rehabilitation programs so that fewer and fewer people are in prison. It calls us to fight racism and sexism, and treat everyone equally as a sister and brother, and to enact policies that institutionalize respect, dignity, and equality. It also means that we should invite every hungry and homeless person to a feast, to make sure they have food and housing. If we are to practice the generous love and boundless compassion of the father in the story, we also have to renounce war, killing and nuclear weapons, and institutionalize nonviolent conflict resolution as a way to resolve global conflict. In other words, even this famous story of the Prodigal Son is a call to change our lives and change the world, so that every human being celebrates life in the fullness of life and we all become as loving, compassionate, and nonviolent as God.

What do we learn from this great parable?

• That Jesus welcomes us sinners to his meal and invites us to welcome one another, to include everyone, and not exclude anyone;

• That, like the prodigal son, the younger brother, we must come to our senses; turn away from sin; selfishness; and greed and turn back to God;

• That, like the older brother, we must let go of resentment and anger, stop being judgmental and self-righteous; not cling to our own proud virtue; and be as loving and compassionate as God;

• That God wants to welcome us home with open arms, infinite compassion, and unconditional love, and throw a great party for all of us;

• And that we should do likewise for every other human being, that we should welcome everyone with open arms, show infinite compassion and mercy, celebrate the fullness of life with one another, and do our part so that every human being can celebrate the fullness of life with God in peace and joy.

23

!25

REFLECTION QUESTIONS • In what ways are we like the prodigal son, pursuing selfish, greedy interests? How can

we turn back to God and Gospel-living? In what ways are we like the older brother, full of ourselves, self-righteous, arrogant, and mean? How can we turn back to God and Gospel-living?

• What is our image of God? Do we worship a God of unconditional love, a God of active nonviolence, a God of boundless compassion?

• How can we be as generous and unconditionally loving as God? How can we become more forgiving and more compassionate?

• How do the social, economic, and political implications of this great parable affect us, change us?

PRAYER God of Peace, in the parable of the prodigal son, the nonviolent Jesus invites us to turn back to you and to become more like you in generosity, love and compassion. Help me to grow in compassion, that I might never turn away from others, that I might welcome everyone with open arms, that I might be as compassionate, as nonviolent, as loving as you. Give me a heart as wide as the world that I may live in your spirit of universal, nonviolent, compassionate love toward every human being on earth from now on. Amen.

FAITH IN ACTION • Take some action of service and kindness to someone who cannot repay you.

• Study interfaith nonviolence and pursue interfaith peace building. Reach out to Muslims and Jews, in particular, to befriend and learn from them, that together we might all grow in peace, shalom, and salaam.

• Join a local group that works to make a more inclusive, welcoming society, whether by supporting immigrants, such as the refugees fleeing Syria; or opposing racism; or teaching tolerance and the beauty of human diversity.

• Befriend people of different races, nations, religions, or backgrounds than your own, and practice compassion, tolerance, and inclusivity.

24

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT March 13, 2016

!26

Early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.

Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin anymore. (John 8:1-11)

25

!27

This week, the nonviolent Jesus literally disarms a violent mob and saves someone’s life, demonstrating the creativity of nonviolence as the best way to resolve conflict and disarm violence. He teaches and models the way of nonviolence as the only way forward.

The (male) religious authorities catch a poor woman, drag her into the Temple, threaten to kill her and force her to stand in front of the crowd in order to catch Jesus in an act of heresy so they can kill him. The scene is shocking first of all because these so-called religious leaders are planning to kill someone and, second, because they are going to kill someone right there in the holy sanctuary.

They announce that they caught this woman in the act of adultery—but notice that the man who would have also committed adultery was not brought forward. That’s because women were not considered fully human by these sexist, patriarchal men. Women were blamed by men for the problems of men, and the only solution was capital punishment, the death penalty, in the name of God, right there in the house of God.

What would we do? If we started arguing with these powerful, angry men, we would never change their minds and they would probably kill her right on the spot.

Jesus, as always, is perfectly nonviolent and infinitely creative. He does something completely different. He bends down and starts writing on the ground! They’re ready to murder someone, and he acts nonchalantly, like he is ignoring them, like he has all the time in the world.

Jesus was the most disarming person who ever lived. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He was perfectly compassionate and peaceful. The very act of bending down and writing on the ground disarmed the hostile mob. It literally drew their attention away from their self-righteous violence to his writing on the ground.

They must have thought: “What is he doing? Doesn’t he know we are about to kill this sinful woman? Why doesn’t he answer us?” If he had shouted at them or engaged them in theological argument, they probably would have stoned the woman to death. But his slow, patient, quiet drawing opens a space for them to hear his answer. He changes the focus of attention from their righteous indignation to his scribbling and distracts them so they can hear his answer. This is how the nonviolent Jesus disarms them—and us.

Finally, he stands up and issues one of the greatest commandments of the Bible: “Let the one without sin be the first to throw a stone.” He not only condemns the death penalty, he points out the sinfulness within each one of us, and disarms our righteous revenge and intent to kill.

26

“Everyone is redeemable in

Jesus’ mind. He forgives us

and calls us to forgive

and show mercy and compassion

to everyone. It’s hard,

but this is the way of God,

and it has to become

our way too. We’ve all been

let off the hook and so we have to let everyone

else off the hook, too.”

- John Dear

!28

But there’s more: according to Mosaic Law, if anyone witnesses an act of adultery, they, too, were guilty and should be condemned to death! The elders remember this and are ashamed and walk away first. Jesus actually saves not only the woman, but the Scribes and the Pharisees, too!

Suddenly the whole Temple is empty! The entire crowd has left, and Jesus is alone with the woman. But he doesn’t leave it there. He engages her in conversation and treats her with respect as a human being. “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one,” she says. “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.”

What do we learn from this story?

First, “let the one without sin be the first to throw a stone.” If you are sinless, you are permitted to condemn others, throw stones, hurt people, and kill people, but if you are a sinner, then you are not allowed to hurt or kill anyone ever again. Since every single human being is a sinner, every one of us is

forbidden to do violence. We’re all loved and forgiven, but that means we are not allowed to hit anyone, hurt anyone, kill anyone, shoot a gun, electrocute people on death row, wage war, or make nuclear weapons. All that is forbidden. From now on, we have been permanently disarmed by Jesus.

Second, the bottom line for Jesus is clear: there is no cause, however noble, for which we can ever again support the taking of a single human life. Like the members of AA who obey the bottom line to avoid alcohol, people of nonviolence obey the bottom line which forbids all violence. We are not allowed to kill—no matter what.

Third, Jesus’ nonviolent creative response to the murderous religious authorities models how we should respond to violence. Not only do we not condemn others or threaten to kill others, instead, we disarm others through creative means as Jesus did. Nonviolence is infinitely creative.

Finally, by not condemning the woman, Jesus reveals a new image of God, a God who does not condemn. Instead of condemning us, God has mercy on us. Instead of seeking revenge against us, God has compassion on us. Instead of hating us, God loves us infinitely and defends us. Jesus sides with the condemned and then he gets condemned and becomes one of the condemned, dying on the cross—yet he never condemns anyone. This is the journey he wants us to make, too.

Everyone is redeemable in Jesus’ mind. He forgives us and calls us to forgive and show mercy and compassion to everyone. It’s hard, but this is the way of God, and it has to become our way, too. We’ve all been let off the hook and so we have to let everyone else off the hook, too.

With this Gospel, we have to work to abolish the death penalty, war, nuclear weapons, and every form of violence. We have to renounce vengeance, violence, and condemnation, and learn the way of mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

For Jesus, the days of violence are over. We are all people of nonviolence now. We all have to become as peacefully creative as him.

27

!29

REFLECTION QUESTIONS • Who do we want to throw stones at? Whom do we judge? Whom do we condemn?

How are we like the murderous, violent religious authorities in this story?

• How is Jesus disarming us and saving our lives? How can we become more compassionate, merciful, loving, and nonviolent like Jesus?

• How do you respond to the bottom line of Jesus: There is no cause, however noble, for which we will ever again support the taking of a single human life?

• How do we live out and teach this commandment, “Let the one without sin be the first to throw a stone”?

• What does this story tell us about the nature of God and the mercy of God?

PRAYER God of Peace, thank you for the nonviolent Jesus’ disarmament of the violent religious authorities, for the way he saved the woman they wanted to kill. Help us to renounce violence, put down our stones, and stop threatening and condemning others, especially women. Help us to hear the commandment of the nonviolent Jesus, “Let the one without sin be the first to throw a stone.” Help us to abolish the death penalty, war, and violence, and to welcome your kingdom of nonviolence in our lives and our world. Amen.

FAITH IN ACTION • Talk about creative nonviolence with your family, community and coworkers, and the

ways we can practice the creative nonviolence of Jesus. Notice their reaction. Engage them nonviolently about the way of nonviolence.

• Take some action for the abolition of the death penalty by contacting the Catholic Mobilizing Network: www.catholicsmobilizing.org or Ministry Against the Death Penalty: www.sisterhelen.org.

• Reflect on how religions and religious authorities today are violent and support killing, when they should practice and teach nonviolence instead.

• Organize a nonviolence training for your church or community. Bring in a trainer from Pace e Bene. (See www.paceebene.org or use the workbook Engage, and lead the program yourself.)

28

PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION March 20, 2016

!30

Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you…”

He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them and those in authority over them are addressed as ‘Benefactors’; but among you it shall not be so. Rather, let the greatest among you be as the youngest, and the leader as the servant. For who is greater: the one seated at table or the one who serves? Is it not the one seated at table? I am among you as the one who serves….” After withdrawing about a stone’s throw from them and kneeling, he prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done…”

His disciples realized what was about to happen, and they asked, “Lord, shall we strike with a sword?” And one of them struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. But Jesus said in reply, “Stop, no more of this!”…

Then the whole assembly arose and brought him before Pilate. They brought charges against him, saying, “We found this man misleading our people; he opposes the payment of taxes to Caesar and maintains that he is the Christ, a king.”…But they were adamant and said, “He is inciting the people with his teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to here.”

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him and the criminals there, one on his right, the other on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” [One of them said to him,] “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”It was now about noon and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon because of an eclipse of the sun. Then the veil of the temple was torn down the middle. Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”; and when he had said this he breathed his last. (Luke 22:14-23:56)

29

!31

As we enter Holy Week, I invite us to read through the passion account of Jesus from the perspective of Gandhian/Kingian nonviolence. Notice how meticulously nonviolent Jesus remains throughout the breakdown of his community, his arrest, torture, and execution. You could read a different Gospel’s narrative each day for the next four days. Here are a few points about the nonviolence of Jesus in Luke’s passion narrative.

At the Passover meal, Jesus introduces the new covenant of nonviolence. Taking the bread and the cup, he says, “My body broken for you, my blood shed for you.” Notice what he does not say what Americans expect from a leader: “Their bodies, broken for me! Go shed their blood for me!” In the Eucharist, Jesus invites us to share in his life-giving nonviolence. He offers his body and blood nonviolently for us, and says, “Do this!” But our culture of violence, killing, and war has reversed Jesus’ new covenant. One could conclude that war is the anti-Eucharist, the opposite of the new covenant of nonviolence.

From now on, whenever we partake of the Eucharist, we enter his new covenant of nonviolence and pledge never to hurt or kill another, but to give our bodies and blood for humanity, that we will share in

his nonviolent struggle for justice and peace, through his paschal mystery.

Notice how the community responds. They start arguing about themselves. He’s explaining how he is giving his life for us, and the male disciples argue about which of them is greater! Today the argument continues as churchmen remain stuck in power, ego, pride, and narcissism. But Jesus issues a new commandment here. Not only are we not to dominate or lord ourselves o v e r o t h e r s ; w e s e r v e o t h e r s unconditionally, without a trace of the desire for service in return, just like him.

Next, we notice how close he moves toward us and how we run in the opposite direction. In John’s account, he says we are no longer slaves but friends, united in his love, but how do his followers respond? They betray him, abandon him, and deny him. Mark’s Gospel says everyone left him. He was completely alone. This terrible tragedy invites us to reflect on our own relationship and discipleship to the nonviolent Jesus. In what ways do we reject him, betray him, deny him, and abandon him? How can we not betray Jesus? In Jesus, God comes us to us and wants to be our friend. Do we want to befriend God? God says he loves us so much, he wants to be our food and drink, even our breath. Do we run from this gentle, loving God, too?

Then, in the Garden of Gethsemane, we witness his prayer: “Take this cup from me, but not my will but your will be done.” Here, Jesus struggles with the consequences of his campaign for justice and peace, which could only be arrest, torture and execution. But he continues to surrender himself to God, accept God’s will, let go, and remain nonviolent. His prayer must become our prayer, too.

Then, as he is arrested, the disciples want to strike back with swords to defend themselves with violence. They are willing to kill the Roman soldiers. He has taught nonviolence morning, noon, and night yet, here at the end, his disciples still want to kill. They ask if they can strike with a sword. He yells out, “Stop, enough of this!” Once they realize that he’s deadly serious about his nonviolence, that they are not allowed to defend themselves with violence, they run away.

30

!32

This is the first time they understand who Jesus is, that he means every word of his nonviolence. This scene challenges our commitment to nonviolence. Do we want to remain nonviolent with Jesus no matter what and accompany him to his death in perfect nonviolence, or do we want to take up the sword and strike back?

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus abolishes war and killing once and for all. He says to each one of us, “Stop, enough of this!” That’s why each one of us has to study Gandhi and King and their methodology of nonviolent conflict resolution, to learn new ways to resolve conflict and work for a new world of nonviolence.

Throughout his arrest, trials, condemnation, torture, and execution, Jesus remains perfectly nonviolent. He never yells, shows anger, threatens anyone, condemns anyone, or says a word of violence, vengeance, or retaliation. He enters into universal compassion for the entire human race, in perfect solidarity with everyone in history, and explodes into universal, nonviolent love.

Finally, at his death, Jesus reaches the heights of nonviolence by forgiving his executioners. He remains focused on the God of love, and appeals to God to forgive us all. He says in effect, “The violence stops here in my body. You are all forgiven, but the days of killing are over.”

How does he do that? Forgiveness had become his daily spiritual practice, a way of life for him, even as he trusted in his beloved God every step along the way of his tumultuous journey. Because of this daily practice, even as he was being killed, he could forgive as he had always done. It had become second nature to him.

Forgiveness is at the heart of nonviolence. It's our entry into God's reign of peace and love. We can't enter into that realm of peace and love without forgiving everyone who has ever hurt us. So, like Jesus, we have to forgive by name everyone who ever hurt us, every step of the way, every day. That means we are constantly forgiving. Forgiveness becomes part of our daily life, too.

In Mark's gospel (11:24–25), just before his arrest, Jesus tells his followers that every time they come before God in prayer, they must forgive those who hurt them. Forgiveness is also central to the Lord's Prayer. So it should not surprise us that the world’s greatest teacher of forgiveness should practice it at the moment of his execution by the empire. Jesus always practiced, first what he preached.

In the end, Jesus teaches us not how to kill, be violent, be greedy, be hateful, or wage war. He teaches us how to live, how to love, how to be nonviolent, how to forgive, how to show compassion, and how to die with loving trust in God.

31

!33

REFLECTION QUESTIONS • As you read through the passion narratives, what words, moments, or scenes touch

you the most? What do you learn about nonviolence in the passion and death of Jesus?

• How is the Eucharist a new covenant of nonviolence? What does Jesus’ order to “stop,” to put down the sword, mean for us today?

• How can we practice forgiveness toward everyone who ever hurt us as an ordinary part of our spiritual journey? How does Jesus’ nonviolence as he goes toward his

PRAYER God of Peace, thank you for the steadfast nonviolence of Jesus throughout his life, suffering and death. Thank you for the gift of the Eucharist, your new covenant of nonviolence with humanity. Thank you for the way Jesus forbids violent retaliation in the Garden of Gethsemane, and for his nonviolence throughout his suffering and execution. Thank you for his forgiveness and fidelity to you unto death. Help us to be as nonviolent as Jesus from now on, even unto our own deaths. Give us the grace to forgive everyone who ever hurt us, and to die in peace and nonviolence with you and everyone when our time comes. Amen.

FAITH IN ACTION • Read one of the passion narratives from the four Gospels every day during Holy

Week. Meditate on your own eventual suffering and death, and reflect on how you can go through it in peace, faith, hope, forgiveness, and nonviolence.

• Write out a prayer of general clemency and amnesty to everyone who ever hurt you, then make a list of their names. Pray that prayer of forgiveness every day during Holy Week. Write a letter to someone on death row, and offer them a hand of friendship, kindness, and solidarity.

• Attend or organize a modern day Stations of the Cross in your community, where you keep vigil and remember the death of Jesus at a place of violence or militarism or government injustice.

• Organize a Triduum retreat for yourself for Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday in silence, solitude, and prayer, to reflect on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and your own life.

• Make a list of your discipleship goals—the ways in which you will try to follow, serve, and attend to the nonviolent Jesus and his kingdom of nonviolence for the rest of your life.

• For further Holy Week reflections, read “Walking the Way: Following Jesus on the Lenten Journey of Gospel Nonviolence to the Cross and Resurrection,” by John Dear (23rd Publications).

32

Holy THURSDAY

March 24, 2016

!34

He rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Master, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.” Jesus said to him, “Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over; so you are clean, but not all.” For he knew who would betray him; for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

So when he had washed their feet and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” (John 13:1-15)

33

!35

On Holy Thursday, we remember Jesus’ last supper, his prayer of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, his betrayal by Judas and arrest by the Roman soldiers, his commandment to the other disciples to put down their swords, and his jailing and trials. John’s Gospel, written decades after the synoptic gospels, does not actually include the Eucharist, and instead features a lengthy discourse and this famous episode of the washing of the feet (John 13:1-21).

This crucial story, contrary to popular misunderstanding, is not a call to service, but a summons to enter into the holy lineage of nonviolence, the “inheritance” of agape, martyrdom, and resurrection. It is a call to the Christian community to prepare one another to walk the road of nonviolence all the way to the cross and resurrection into God’s reign of peace and life.

In chapter twelve, Mary of Bethany washes Jesus’ feet. Really, she’s anointing him, preparing him for his impending death. She seems to be the only person who encourages Jesus on his journey of nonviolence to the cross. Jesus is consoled and fortified for the horrors that await him. Apparently, he decided that just as she washed his feet, and prepared him for martyrdom and death, he would wash his disciples’ feet, and so prepare them for the journey of nonviolence into martyrdom and resurrection. So he instructs them to anoint one another saying that anyone who follows him must be prepared and anointed for the journey of nonviolence, for the Way of the cross and resurrection, for the consequences of our resistance to injustice and empire.

This is not a story about selfless service. It’s about preparing one another for martyrdom, for carrying the cross of resistance to the empire, for facing nonviolently the empire’s persecution, punishment, prison, and execution.

This political reading of John’s story may sound far-fetched, so I recommend my favorite commentary on John’s Gospel, Becoming Children of God, by scripture scholar Wes Howard Brook (Orbis, 1994).  As Howard Brook explains, the clues lie in the verbs. “He rose from the supper and laid down his outer garments and took up a towel and girded himself,” we read in 13:4. In the original Greek, each verb is loaded with paschal mystery imagery. Jesus “rises” here; it’s the risen Jesus who acts and speaks. (In fact, one could argue that the entire last supper discourse, chapters 13-17, is pronounced by the risen Jesus.) He “lays down” his outer garment, words used earlier to call us to “lay down” our lives in agape. Howard Brook goes on:

“How many Holy Thursday services and homilies have put priest and bowl before the congregation as an “example” of “lowering oneself like Jesus” to do the dirty work of washing feet. How easy it is for relatively safe and secure middle class Christians to deny the call to death in favor of charity work!

The prevailing interpretation is a function of both the chasm between the position of the interpreter and that of the Johannine community as well as the folly of taking passages out of context. If readers are comfortable, it is enough of a challenge to call them to serve the poor (or even “one another”) by humble actions.

But if readers are like the Johannine community—like people in El Salvador, Malawi, and other places where proclaiming God’s truth is to risk one’s life, “humble service” is a commonplace that requires no exhortation at all. This is a call to help one another face death; that is both the challenge and comfort of the gospel.”

34

!36

Ever since that first Holy Week, Christians have been “washing each other’s feet”—anointing one another for the costly journey of nonviolence to the cross. We can see this lineage passed on through the ages in the lineage of peacemakers and heroes of nonviolence—from Peter and Paul to the early martyrs to St. Franc i s and Cla i re to the Abolitionists to our own modern day saints and martyrs—Franz Jägerstätter and Oscar Romero, Ita Ford and Dorothy Stang, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Steve Biko. We, too, want to join this lineage of nonviolence. We pray to be part of this holy “inheritance.”

Today, we, too, need to wash one another’s feet, to prepare one another to practice Gospel nonviolence, to steady each other to resist war and injustice, and to accept the consequences of our steadfast resistance to the culture of violence and death.

We should find this fresh reading both a challenge and a comfort. Holy Week is a fitting time to fortify one another anew to face the consequences of our public work for disarmament, social, economic and racial justice, and peace. Jesus is trying to prepare us for the road ahead, for the struggle for justice and peace. We can choose to be part of this lineage of Gospel nonviolence, let Jesus and peace movement friends prepare us, and find ourselves blessed to be in the lineage of the saints and martyrs of Gospel nonviolence.

“If you know these things,” Jesus says in his concluding beatitude, “blessed are you if you do them.”

This Holy Thursday, let’s pray that we might join the lineage of Gospel nonviolence, wash one another’s feet, and walk the path of Gospel nonviolence. We go forth in the footsteps of the nonviolent Jesus to speak out against warmaking, corporate greed, executions, racism, sexism, poverty, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction. We proclaim the coming of God’s reign of peace and nonviolence. And we encourage one another to face every objection and opposition with steadfast nonviolence and loving trust in the God of peace, in the One who has gone before us.

“I have set the example,” Jesus said, “and you should do for each other exactly what I have done for you.”

35

!

!37

REFLECTION QUESTIONS • If the story of the washing of the feet is really about entering Jesus’ lineage of

nonviolence, being prepared to take up the cross and share his paschal mystery then ,do you want to enter that lineage of Gospel nonviolence? Do you want to share in the paschal mystery of Jesus? What does that mean for you?

• Who are the peacemakers and people of Gospel nonviolence who have washed your feet and encouraged you to walk in the footsteps of the nonviolent Jesus? Whose feet do you wash? Who do you encourage to carry on the journey and work of Jesus?

• As you sit with the nonviolent Jesus on Holy Thursday, and pray over the Last Supper, Garden of Gethsemane, and arrest scenes, what touches you, moves you, challenges you? What does Jesus say to you? What makes you afraid? How can you remain faithful to the nonviolent Jesus even as everyone rejects and abandons him?

PRAYER God of Peace, thank you for the life, death, and resurrection of the nonviolent Jesus. Thank you for the example that he left us. Give us the grace to enter his lineage of Gospel nonviolence that we might share in his life, death, and resurrection, that we might carry on his work of active nonviolence for the coming of your reign of peace. Help us to wash the feet of others, to prepare them for the journey of Gospel nonviolence. Bless us that we might always follow Jesus on the path of peace, love, and nonviolence, unto our own deaths. Amen.

FAITH IN ACTION • Study the heroes of nonviolence and journal/reflect on whether or not you want to

be part of that historic lineage from Jesus to Dr. King.

• Discuss this interpretation of the washing of the feet with friends, relatives and churchworkers, and see if others prefer the call to humble service over the call to walking the way of the cross.

• This Holy Thursday, reflect on your participation in the Christian Eucharist. Do you see receiving communion as entering the new covenant of nonviolence? Do others? How can you help your local church to be a community of Gospel nonviolence?

• Reflect on Jesus’ commandment in the Garden of Gethsemane to “put down your sword.” Whom do you want to strike, and how do you respond to Jesus’ commandment? How can you prepare yourself to respond nonviolently to the threat of attack? Do you want to be as nonviolent as Jesus?

36

GOOD FRIDAY March 25, 2016

!38

Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its scabbard. Shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave me?”…

The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his doctrine. Jesus answered him, “I have spoken publicly to the world. I have always taught in a synagogue or in the temple area where all the Jews gather, and in secret I have said nothing. Why ask me? Ask those who heard me what I said to them. They know what I said.” When he had said this, one of the temple guards standing there struck Jesus and said, “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?”…

Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.” So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” So they took Jesus, and, carrying the cross himself, he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle.…

Jesus said, “I thirst.” There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth. When Jesus had taken the wine, he said,“It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over his spirit. (John 18:1-19:42)

37

!39

On Good Friday, we commemorate the trial, torture, and execution of the nonviolent Jesus. He goes to his death in perfect nonviolence, not yelling or striking back, but forgiving his killers and surrendering himself to his beloved God of peace. On this solemn day, we accompany Jesus as he carries the cross and stand with him as he dies on the cross. We ponder his loving nonviolence and steadfast faith, and reflect on our own lives and how we will go to our own deaths. We can also reflect on our global solidarity with the crucified peoples of the world, and what we can do to stop the ongoing crucifixion of the poor and the earth. Let me reflect on four points: the commandment to put down the sword; his words to Pilate about the kingdom of God; learning from Jesus how to die; and “the way of the cross.”

Jesus’ Last Words to the Church

One way to understand what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane is to hear Jesus’ commandment to Peter as the last words of Jesus to the church: “Put down the sword.” That’s the last thing his community of followers—men and women—heard him say before his death. And I submit it was the first time they really understood how serious he was about nonviolence. They suddenly realized that he was not going to defend himself with violence, and that he was not going to allow them to defend themselves with violence—and so they immediately run away from him and leave him all alone to be arrested, tried, tortured and executed.

As we reflect on Jesus’ words to Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane, we can notice how we have continued to run away from Jesus and his way of nonviolence for centuries. Instead of accepting his wisdom of nonviolence, we created the so-called “Just War theory,” so that we could feel justified in killing our enemies and waging war. But it has nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus.

I urge everyone to meditate on these last words of Jesus to Peter and the early community. How do we respond when Jesus says to us: Put down the sword? Do we accept his nonviolence, or like millions of other Christians down through the centuries, do we prefer the pagan “Just War theory” so we can continue to justify our killings and wars? How can the church finally obey Jesus’ last words and become a church of nonviolence? This is the key question of our time.

Jesus’ Words to Pilate about the Kingdom of Nonviolence

When Jesus stood in court before Pontius Pilate, the representative of the Roman Empire, he summed up the kingdom of God and the Christian life of peace and nonviolence:

“My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Judeans. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.” (John 18:36)

This verse gives one of the best descriptions of God’s reign, the Way of Jesus, and Christian discipleship in the New Testament. In his kingdom, Jesus explains, there is no fighting, which means there is no violence, no war, no weapons, no killing, and no death. It is a realm of perfect, nonviolent love.

Here, the Gospel sets in stark contrast the choice before us: his kingdom and its members live in perfect nonviolence, while the kingdoms, nations, and empires of the world practice violence and wage war. The sole difference between the two is nonviolence.

38

!40

well

I hear the Gospel saying: either we follow Jesus and therefore reject war and empire, practice his creative nonviolence and do not engage in violence, OR we do not follow Jesus and therefore we support empire and war, reject his creative nonviolence and engage in violence. For me, it’s a clear-cut choice: if you want to be a Christian, you have to become nonviolent and attend to him and his brave nonviolence. If you support war and empire, you have chosen not to side with Jesus.

It’s strange that we rarely hear this text discussed. Why is that? I think it’s because we do not want the nonviolence of Jesus. We prefer to fight like everyone else. We know deep down that if this text is true, our violence reveals that we are not “attendants” of the nonviolent Jesus, but servants of the culture of war and empire. We want to be on Jesus’ good side, but we don’t want to get too close. We’re used to violence, war, and empire. We want it both ways—Jesus and violence.

What intrigues me about this Holy Week text is the word attendant. The word “attendant” is gentle and provocative. It speaks of someone standing nearby, who waits to serve at a moment’s notice, who attends to the other’s every need. The dictionary defines an attendant as “one who serves” or simply “being present.” We think of an attendant nurse, waiting beside the patient in illness and death, or a flight attendant, whose primary task is our safety.

Isn’t every Christian called to be an attendant of the nonviolent Jesus? In God’s reign of peace, the nonviolent Jesus will have, I hope, billions of attendants. We will all get the chance to serve and wait upon the nonviolent Jesus in his reign of universal love and infinite peace.

So Good Friday asks an unlikely question: Do we want to be “attendants” of the nonviolent Jesus? I suppose the honest answer is: No. We prefer to be attendants of America, its militaries, weapons and guns. We are used to violence; it’s bred deep within us. We are brainwashed to think of violence as normal. We know how to be attendants to the president, the nightly news, our bank accounts, our bosses, the culture, power, prestige, and ego. Perhaps we think being an attendant to Jesus is encumbering. Actually, attending to America, money, war, and the culture enslave us; attending to Jesus frees us to live in peace and love.

The Gospel invites us to reimagine our lives as attendants of the nonviolent Jesus. That means we need to let go of our violence and train ourselves in the Way of Gospel nonviolence. As attendants, we do not engage in violence or own weapons. We do not support war or empire or the U.S. military or its weapons. Instead, we choose the creative nonviolence exemplified by Jesus. We practice unconditional love, side with the poor and the enemy, show compassion, speak out for peace, and resist the culture of war and empire, come what may. And we never retaliate with further violence.

As attendants of the nonviolent Jesus, we are the people who break the never-ending downward cycle of violence. But more, we are “present” to Jesus as best we can be. We try to live close by his side. This is a simple, but basic, Christian practice. It may sound pious, but I find it difficult, political, and dangerous. We’re talking here about siding with a resister and a martyr.

39

!

!4140

We might practice being attendants of the nonviolent Jesus. How do we do that? Perhaps we can try first to be attendants of one another, especially those in need. We can attend to the poor, the marginalized, the sick, the elderly, the imprisoned, and the enemy. We can attend to the God of peace in our prayer. We can attend to the Word of God in the Gospels. We can attend to those who work for justice, disarmament, and peace. And we can attend to our own inner spirit of nonviolence, that slowly over time, we might let go of our violence, hatreds, and resentments, and cultivate interior nonviolence. Such preparations will help us become attendants of the nonviolent Jesus. That, I believe, is the great calling of every Christian.

Going to Our Deaths like Jesus

Good Friday invites us to reflect on our own deaths, to befriend our deaths, and to live and die as the nonviolent Jesus did. In going to his death with such deliberate, mindful nonviolence, Jesus teaches us how to live and how to die. He shows us how to go to our own deaths—not in fear, not with anxiety, not in despair, not in doubt, not in hatred, but in the light, grace, and peace of our own loving nonviolence, in hope and trust in the God of peace.

As Good Friday people, we stay centered, prayerful, mindful, and nonviolent and go forward seeking and proclaiming God’s reign of justice and peace, trusting in the God of peace, keeping our eyes on the crucified, risen Jesus. We let go of ourselves, accept our powerlessness, and surrender our very being to the God of peace and God’s reign of peace. We give our lives for suffering humanity, doing our best to support God’s work to disarm the world, and go to our own deaths in faith, hope, and love, knowing that we have done our part by living nonviolent lives and supporting the global grassroots movements of nonviolence.

“As people who carry the cross, we resist all the forces of death,

war, and injustice and do so with

every weapon of nonviolence at our

disposal. Gandhi, Dr. King, and all

the leaders and nonviolent

movements for positive social

change in modern history advocate the methodology

of the cross as a way to

transform society into a more just, peaceful realm.”

- John Dear

!4241

The Gospel invites us not to be afraid, but to live and die in the God of peace, to give our lives for humanity as Jesus did, and to let our deaths become a gift for others that bear the good fruit of peace. As followers of the nonviolent Jesus, we want to do all things as peacefully, mindfully, nonviolently as possible, including dying well. On Good Friday, we can ponder the way Jesus surrendered his spirit at the moment of his death and pray for the grace that we might do the same at the moment of our death, that our lives and our deaths might make peace as his did.

The Way of the Cross

For the nonviolent Jesus and the writers of the four gospels, the cross was the natural consequence of revolutionary nonviolence, civil disobedience, and prophetic truth-telling. Sooner or later, the ruling authorities were going to arrest him, torture him, and execute him, as they always do with troublemaking revolutionaries.

In Jesus’ day, the cross was a total scandal. It was capital punishment by the empire for capital crime, for resisting the empire. For the nonviolent Jesus, then, the way of the cross is active nonviolent resistance to systemic injustice, to empire, to the culture of war. In a world of total war, it defines the public work of making peace, loving others, struggling for justice and disarmament, and serving God. It’s the way to salvation, the way to welcome God’s reign of peace and nonviolence here on earth. It’s the Christian phrase that sums up the practice of gospel nonviolence in a world of violence.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said over and over again that “unearned suffering love is always redemptive.” He taught the dynamic of the cross through the practice of creative nonviolence—in his case, against the systemic racism of segregation. If we dare resist segregation through the methodology of nonviolence, insist on the truth of our equality but do so through nonviolent love, and accept the consequences of harassment or jail without vengeance or retaliation, eventually the scales will fall from the eyes of our opponents, they will recognize the error of their ways and the truth of equality, and a new day of freedom will be born. The cross was a methodology of social, political transformation, but it was risky, as the deaths of several civil rights activists showed.

In other words, the cross is not just a symbol or a metaphor but a methodology, a particular way of organizing and living—in this case, in peaceful resistance to the culture of war and injustice. As people who carry the cross, we resist all the forces of death, war, and injustice and do so with every weapon of nonviolence at our disposal. Gandhi, Dr. King, Dorothy Day, and all the leaders and nonviolent movements for positive social change in modern history advocate the methodology of the cross as a way to transform society into a more just, peaceful realm.

As followers of the nonviolent Jesus who walk in his footsteps, we walk the way of the cross, doing our part to support the nonviolent movements for justice and peace, in resistance to the culture of war and injustice. We pray for the grace to give our lives for suffering humanity, for the coming of God’s reign of nonviolence here on earth. In doing so, we live consciously, mindfully, fully alive, and alert, trying to be as nonviolent as Jesus every step of the way, even toward our own deaths.

!4342

FAITH IN ACTION • Spend Good Friday in prayer, fasting, and reflection over the nonviolence of Jesus as he

goes to his death. Journal about what it means for you and how you want to live and die.

• Attend a Good Friday prayer service, and pray especially for an end to the crucifixion of the poor and of the earth.

• Choose to advocate for some specific group of crucified peoples, such as the Syrian refugees, people on death row, victims of U.S. drone attacks in Afghanistan, or Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Choose to get more involved in active solidarity with them, and join their nonviolent movements to end their suffering.

• Visit the sick and dying. Practice compassionate listening and loving, to ease their pain and increase their peace.

• Reflect on nonviolent civil disobedience, nonviolent protest, or even going to jail as Dr. King did, as a way to participate in the paschal mystery of Jesus. Join a nonviolent demonstration for justice and peace, and consider taking another step in nonviolent direct action as Jesus did for the coming of God’s reign of peace.

PRAYER God of Peace, thank you for the life, death, and resurrection of the nonviolent Jesus. On this Good Friday, help us to accompany Jesus as he carries his cross in the world today. Help us to stand with the crucified peoples of the world, not with the torturers, executioners, or warmakers. Help us to resist the ongoing crucifixion of the poor, and of the earth, through Jesus’ way of nonviolence. Give us the grace to take up the cross as the way of nonviolent resistance, and follow Jesus for the rest of our lives on the path of peace, hope, love, and nonviolence. Bless us that we may die in your grace, that we may live and die in peace, faith, hope, and love, that our lives and our deaths may bear good fruit for justice and peace. Amen.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS • What does it mean that Jesus’ commandment to Peter, “Put down the sword,” are the last

words of Jesus to the church? If that is the last thing the early community heard him say before he died, shouldn’t we conclude that they ran from him because of his steadfast nonviolence? Where are we in that scene? Do we, too, reject his nonviolence and run away from him? How might we not reject his nonviolence and stay with him? How can we help the church reject the Just War theory and reclaim the nonviolence of Jesus?

• If the kingdom of God is perfectly nonviolent as Jesus tells Pilate, what does that mean for our understanding of God, heaven, and discipleship to Jesus? Do we want to be members of the kingdoms of the earth, like the United States, or the nonviolent Kingdom of God? How can we become better attendants of the nonviolent Jesus? How can we befriend our deaths and go to our deaths in peace, nonviolence, hope, and trust like Jesus? How do we let our lives and our deaths bear the good fruit of peace and justice?

• What does it mean to carry the cross or walk the way of the cross? How do you accompany Jesus as he carries his cross in the world today? As Dr. King explained, how is the cross a methodology for social change? Do you agree with Dr. King that “unearned suffering love is always redemptive”?

EASTER SUNDAY March 27, 2016

!4443

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”… Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping.

And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” When she said this, she turned around saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher.

Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and what he told her. (John 20: 1-18)

!4544

The nonviolent Jesus is risen! Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb on Sunday morning, finds it empty and then, lo!, she meets him standing there in front of her. She is overwhelmed and falls to his feet. But Jesus sends her out to announce his resurrection.

With Easter, everything has changed! Now we know that everything he said and did was right!

What does the resurrection of Jesus mean for us today? What does the resurrection of Jesus mean in light of Gandhian/Kingian nonviolence? First of all, it means that death does not get the last word. From now on, we know that our survival is guaranteed. Life is stronger than death, which means, we need not give in to the methodology of violence and death. We can non-cooperate with violence and the culture of death. We can be confident people of peace and nonviolence, knowing that we are headed toward resurrection.

Resurrection means not having a trace of death within us, or the metaphors and means of death. Resurrection means nonviolence. The only way to prepare for the new life of resurrection peace is by practicing nonviolence, becoming as nonviolent as possible. As we practice nonviolence, we actually practice resurrection. We try not to have a drop of violence within us.

Notice, too, that Jesus does not come back and seek revenge. He is not angry at his friends for abandoning them. He has no desire for vengeance, or sense of revenge and retaliation. He does not form a terrorist team to kill Pilate in revenge. He has forgiven everyone, still loves everyone, and remains as nonviolent as before, and he’s still committed to his campaign of peace, justice, and nonviolence. He still wants us to carry on his mission.

As Julian of Norwich wrote long ago, “The worst has already happened and been forgiven. All will be well, and all manner of thing will be well.”

What are the politics of resurrection? As people of resurrection, from now on, we have nothing to do with death. We do not support the forces of death. We do not bring death to anyone. We get rid of our guns, refuse to support war, resist militarism, seek to dismantle weapons, and try to transform our culture of death. We are people of nonviolence, forgiveness, compassion, and peace.

We see the coming of Christ's reign of nonviolence, where there is no more death, no more war, no more violence, no more tears. We take as our motto that great line from poet Edna St. Vincent Millay: “I shall die but that is all I shall do for death.”

If we believe in resurrection and look toward Christ's reign of nonviolence, then we are summoned into a new vocation of peacemaking. We join the global grassroots campaigns to abolish war, poverty, executions, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction, only this time we know that there is nothing to fear, not even death itself.

“The resurrection of Jesus was ignored by the culture of war and death in his day,

but it was an earthquake in reality.

It marked the beginning of the end

of the Roman Empire and the beginning

of a grassroots, community-based

movement of loving nonviolence

that continues to transform

humanity.” - John Dear

!4645

While the world’s governments carry on the tired old politics of crucifixion, we make breakthroughs in the politics of resurrection. We rarely see these breakthroughs in the mainstream media, but they occur every day in the movements of nonviolent resistance sweeping across the world as people give their lives to resist war and oppressive regimes. Grassroots movements are growing in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and around the world. We see them in the hundreds of thousands who marched against environmental destruction in New York City on September 21, 2014, and the thousands who march against war, poverty and environmental destruction every September in every state under the banner of “Campaign Nonviolence.” (See: www.campaignnonviolence.org)

The resurrection of Jesus was ignored by the culture of war and death in his day, but it was an earthquake in reality. It marked the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of a grassroots, community-based movement of loving nonviolence that continues to transform humanity. Our small efforts for peace seem to be ignored by the culture of war and death, but if we continue to build that grassroots movement, the pressure builds for a seismic shift in the political plates that undergird our war-making world. We go forward in that faith, in that spirit of resurrection.

As more and more of us begin to understand the nonviolence of Jesus and create more peaceful lives, we, too, let go of our fear, anger, and despair. By withdrawing our cooperation in the big business of money, war, and empire, we take the steam out of the war machine and welcome God's reign of peace. By joining the grassroots movements of nonviolence for the disarmament of the world and justice for the world’s poor, we become witnesses of the resurrection. We carry on the work of the risen, nonviolent Jesus.

With his resurrection, we take heart once more, trust him completely, and go forward in faith, hope, and love, like Mary of Magdala, on his campaign of nonviolence for justice and peace.

As we finish our Lenten season of nonviolence, let’s take one more week to reflect as we begin our new lives of Easter nonviolence.

!4746

REFLECTION QUESTIONS • What does the resurrection of Jesus mean in light of Gandhian/Kingian nonviolence?

• How do we practice resurrection, get ready for resurrection, and act as if we are headed toward resurrection?

• How does the risen, nonviolent Jesus send you forth to tell others about his resurrection?

• Do you believe in resurrection, in the resurrection of Jesus? If so, then how might that faith shape your life, disarm you, rid you of fear, and empower you to work for positive social change?

PRAYER God of Peace, thank you for raising the nonviolent Jesus from the dead. Thank you for affirming his peacemaking life of active nonviolence. Thank you for letting him come back to us in a spirit of peace and forgiveness. Help us to be people of resurrection, people of peace and nonviolence, who carry on the mission of the risen, nonviolent Jesus. Take away our fear. Give us the grace to know that, as his nonviolent followers, our survival is guaranteed, that we are headed toward the new life of your kingdom of

peace, that eternity starts today. Help us to non-cooperate with death and the culture of death, that, from now on, we may live life to the full and seek the fullness of life for every human being and all creatures. Help us to welcome the social, economic, and political implications of resurrection, the coming of your reign of peace, justice, and nonviolence. Amen.

FAITH IN ACTION • Take some personal action to practice resurrection by practicing nonviolence, letting

go of your fears, and showing unconditional love and peace. Practice living in the presence of the risen Jesus.

• Advocate publicly for the politics of resurrection, for the transformation of the culture of death. Join a peace vigil against war and weapons of mass destruction as a witness for resurrection.

• Go announce the resurrection, in terms of Gospel nonviolence, to someone. Discuss your belief with them, and notice how they respond, and how you react.

• Examine your fears. List what you are afraid of and, in light of the resurrection, try to let go of them.

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER April 3, 2016

!4847

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Judeans, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them; those you retain are retained.” Thomas called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hand and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” (John 20:19-29)

!49

In these two resurrection appearances to his disciples, the nonviolent Jesus shows us how to live as people of peace, nonviolence, and resurrection from now on.

The first thing the risen Jesus says to his disciples is, “Peace be with you.” Then he repeats it to them again as he shows them his wounds, “Peace be with you.” That is the gift of the risen Jesus to us—the gift of peace, and it comes with the wounds from our participation in the nonviolent struggle for justice.

As his followers, as people of resurrection, we welcome his peace and rejoice in his risen presence. Despite the insanity of the world’s wars and violence, as resurrection people, we take that peace to heart, and try to live in his resurrection peace every day for the rest of our lives. We also pledge to work for a new world of peace—for the abolition of war, nuclear weapons and every form of violence—and accept the possibility that we, too, will be wounded from the struggle.

“I send you,” the risen Jesus says to us. He sends us as peacemakers into the world of war, as people of nonviolence into the world of violence, as people of justice into the world of injustice. We go forth to live as he did, to practice nonviolence, to resist injustice, and to proclaim God’s kingdom of peace and justice here on earth. From now on, we are his apostles of nonviolence, justice, and peace.

Then, he breathes on them and gives them the Holy Spirit. So we breathe in his Holy Spirit of peace and “conspire” with Jesus in this new life of love, nonviolence, and peace. From now on, too, we try to live and breathe in the peace of the risen Jesus.

As Buddhist leader Thich Nhat Hanh teaches, we return regularly to our breath throughout our day to center ourselves in the present moment of resurrection peace. This “mindfulness” is the practice of resurrection peace. By living and breathing in his Holy Spirit, we live mindfully in the present moment, and go through life fully alert, peaceful and nonviolent.

Jesus then commends forgiveness and community. He talked about forgiveness throughout his teachings, practiced forgiveness even as he died, and still talks about forgiveness now. He wants us to forgive everyone who ever hurt us, even those who would kill us or those we know. He also talks of community. I prefer the translation: “Those you retain are retained.” In other words, those you hold together in community are held together in community. Jesus wants us to forgive one another and come together as a community of peace and nonviolence.

“The essence of nonviolence is love.

Out of love and the willingness

to act selflessly, strategies, tactics,

and techniques for a nonviolent

struggle arise naturally. Nonviolence is not

a dogma; it is a process.

Other struggles may be fueled by greed,

fear or ignorance, but a nonviolent

one cannot use such blind sources

of energy, for they will

destroy those involved and also the

struggle itself. Nonviolent action,

born of the awareness of suffering

and nurtured by love, is the most

effective way to confront adversity.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh

48

!50

In the next appearance, he tells doubting Thomas to put his finger in his wounds and believe. Thomas answers, “My Lord and my God!” We have heard this expression for years. But what we may not know is that at the end of the first century, the Roman emperor announced that he was to be addressed as “My Lord and my God.” If you refused, or called someone else by this phrase, you were to be immediately executed. When Thomas addresses Jesus as “My Lord and my God,” he also resists the Roman Empire and can expect immediate martyrdom. By the time of John’s Gospel, many thousands of Christians were being killed by the Roman Empire. In this resurrection account, Jesus affirms their faith and encourages them and us to live in that same faith, even to give our lives nonviolently in that faith.

With these resurrection accounts, we take heart in the nonviolent Jesus and go forth, filled with peace, hope, faith, and joy, as his peacemakers and justice-seekers. We resist the culture of violence and death and go forward in his spirit of loving nonviolence.

As we bring these reflections to an end, we know that we are really starting all over again. From this day forward, we will try to follow the nonviolent Jesus as well as possible for the rest of our lives. We will try to be as nonviolent as him, to seek justice and make peace, and to carry on his campaign for the abolition of war, poverty, injustice and environmental destruction and for the coming of his reign of nonviolence, justice and peace.

May we go forward in peace, take his resurrection gift of peace to heart, breathe in his Holy Spirit, and know that we have joined the holy lineage of nonviolence from the early community to modern day apostles like Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, and Oscar Romero.

From now on, may every breath, every step, and every moment be lived in his resurrection spirit of peace, and may we all become who we were created to be—God’s beloved sons and daughters, peacemakers.

49

!51

REFLECTION QUESTIONS • Do we want to welcome and receive Jesus’ resurrection gift of peace? How do we take his

resurrection gift of peace to heart? What is the connection between his gift of peace and the showing of his wounds?

• How does the risen Jesus send you forth in to the culture of violence, injustice, and war as his apostle of peace, justice, and nonviolence?

• How do you live in and breathe in the Spirit of peace?

• How does Jesus’ resurrection encourage you to forgive those who have hurt you and build community?

• What does it mean for you to address Jesus as “My Lord and my God” in the 21st century, in this time of permanent war, systemic injustice, nuclear weapons and catastrophic climate change? How does the resurrection of Jesus give you hope? What does hope mean for you? Where do you find hope these days?

PRAYER God of Peace, thank you for the risen Jesus’ gift of peace. Help us to live in his peace, to breathe in his peace, and to go forth and share that gift of peace with the human race. Make us apostles of the risen, nonviolent Jesus, that we might work for the abolition of war, greed, poverty, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction, and for the coming of your reign of peace and nonviolence here on earth. Help us to pledge allegiance only to the nonviolent Jesus and your reign, and not to the cultures, nations, and weapons of the world. Give us the grace to live in his spirit of resurrection peace from now on, and to become who you created us to be, your beloved sons and daughters, your holy peacemakers. Amen.

FAITH IN ACTION • Commit to some new public action for justice and peace, to going forth into the culture of

war and injustice this year and engaging in some new action for justice and peace as Jesus has sent you.

• Try to practice living in peace through daily mindfulness, to practice the art of mindfulness by returning to your breath and living in the present moment of peace. Discern your own political allegiance in light of Thomas’ declaration, “My Lord and my God.” Decide whom or what you address as “my Lord and my God,” and unpack the political implications of your discipleship to the risen Jesus.

• Reflect on your own local community. How does your church practice resurrection peace and nonviolence? If they don’t, start a little peace community, and work with new friends for the end of war and injustice and the coming of a more nonviolent world.

50