Jonah (finally) obeyed the word of the Lord and (finally) went to
Nineveh. Jonah began by going a day’s
journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be
overthrown.” The Ninevites believed God.
A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on
sackcloth…When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his
throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down
in the dust…When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil
ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had
threatened…But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed
to the Lord, ‘Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is
what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a
gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who
relents from sending calamity. Now,
Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.’”
 |
| The Reluctant Prophet |
If I am honest with myself I realize that like Jonah, I not
only detest my enemies, but sometimes even my God who has the audacity to love the
very people I despise. I wince at this God
who, instead of dealing harshly with his adversaries, is pierced for their
transgressions and crushed for their iniquity all while commanding me to go and
do likewise.This
God of peace reeks of weakness. I long
for a deity who justifies my desire for retribution. In these moments I realize my enjoyment in
hating my rival. “It is an unpleasant fact, however, that most of our lives are
governed more by our hates and dislikes than by our loves. I seldom know what I
really want, but I know what or whom I deeply dislike and even hate.” Think about it, both personally and
nationally, how would we even know who we are if we did not have enemies? Without an Axis of Evil, an Iron Curtain, a
Communist Bloc or Muslim Extremists, how could we as a nation justify our
penchant for violence and raison d’etre? We need Boston bombers; we relish 9/11
because as malevolent as those events are, they provide for us an object of our
hate and derision as well as the justification for willful national
violence.
Further contemplation reveals that those of us who pray to
this Prince of Peace may even secretly abhor resolution. Peace is boring, it seems passive and pathetic.
Sure, we might proclaim it, but in fact we
know that conflict and war are our dirty addictions. And, like the addict who
ultimately kills himself instead of walking the long road of recovery, this
addiction to violence threatens to destroy the entire human race unless we come
up with more creative ways of dealing with our enemy. Love my enemy? Bless and do not curse?
Please…give me retribution, not reconciliation. To be a follower of Christ for this long and still wrestle with this temptation is frightening. There are a number of social issues that we as Christians can agree or disagree on, but Christ’s command to turn the other cheek, to resist the urge to return evil for evil and to love my enemy as myself is indisputable. The fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel lays out in embarrassing clarity the sine qua non ethic of Jesus, “Blessed are you makers of peace.” As his followers, peacemaking is not simply one activity among others, “but rather the very form of the church insofar as the church is the form of the one who ‘is our peace’”. Just this past week, I reached out to one of my ‘enemies’ to restore our relationship. And while I am grateful it did not require a great fish to convince me, it did not come natural. For three months I carried a grudge against him. For three months I resisted the urge to reconcile because I liked hating him, I liked what having an enemy did for my own self-righteousness. And like Jonah, I also resisted facing him because if we reconciled, I risked losing him as the object of my scorn. How petty and foolish am I. But incredibly, upon receiving my half-hearted attempt toward reconciliation, my foe received me completely. I was astonished at his kindness, at his welcome, at his humanity and his love for me. And though Christ’s command to ‘love your enemies’ is arguably the most difficult aspect of his teachings to follow, when practiced, both I and my enemy are reborn. “Love, you, my enemy, and lo, my enemy vanishes where he stood.” Now, through the difficult task of reconciliation, “my enemy is a former enemy, and a present friend. And, it is not only my adversary who undergoes a dazzling transformation, but me as well.” This is liberation, this is freedom.
From this perspective, peacemaking is no longer passive or boring,
but rather an incredibly demanding and vulnerable vocation whereby we no longer
ignore or deny inevitable conflict, but rather force it out into the open where
the peace of Christ intercedes. “To love all people does not mean avoiding confrontations; it does not mean
preserving a fictitious harmony…love of enemies does not necessarily ease
tensions; rather it challenges the whole system and becomes a subversive
formula” for true personal and national liberation. We therefore shouldn’t be surprised if peacemakers and peacemaking appear
anything but peaceful. It’s
a long and arduous process that may not immediately change the heart of my
enemy, but it will do something radical to the heart and soul of the one
committed to active peacemaking. Active peacemaking, loving my enemy and
confronting our mutual discord necessitates recognizing that I share a common
story with my adversary, that we are both in rebellion against God, but due to
His loving kindness, He refuses to count such sin against us. Only such a radical love as this is capable of
setting both victim and oppressor free.
If we, unlike Jonah, are to love the Ninevites, the Koreans,
the terrorist and even our Facebook friends, we must first recognize that all
human beings are equal, that all bear the image of God, and that every human
being is redeemed by the God whose own humanity was glorified in his sacrificial
act of humiliating reconciliation. The only path to reunited relationships
personally and globally is through the sustained vocation of peacemaking, whose
very means are its ends. And whether we
like it or not, there exists no-one outside the pale of God’s forgiveness. Consequently, the stumbling block for the
church isn’t just that our God in His divine defenselessness would choose to
die for His enemies rather than destroy them, but rather that we as His people must
go and do likewise.
[1]
Jonah 3: 3-6, 10 and Jonah 4: 1-3.
[2]
Isaiah 53:5
[3]
Ibid.
[4]
Ibid.
[5]
Dear, Father John. Our God Is Nonviolent.
[6]
Matthew 5; 43.
[7]
Ibid.
[8] Berrigan,
Daniel. Testimony: The Word Made Fresh. “Love Your Enemies”.
[9]
Ibid. pg. 59.
[10]
Ibid.
[11]
Gutierrez, Gustovo. A Theology of Liberation. 1973.
[12]
Hauerwas, Stanley. “Peacemaking: The Virtue of the Church.”
[13]
King, Dr. Martin Luther. “The Words of Dr. Martin Luther King” by Coretta Scott
King.
[14]
Psalm 32: 2.
[15]
Dear, Father John. Our God is NonViolent.
[16]
Yoder, John Howard. What Would You Do?
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