Rabbi Rob Cabelli of Congregation Beth Israel, Part 2, May 10-14

I continue my conversation with Rabbi Rob Cabelli of Beth Israel Congregation in Asheville, NC. We discuss afterlife, Jesus, and justice in the Jewish Tradition.   Don't miss Religion For Life!





Listen via livestream…

Thursday, May 10th at 8 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Sunday, May 13th, at noon on WEHC, 90.7.
Sunday, May 13th, at 2 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Monday, May 14th at 1 pm on WEHC, 90.7.
Via podcast beginning May 15th.

A Nonviolent Army--A Sermon

A Nonviolent Army

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

May 6, 2012

Pluralism Sunday

Ephesians 6:10-20

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of God’s power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.

The questions that I am asking during this series of sermons are these:

Is it possible for human beings to be nonviolent at all levels of interaction?
Is violence a permanent and fated condition of our nature?
Are we able to outgrow or transcend violence?

The goal of this series of sermons is to provoke thought and conversation on these matters. More than that, I personally hope that these sermons will inspire a heartfelt commitment to nonviolence. I have an answer to those questions. It is an answer that comes from my personal faith, meaning that I hope and trust in the possibility even as it might seem to push the limits of credibility.

A source of inspiration for these sermons comes from biblical scholar, Walter Wink. We are reading his book, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium in our Thursday reading group. The reason for a number of sermons on one person’s thought is again personal. For me, Wink is one of those people who provided challenge and change for me. Phrases and concepts that he coined and defined such as engaging the powers, the domination system, and the myth of redemptive violence helped me see things I hadn’t seen before in society and in the faith tradition. With Wink and others, the Bible took on a new relevance.

The Bible is the product of and is embedded in western civilization.  At the same time it is a critique of western civilization. If we want to know who we are, a good place to start is the Bible. It grew up with us. Everything we think of as normal, perhaps even natural or indispensable such as literacy, government, law, money, standing armies, religion, science, a concept of God, patriotism, family and all of our institutions are all rather recent in terms of the human species. Civilization has been around for only a few thousand years. Thanks to agriculture and the domestication of animals between 8,000 and 5,000 BCE we drive cars to church today.

Compared to when homo sapiens came on the scene around 250,000 years ago and our ancestors of the homo genus about 2.5 million years ago, the start of civilization, 10,000 years ago, is a recent development.

It is with the rise of civilization and agriculture that we get all the good stuff, plus the inequities and the institutions required to protect those inequities including myths of and rationalizations for violence as both redemptive and necessary. I am not saying that prior to civilization our ancestors lived in a non-violent Eden like state or that they didn’t need to fight for their survival.

I am suggesting that civilization brought with it a level of violence and a rationale for it, including myth and religion, that made it seem like violence at an organized level was natural and inevitable to the human experience. In its simplest form, the surpluses brought on by agriculture, led to inequities that led to the evolution of domination systems that needed to keep these inequities in place.

Eventually you get kings, priests, gods, and myths and rituals that justify the order of things. The myth of redemptive violence justified the domination system by stating that humans are naturally violent and must be controlled by violence. Therefore violence is good and redemptive when used by the one who is divinely appointed to rule. When the good guys use violence, violence is good. We learn it. We teach it. It is everywhere.

It is the reason we might answer the questions with which I began this sermon…

no, human beings cannot be nonviolent at all levels of interaction,
yes, violence is a permanent and fated part of our nature, and
no, we will never outgrow or transcend violence.

That is the legacy of the myth of redemptive violence. This is why otherwise good, peace-loving people allow our leaders to talk us into one war after another. We have been thoroughly indoctrinated by the myth of redemptive violence.

Maybe we can learn and teach something else.

I think we must.

Throughout the Bible including in the teachings of Jesus, the possibility and hope of nonviolence is offered as a possibility if human beings will take it. In one of the earliest stories of the Bible, in Genesis, Cain is about to seek vengeance on his brother. The Lord speaks to him,

“…sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

This is the first use of the word 'sin" in the Bible. You don’t find the word “sin” in the Adam and Eve story. You find it here. For this author, violence is the “original sin.” Whoever wrote this believed that violence could be mastered. It wasn’t inevitable or natural. It crouched at the door as an outsider.

As we know from the story, Cain did not master it. He killed his brother. The implication is that he could have mastered it. The possibility is held out for the human species that it can master violence.

The prophets held out the possibility that we could forget how to learn war. From Isaiah 2:4

they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more…

Jesus held out the possibility that people might love enemies and not return evil for evil.

Other authors such as whoever wrote this letter to the Ephesians also held out the possibility of turning the energy of war to peace. It is disputed whether or not the author was Paul, probably not. Regardless, this author created a metaphor of the nonviolent soldier. This passage is a spoof of military imagery.

The belt of truth.
Breastplate of righteousness. A better word for that is justice.
Shoes of peace.
Helmet of salvation.
Shield of faith.
Sword of spirit which is the word of God.

The point of the text is that this is how you fight the powers. How do you fight the powers that be, such as say the Roman army that has real soldiers with real weapons? You don’t put on weapons at all. The armor of God are all the tools of nonviolent resistance. Truth, justice, peace, salvation (another word for that is wholeness or healing), faith or trust.

Those are all the defensive things. What is the one offensive weapon? The sword of Spirit or Word of God. You confront the powers of violence with trust in the Divine Presence. You resist. You stand firm. You don’t give in. You don’t acquiesce. But you don’t use violence.

Illustrations of this would be black and white students who sat at segregated lunch counters resisting non-violently to violent attacks and therefore exposing the violence and injustice of segregation. In a calculated way they used their bodies to communicate justice, peace, truth, and healing, and a faith that this would work. They were nonviolent soldiers.

Nonviolence is not weakness or cowardice. It taking the anger that wants to lash out violently, (the sin that crouches at the door and desires us is the lashing out), and instead turns that energy toward creative nonviolent resistance that ultimately leads to reconciliation.

Ghandi said that he didn’t want anyone in his nonviolent army who wasn’t able or willing to use violence but saw nonviolence as a better way. Ghandi didn’t want people to simply act nonviolently out of passivity or weakness.

This is not easy. There is no question that this is difficult. If we aren’t careful and vigilant we can project our own violence onto others with words and deeds thinking we are acting on behalf of peace. This is the occupational hazard for those of us involved in various social justice struggles. I find myself building up my defenses and they aren’t necessarily truth, justice, and peace. Nonviolence requires inner work. It requires brutal honesty about our own violence, our own vulnerabilities, and woundedness.

Nonviolence requires training. It requires the humility to take correction from someone you can trust to see your shadow better than you do. It also requires you to forgive yourself when you give in to the violence crouching at the door, and keep at it. Don’t give up on nonviolence.

I hold out the hope of nonviolence and peacebuilding because I see people doing it. At all levels of human interaction I see people learning the skills of assertive communication and attentive listening. I see people developing skills to be self-aware of their feelings, observations, thoughts, and wants and being able to communicate these in peaceful ways.

We are also learning and teaching ways to build peaceful and just communities and societies. I see people learning and teaching about living sustainable lifestyles, about distributive justice, about living equitably. We are learning this and teaching this.

I celebrate movements for liberation and courageous people who put themselves out there for others. Think of the movements we have seen in the last century regarding race, gender, and sexual orientation. We have dreams of possibility.

These efforts to achieve these dreams are often small and sporadic. But it is really just a matter of degree. As more and more people learn these skills, the more these dreams will become reality.

Those questions I asked at the beginning are

Is it possible for human beings to be nonviolent at all levels of interaction?
My answer is yes.


Is violence a permanent and fated condition of our nature?
My answer is no.


Are we able to outgrow or transcend violence?
Yes. Of course.

The real question is will we? Will you? Will I?

Will we join a movement that has been active long before we were born?

As I look around this congregation, I think we have already joined.

Let us live it and watch it grow.

Amen.

Job Opening at FPC Elizabethton: Director of Children's Ministry

Our Director of Children's Ministries, Linda Sorrell, is stepping down from the position to devote more energy and focus toward her family.  Linda has done a fantastic job as DCM.   She is a creative teacher, a skilled administrator, and a peaceful presence.  She has played a huge role in growing our children's ministry.   We will have an opportunity to celebrate her ministry with us later this month.   Thank you, Linda!

We are now searching for another Director of Children's Ministries.   Application deadline is May 15th.  Here is the scoop:

Part-time Director of Children's Ministry, First Presbyterian Church, Elizabethton.   Administrate and teach children's educational program. 10 hours per week.  Must have a progressive theology.  Check webpage for information about the church and for an application, www.fpcelizabethton.org  Apply by May 15th.  Contact Rev. John Shuck at johnashuck {at} embarqmail.com or 542-7737.

If you are wondering what a "progressive theology" looks like you might check out The Eight Points of a Progressive Christian Church and the curriculum we have been using.   

Rabbi Rob Cabelli on Religion For Life, May 3-7

This is the first of a two part conversation with Rabbi Rob Cabelli of Congregation Beth Israel in Asheville, North Carolina. Rabbi Cabelli made the drive over the mountain to speak with me about Judaism in general, science and faith, Torah, and being Jewish in Appalachia.





Listen via livestream…

Thursday, May 3rd at 8 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Sunday, May 6th, at noon on WEHC, 90.7.
Sunday, May 6th, at 2 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Monday, May 7th at 1 pm on WEHC, 90.7.
Via podcast beginning May 8th.

Complaints Against Lisa Larges "Not Sustained"

This news just in:

The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission dismissed all the complaints that had been cobbled together to prevent her ordination to ministry in the PC(USA).  Lisa has been trying to be ordained as a minister since before I started seminary.  That is a long call process.

Here is her statement about the decision.
















Thank you, Rev. Lisa Larges for taking this journey and for making the way less rocky for those who follow.

Here is the decision in pdf.

ECO = We don't want equality for gay people

The LayMAN reports that 47 congregations are girding up their loins to leave the PC(USA) for greener more ECO friendly pastures.    These ECO friendly pastures will be pure and lovely and won't have any nasty gay people grazing about (at least in leadership positions).

The congregations offer lists of complaints as they report to their local media how they are leaving the faithless PC(USA) to follow the good shepherd.   They say many things such as the "real reason" being the lack of trust in the Scriptures, or universalism, or quirky views of Jesus that apparently some people in the denomination hold.    Perhaps even me.   Because the denomination (whoever that is, exactly) doesn't punish these "heretics" these faithful congregations can't possibly do their ministry.

But that is nothing new.   So-called "heretics" have gone unpunished in pulpits for centuries.   Complaining about them has served as a cover for darker prejudices.  In fact, these lists of complaints, in this case, are nothing more than veiled homophobia.   

These congregations are leaving because the PC(USA) took a small step in removing discriminatory barriers against gays and lesbians.

This new denomination, ECO, has a lovely new website.  There you will find photos of happy people and you will find rationale and strategy for congregations to depart the PC(USA) with the property.

Be well.  Have a good life.   But do know that you will leave a legacy.

When your children ask you in days to come why you separated from your sisters and brothers in the PC(USA), you can tell them that it was because you didn't think gay people should be equal with straight people.  When your children look at you with a WTF? expression on their faces, you will know that that decision to leave was really warped...

...in fact, not even Christian.    

A Cheeky Response--A Sermon

A Cheeky Response

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

April 29, 2012

As you know, we once were told, ‘An eye for an eye’ and ‘A tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, don’t react violently against the one who is evil; when someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other as well. If someone is determined to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat along with it. Further, when anyone conscripts you for one mile, go along an extra mile.

Matthew 5:38-41

When the Jesus Seminar searched through the Jesus tradition to determine what deeds and words might be part of the voice print of the original historical Jesus, they decided that witty aphorisms and parables were more likely to belong to Jesus than long speeches. What was remembered from Jesus was more likely to be little nuggets of wisdom rather than long theological discourses.

These three “case studies” (turn the cheek, give your coat, go the second mile) are found in Matthew with a parallel in Luke. The theory is that they go back to an earlier source, scholars call Q, the first letter of the German word Quelle, which means source. That is material is common to Matthew and Luke not found in Mark.

These three “case studies” turn the cheek, give your coat, and go the second mile, seem to belong to Jesus. They were all voted “red” as in “Yep, sounds like Jesus.” They are non-literal, comic, surprising, and transformative for those with ears to hear.

It is also likely to be true that the primary audience for Jesus would have been peasants. These would be people who would know first-hand the indignities of being in debt, of losing land and livelihood, of being occupied by a foreign army, humiliated by superiors, and having nothing more than the shirts on their backs.

It is likely that Christianity was not at its beginning a movement of the rich and famous. It was of the poor and infamous. In the second century a man named Celsus criticized Christianity. He ridiculed it because of the company it kept. We know of Celsus’ writings because early Church father, Origin wrote a treatise called Against Celsus. He quotes Celsus remarks about the early Christian movement. Celsus is speaking sarcastically from the first person as if he were a Christian inviting people to join:

Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near. For these abilities are thought by us to be evils. But as for anyone ignorant, anyone stupid, anyone uneducated, anyone who is a child, let him come boldly. By the fact that they themselves admit that these people are worthy of their God, they show that they want and are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable and stupid, and only slaves, women, and little children.

Later he says:

In private houses also we see wool-workers, cobblers, laundry-workers, and the most illiterate and bucolic yokels, who would not dare to say anything at all in front of their elders and more intelligent masters. But whenever they get hold of children in private and some stupid women with them, they let out some astounding statements as, for example, that they must not pay attention to their father's and school-teachers, but must obey them; they say that these talk nonsense and have no understanding, and that in reality they neither know nor are able to say anything good, but are taken up with mere empty chatter.

What Celsus noticed is that these early Christians upset the social order. Slaves, women, and children are worthy of the Christian god. That is not a good thing from the point of view of Celsus. The Jesus’ movement earliest appeal was to those who had been left out and marginalized by the dominant social order.

We should remember that the founding narrative of Christianity is that its hero, Jesus, was executed and tortured as a common criminal by established, legitimate authority. In elevating this person to son of god like Caesar, the earliest communicators of the Jesus’ message were making radical statements about life, life’s meaning, the meaning of justice and peace, and whose side they thought God was really on.

“Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near,” said Celsus.

From the point of view of the slaves, women, children, and day-laborers who did draw near, the educated, wise and sensible of Celsus’ class were part of the problem. It was that class who were backhanding them on the cheek, taking their coats in payment of debt, and conscripting them to carry their military packs.

These three case studies of Jesus that were preserved could have been just a snippet, headlines of longer teachings and conversations that Jesus would have had with people about dignity and resistance. One could imagine all kinds of arguments, a lot of back and forth with Jesus and others about what to do and how to respond to the oppression and humiliation. One can imagine the arguments would have been heated and passionate:

“What do we do with these Romans? What do we do about these landowners? What do we do about these priests and accountants who side with them over us? Do we have an armed revolution? Do we just take it and let them abuse us, starve us, and kill us?”

These are serious questions. I can imagine that Jesus was in the thick of it. The choice as we know was armed revolution in 66 CE that was crushed by the Romans. It resulted in the destruction of the temple and the burning of Jerusalem. This is the context of Mark’s Gospel.

Historical Jesus scholar, Dominic Crossan, thinks that Mark’s gospel account of the execution of Jesus is a parable not about Jesus’ own time and life, but about the destruction of Jerusalem in 66-70. The choice of the people to release Barabbas the revolutionary rather than Jesus was the choice the Jews made to choose armed revolt rather than non-violent revolt. It was a choice that the author of Mark’s gospel thought was a bad idea.

It is after this failure of the Jewish War from 66-70 that the gospels are written. It is as though the gospels are written looking back and through the revolt and war of 66-70 to Jesus 40 years on the other side and saying, “What if we had listened to him? What was he saying again?”

What was Jesus saying? Was he saying, “Armed revolt! Take up the righteous cause of God!”

Or was he saying, “Be passive. Just take it. Your reward is in heaven. God will take care of all of it.”

Or was he saying something else?

These three case studies provide the clue. Jesus offered a third way. These case studies, these three sayings are remembered not by any means as his complete teaching but the briefest of outlines for a program of resistance to oppression that is non-violent with the emphasis on non-violent and resistance.

According to Dominic Crossan, the kingdom of God is participatory. We can’t do it without God. God won’t do it without us. It isn’t a violent intervention by supernatural power. It is non-violent and takes over like leaven in bread and a mustard weed in a field. It transforms all, including enemy, to friend. The evil is the violence. You are simply not going to get peace through violent means. Peace comes through justice not through victory. The way to peace is not violence. Peace is the way.

Jesus is speaking to people who are humiliated. His first lesson to them is:

You are a human being.
You are the light of the world.
You are the salt of the earth.
You are a child of God.
Do not participate or cooperate in your own humiliation.

Jesus is not to be interpreted as saying, “Allow yourself to be a punching bag. If your spouse hits you just go back and submit. Turn the other cheek.” That is a misreading. That is what happens when bullies get control of the Bible. The Bible does not belong to the bullies.

Notice the detail. “When someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other.” The setting here is a backhanded slap from the superior’s right hand to the right side of the face. What do you do when that happens to you? When a slave-owner, a person in authority, a father, or a husband does that, what do you do? Do you hit back? That would result in death, a severe beating, or imprisonment? Do you cower? That is what the superior wants. The bully wants you to be humiliated.

No, says Jesus. You neither hit back nor cower. You stand there and turn the other cheek. You are making a communication that you are a human being. It is an act of defiance. You might get whipped for it. But you are showing yourself and the other that you are a human being. The invitation is for the other to recognize you as a human being as well. It is not an aggressive act. It is assertive.

If someone takes you to court and takes one of your garments, give them your other garment. To survive people had two garments. The outer garment served as a blanket at night. The law was that in payment for a debt you could take a person’s garment but you had to give it back to them at night. It is a setting of humiliation in which people lost everything to burdensome debts. The owners have nothing left to take from you except your coat. What do you do?

The first principle is that you do not participate or cooperate in your own humiliation. You make a public spectacle. You not only give them your coat, but you take off your undergarment too. You stand before them naked. Rather than receive this injustice passively and cower with humiliation, you stand up and act. Your nakedness shames the oppressor.

This has become a technique in modern non-violent movements. This is from ABC News:

Nigerian villagers who have long clashed with oil companies doing business in their backyards are trying a creative protest tactic. They've dropped their guns, and some have even threatened to drop their clothes.

Hundreds of unarmed women from local tribes in the oil-rich but desperately poor Niger Delta region brought production to a halt recently at pipeline facilities owned by ChevronTexaco by merely occupying the sites. Several dozen village women are still holed-up today.

To make their point, the women threatened to disrobe — a strong local shaming symbol — and managed to strike a deal with ChevronTexaco that will bring jobs and funding for schools, hospitals and other services into their struggling community.

Check out The Righteous Mothers and their song “Old Fat Naked Women for Peace” as they sing about this non-violent resistance tactic.

The inspiration for Ghandi and King for non-violent resistance came from Jesus. Jesus was not about passivity. He was about transformation.

The third test case is if “someone conscripts you for a mile, go a second mile.”

This isn’t just someone. This is a Roman soldier. Soldiers were allowed to grab civilians and force them to carry their gear. In a similar vein, in the gospel of Mark, the story is that Simon of Cyrene was conscripted to carry Jesus’ cross.

The law was that Roman soldiers could only force someone to carry their pack for one mile. Jesus says, “So when this happens to you, don’t give the pack back. Offer to continue to carry it. Force the soldier to break the law and see what happens!” Imagine the soldier and the peasant fighting over the pack. Rather than be humiliated, you take the upper hand.

Some of the principles of non-violent resistance are found in the gospels and in these case studies of Jesus. Thanks to Walter Wink, author of The Powers That Be for interpreting these sayings in the light of non-violent resistance. These principles are in general:

1. You are a human being with dignity and so is your opponent.
2. Do not cooperate with your own oppression or humiliation.
3. Do not return violence with violence.
4. Find creative ways to assert to transform relationships from “power over to power with”.

These are principles that can be used in interpersonal relationships, at work, at home, in communities, perhaps even between nations.

It is the third way.

The way of transformative peace.

Amen.

Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel Primack on Religion For Life, April 26-30

My guests on Religion For Life are Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel Primack, authors of a new book, The New Universe and the Human Future: How a Shared Cosmology Could Transform the World. Dr. Primack is professor of physics at the University of California at Santa Cruz and Nancy Ellen Abrams is a cultural philosopher. Together they find a way of integrating our cosmology with meaning and offer a hopeful vision for our human future on Earth.





Listen via livestream…

Thursday, April 26th at 8 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Sunday, April 29th, at noon on WEHC, 90.7.
Sunday, April 29thd, at 2 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Monday, April 30th at 1 pm on WEHC, 90.7.
Via podcast beginning May 1st.

Test the Waters!

If you live near our mountain, come test the waters on Saturday May 5th.   You will get a chance to find out about our congregation, tour the facilities, meet some fine folks, and enjoy a free lunch.   We are a pretty unique congregation for this area.  We are More Light (LGBT inclusive), progressive, and a lot of fun.   Here is our webpage.  

There is no pressure "to join" but we would sure to love to have you do so if that is where Spirit leads.  Send me an email if you think you might like to come so we can get an idea of how much food to prepare.  Our nursery will  be open! 

Test the Waters, Saturday, May 5th from ten to one!

Breaking the Spiral of Violence--A Sermon

Breaking the Spiral of Violence

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

April 22, 2012

Earth Day

Luke 22:24-27

Then they got into an argument over which of them should be considered the greatest. He said to them, “Among the foreigners, it’s the kings who lord it over everyone, and those in power are addressed as ‘benefactors.’ But not so with you; rather, the greatest among you must behave as a beginner, and the leader as one who serves. Who is the greater, after all: the one reclining at a banquet or the one doing the serving? Isn’t it the one who reclines? But here among you I am the one doing the serving.

As we move through the season of Spring, we are walking the path, or dancing the spiral of the via transformativa, the way of compassion and justice-making. This is the path of naming, unmasking, and engaging The Powers That Be.

The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium is a book by Walter Wink. Walter Wink is an interesting guy. He wrote a book on Jesus and Nonviolence and had it delivered in secret to clergy in South Africa. He snuck into to South Africa illegally and led workshops on non-violence. He thus exerted influence in helping the movement against Apartheid be non-violent and have the basis for that non-violence based in the teachings and life of Jesus.

Walter Wink has not backed away from walking with those who are most oppressed by The Powers That Be. He knows Empire’s cruelty and violence. Yet he firmly holds out hope and participates in a way of living and being that is transformative. He really does believe in non-violence and trusts that the human race will get it. He writes:

“The reign of God means the elimination of every form of violence between individuals and nations. This is a realm and a possibility of which the imprisoned by their trust in violence cannot even conceive.” P. 89

We can, from Wink’s perspective, conceive that the human race could move beyond violence as a program of solving conflicts even at the level of nation-states. He believes that believing that humans will always solve conflicts violently and always have is part of the socialization we have received from the Domination System. For Wink, violence is not innate and inevitable. It is learned. It can be unlearned.

That is why I am spending quite a bit of sermon time with his ideas. I think that radical statement that violence is learned needs a hearing. I am spending valuable sermon time on his book because his ideas have been influential to me and because I think they are important. That doesn’t mean of course that I say, “Yes, yes, yes,” to everything he writes. But I say “Yes” often enough.

When I first read about his analysis of the myth of redemptive violence that I spoke about last week, it changed my way of thinking. I can’t see anything now, whether they be cartoons, movies, advertising, propaganda, orchestrated patriotic spectacles, and so called news reports, without seeing that myth playing itself out before my eyes time and time again. That myth is in short: violence saves. Only by violent means can the good guys beat the bad guys. Our salvation is to identify with the violent--yet good--hero.

His understanding of the Domination System as a translation for the word kosmos in many places in the New Testament helped me make more sense of the Gospels and Paul. It brought the scriptures down to Earth in the struggles that we face everyday with the powers. The Powers are not individual people, for people are interchangeable and expendable within these institutions. The Powers That Be are those personalities, commitments, rules, and forces that lie behind and within institutions.

Wink sees the historical Jesus as enacting a program of non-violent resistance with the emphasis both on non-violent and resistance, not passivity on one hand nor becoming the very evil we deplore on the other. Wink sees this message not just in the historical Jesus but as a thread that weaves itself through the whole witness of scripture.

The myth of redemptive violence is presented to us by the powers as part of our socialization into the Domination System. Whenever a conflict rises, we consistently give in to the argument that is offered as the clincher: the only way to save the world is to stop these bad people with force of arms. It is the only way. The Powers have to do one thing. Repeat the myth and insert the enemy of the day as the bad guy.

The myth is necessary to keep the inequity in place between the wealthy and powerful and those without wealth and power. That inequity is as much within a nation as between nations. As inequities increase within a nation, it becomes by necessity more violent both to people within the nation as well as to those outside of it. Stories of domestic spying and harsh crackdowns on protestors are some examples of this.

One of the ways a violent society keeps the lid on things, is to let out its violence in a ritualized, orderly way by way of scapegoating. French philosopher, Rene Girard, saw this by analyzing myths. Collective violence from the perspective of the persecutor against a particular group served to focus the violence of a society on a scapegoat. Blame the troubles on this person or group of persons and focus ritual, programmatic violence upon them.

Girard in analyzing the New Testament saw that that scapegoating mechanism was turned upside down. The gospels were written from the point of the persecuted. Jesus is the scapegoat. But, his violent death showed that the scapegoating mechanism was wrong. An innocent person was tortured and killed. The powers were wrong to do this. The powers were not keeping order and peace by executing bad guys. Jesus’ death unmasked and exposed The Powers That Be as wrong and needing overthrow.

Jesus’ death did not show that he was the last scapegoat. It showed the end of scapegoating. Throughout Western history, Jesus’s torture and execution has been used successfully to show that scapegoating is wrong.

On the other hand, The Powers That Be have had success in getting us to reinterpret Jesus’ death as some kind of transaction to satisfy a violent God. God kills Jesus instead of killing you and sending you to hell and whatever. That is the interpretation of Empire. When Christianity and Empire are in bed together, that is what you get.

But the original and powerful and liberating interpretation is that Jesus’ violent death exposed the violence of the powers and thus defeated them.

One modern illustration of how this was used was during the civil rights movement. In Nashville students, black and white together, sat illegally at all-white lunch counters. They brought their cameras and the news media. They were treated violently but did not retaliate to violence with violence. They resisted. They were not passive. They didn’t leave. They didn’t acquiesce. They received violence but did not back down. The purpose was to expose the violence inherent in segregation.

To see young students beaten and mistreated by The Powers That Be or the Law, exposed to the rest of the country that the Law was wrong. Eventually, enough people could see that blacks were being scapegoated so that the laws would change. These laws, such as segregated lunch counters, were part of the larger systemic violence against black people.

The students used the symbol of Jesus on the cross, the innocent victim, to expose the powers of inequity and violence. The death of Jesus when interpreted as exposing scapegoating and domination as unjust is liberating. This is a way in which the spiral of violence is named, exposed, and defeated.

The Powers That Be don’t want Jesus’ death interpreted in that way. They want it to be seen as Jesus receiving the torture and death you should get because you deserve God’s wrath. That is an incredibly abusive interpretation. It lets the powers off the hook. In this scheme Church and Empire work together to keep people passive and to continue to scapegoat whoever it is they want to direct violence upon whether they be “heretics” or enemies of the state.

Jesus was a Capricorn, he ate organic foods.
He believed in love and peace and never wore no shoes.
Long hair, beard and sandals and a funky bunch of friends.
Reckon they'd just nail him up if He come down again.


'Cos everybody's got to have somebody to look down on.
Who they can feel better than at anytime they please.
Someone doin' somethin' dirty, decent folks can frown on.
If you can't find nobody else, then help yourself to me.

Kris Kristofferson’s Jesus Was a Capricorn is a great song about the scapegoat mechanism. The song itself shows how Jesus’ death exposed the scapegoat mechanism as unjust and exposed the violence of the powers. The song also demonstrates how the powers continually want to turn it back on more scapegoats. “Everybody’s got to have somebody to look down on…”

The reason we call this a spiral of violence is that everyone thinks they are on the good side. Only in cartoons and in silly movies do people think of themselves as an “evil genius.” Everyone thinks that he is the good guy. Whether these guys live in Pyongyang, Tehran, or Washington DC., each one operates from the myth of redemptive violence.

It is no surprise that weapons and militarization are increasing. It is no surprise that individuals are amassing as many personal guns as they can. There are bad guys out there. We are good guys. We have to stand our ground. If we don’t have a scapegoat, “someone to look down on,” what do we do with our violence?

We need to learn a new plan. As Walter Wink writes:

Either we learn to stop the spiral of violence and scapegoating, or, having been stripped of the scapegoating mechanism as an outlet for our violence, we will consume ourselves in an apocalypse of fire. P. 93

We have to die to the Powers. That is we have to die to the socialization and the values we have received by the Domination System. As Wink writes:

“…we have been socialized into patterns of injustice…[we have] become complicit in our own alienation and that of others…we grew to love our bondage, to rationalize, justify, and even champion it.” P. 94

This dying and rebirth is a part of the symbolism of transformation. But it also must include a social dimension. It is not simply private peace. Wink says:

Many North American Christians die to their privatized egos, but not to the arrogance of American imperialism. Thus, dying to one’s ego can be just another false spirituality unless it involves dying to the Powers. P. 96

So when Jesus' disciples debate among themselves who is the greatest, who is the good guy, who is the one on top, he scolds them. Those are the values of the powers. They lord it over others. That is the foundation of the Domination System. Violence is built on that foundation. This is seen in violence and exploitation against people and Earth. This task of dying to the Powers does not happen once and it is over. It is a lifelong process. Writes Wink:

This means our abandoning egocentricity not only as individuals, but as cultures, as nations, even as a species, and voluntarily subordinating our desires to the needs of the total life system. P. 97

The reason we have Earth Day is because of the violence against Earth by The Powers and our complicity with them. On Earth Day celebrations all over the world today, people are resisting the powers of domination and violence to Earth and to all Earthlings.

Here is the take home:

We can do this.
Violence is not inevitable.

Human beings can and do solve virtually all of their conflicts without violence. In fact, in virtually all of our interactions, violence is not allowed as an option. Violence is not the way to solve conflicts in the home, at school, and at the workplace. The members of the Elizabethton City Council do not bring their six guns to work out budget issues. Violence is not an option. We learn violence.  We learn nonviolence.

We don’t believe and act as if our family members are so evil and vile that they must be controlled by violence. I am not saying there is not violence in homes. I am saying that we know that is wrong.
We call on our educators, social workers, and counselors and teach people skills to solve conflicts non-violently so that we can live equitably. We teach people to solve conflicts without violence. We help people leave violent situations. Violence is not an option. At almost every level of our individual and collective lives we know that and live that.

If we can do this at the level of personal interaction, we can do it at all levels of interaction if we want to do so. We could declare and live into the reality that violence is not an option. To do that we have to make commitments for justice and equity. We may have to take risks and make sacrifices because The Powers That Be do wish to keep the violence and the inequity gong.

But we could do this.
We can engage the powers and transform them.
We could decide that violence at any level is not an option.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

I think Earth Day is a fine day to make that commitment.
One Earth.
One beautiful blue ball.
One home.
One family of Earthlings.
Living in peace.
Living in equity.
Living sustainably.
Imagine it.

What a beautiful world.