Grace and peace to you and through you
“Fight or flight” are the two options we are easily socialised into believing are the only two options we have when it comes to engaging evil (deathliness) in the world. In myriads of ways we are taught that if we are “big and strong” we should stay and fight and if we are “small and weak” we should run away as fast as our little legs can carry us. As a result of these two options being presented as the only options we have to choose from, many people throughout the ages have attempted to validate either option by suggesting that one or the other is the option God or Jesus favours. Some have said Jesus teaches us to accept suffering without resistance (like a passive doormat) while others have said Jesus calls us to righteously destroy the wicked (like some Old Testament or Apocalyptic warrior).
But to say that Jesus favours either of these options demands a severe culling of the Gospels. The truth is closer to the bumper sticker that advises: “When faced with only two options. Take the third.” In a two-option world Jesus invites us to imagine and practice a third. This third option Jesus taught (in his sermon on the mount) and lived out (on mount Calvary).
Refusing to resist oppression denies our own sacred worth etched with God’s image, while destroying our oppressors denies their sacred worth etched with the same Godly image. Jesus invites us to resist but not to retaliate. In other words, we are to oppose evil without imitating evil. “Satan cannot drive out Satan” says Jesus. Equally, violence cannot drive out violence.
In this world that teaches us to “Do to others as they have done to us” Jesus teaches us to “do to others as we would have them do to us.” Our actions towards our enemies according to Jesus are meant to expose to them the evil (deathliness) of their ways with the hope that their eyes are opened and they change. But if they fail to see and change then our actions are meant to expose their deeds to the surrounding community who through collective action or non-cooperation, make it impossible for them to continue to practice their evil (death-creating deeds).
On the Wednesdays of Lent we will be reflecting on what this may mean for us at a practical level. This coming Wednesday is ASH Wednesday and we will be having a service at 7 pm in the Sanctuary. Each Wednesday thereafter we will be meeting in the Hall (cnr. Burg and Church Streets) for silent meditation at 6 pm and discussion and learning from 7 pm – 8:30 pm.
Grace,
Alan
