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ISRAEL THREW the world into chaos by
assassinating Sheik Ahmed Yassin last Monday. Hamas
has called for reprisals against Israel, the US and
its allies. That includes us.
I once watched a debate between a Muslim leader and
a Jewish leader about the intifada, the uprising of
Palestinians against the Jewish occupation of what had
been Arab territory for nearly 1300 years.
At the end of the very heated discussion, the interviewer
remarked, “You gentlemen have a very unforgiving and
warlike attitude for religious leaders.”
The Muslim said, and the Jew agreed, “You forget that
it is Christianity, not Judaism or Islam, which teaches
that people should turn the other cheek.”
They are exactly right. It is not Judaism that
teaches turning the other cheek. That came later. And
it is not Islam which teaches turning the other cheek.
Islam essentially rejects Christianity. It is Christianity,
it is the religion based on the teachings and example
of Jesus, which teaches turning the other cheek.
So the assassination of Sheik Yassin is exactly right
for the Islam of many in Hamas and it is exactly right
for the Judaism of many Jews. On the other hand, it
is a very questionable action from a Christian point
of view.
If you think about it, the Israeli policy of
pinpointing alleged terrorist leaders for assassination
is a policy of terror and a policy which creates terrorism.
If Israel gets a whiff of an idea that you might be
involved in resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian
lands, then your life becomes very unsafe. At any moment,
a helicopter might appear to blast your car into a heap
of torn and molten metal. Anyone near you when they
attack will also be killed. When Sheik Yassin was killed,
his wheelchair was reduced to a twisted heap, and there
was scarcely enough of the Sheik left to make it worth
buying a coffin. The man pushing his wheelchair didn’t
fare much better.
There have been times when the Israelis have
killed as many bystanders as any suicide bomber has
managed to kill on an Israeli bus. That is terror, too.
We don’t hear much of this in Australia, but Israeli
forces kill far more Palestinians yearly than Israel
loses to Palestinians. And many of the victims just
only live in the same street as a suspected terrorist.
Once you understand that, you begin to understand
why Palestinians become terrorists. If you are facing
the threat of a fiery death, why not at least make your
enemy pay before he gets you? If your enemy has some
of the most sophisticated weaponry in the world ready
to turn on you, why not use whatever weapons you can
to kill as many of their people as you can? If their
best targets are too hard to reach, if you can’t take
out military targets, why not at least hurt the people
until the people have had enough and elect a Government
that will negotiate?
That’s the logic of the tit–for–tat terror in
the Middle East.
And, if you want to know how it started, who
threw the first punch, go back to the end of World War
I. The Arabs helped Britain defeat Turkey and how did
Britain reward them? By taking Palestinian land the
Arabs laid claim to and giving it to the Zionist campaigners
for a Jewish homeland.
Every time Israel assassinates
a Palestinian, the Palestinians remember, “Israel’s
allies are behind this, If Britain hadn’t created Israel,
and if America weren’t Israel’s biggest financiers,
it would not have happened.”
So Hamas has called for retribution for Israel,
for the US and for the allies of the US. It sees us
all as culpable.
And every time a Palestinian bombs another bus,
or even every time a bunch of Arab teenagers throw rocks
at Israeli soldiers, the Israeli’s also experience terror,
and they also call for vengeance, and they also want
to destroy Hamas and its backers.
So the cycle of terror and counter terror goes
on, year after year, while the world looks on in growing
horror and fear of its own impotence.
But you can understand it, can’t you. If, say,
the Laskar Jihad or Jemaa Islamiya managed to invade
Australia and occupy the north, wouldn’t you want to
fight? If they claimed a right to be there because they
came there in pre-European times, would you say that
made it OK for them to be there? If they were heavily
armed and you could only get hold of a knife, wouldn't
you at least consider using your knife on any one of
them or their families that you could reach? And wouldn’t
they feel justified in hunting you down and destroying
you for their own safety?
And this — all the violence in our world today
— is precisely the result of the lack of a doctrine
of turning the other cheek. No major player on the world
scene really takes Jesus seriously.
Here are Jesus’ words, from Matthew’s gospel:
MT 5:38
“You have heard that it was said, `Eye for eye, and
tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, Do not resist an
evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek,
turn to him the other also. 40 And if someone wants
to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak
as well. 41 If someone forces you to go one mile, go
with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you,
and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow
from you.
I wonder if you have
ever stopped to think just how that simple command of
Jesus relates to his death on the cross?
Do you give time to considering what Jesus could have
done to save himself, and how he refused to resist even
when it meant the cruellest punishment humans could
devise, a punishment imposed because Jesus was inconveniently
right in what he said and did?
We often look at Jesus and see a victim of powerful
forces, cruelly mistreated by his enemies.
Or we see a martyr, who stuck to his guns and refused
to surrender his vision even in the face of death.
But the Bible presents him as a conqueror who
followed his God–directed path from beginning to end,
who went through the battle of the cross and emerged
from the grave as victor over all evil forces.
We read earlier,
COL 2:13 When you were dead in your sins and in the
uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive
with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having cancelled
the written code, with its regulations, that was against
us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing
it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and
authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing
over them by the cross.
This is not the language
of victimhood. It is not the language of martyrdom.
It is the language of triumph. Jesus refused to use
violence, but he came out on top.
Do you ever watch “Westerns” on TV? They become
popular every now and then. If you have watched them,
you will remember how many of them are about conflict
between good and evil. In the end, the goodies always
win. But they do it by violent means. The enemy may
have more guns or greater scope to control events, but
the goodies are braver and more resourceful, and manage
to kill enough of their enemies that the baddies go
away.
Those series about witches, and the Buffy films were similar, except
that magic and supernatural power take the place of
Colt 45s.
Our culture is no more Christian than the culture
of Hamas or of the Israeli Parliament is. In the fight
between good and evil we are taught by our own entertainment
media that evil power is best fought with good power.
We forget that Jesus is the good Shepherd who
cares for his sheep, and that, the moment we begin fighting
in the way that wolves fight, we become wolves and lose
the Shepherd’s protection.
Jesus rejected the world’s way of greater fire
power. He could have built an insurrection. Those crowds
with their hosannas, who welcomed him into Jerusalem,
would have gone anywhere he led, even to the doors of
the Roman garrison. But he refused this way, and the
crowds drifted away. He ended his earthly ministry with
11 men he could count on — enough to de-ear a temple
servant in the arresting party, and that was about that.
The rare circumstances where authorities have
lost the power to restrain evil, and where an evil killer
has gained the power of life and death over people do
not provide a general model for dealing with the conflict
between good and evil. The world’s Hitlers must be restrained,
but not every enemy is a Hitler!
COL 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through
hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human
tradition and the basic principles of this world rather
than on Christ.
Paul has it right. We
so easily assume that what our world does and thinks
is the only way ahead. We follow human tradition and
the basic principles of this world, and forget about
Jesus. Our world says, “Blast the enemy!”; but it is
not Christ who shouts, “Amen!”
Paul advises us how to live:
COL 2:6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as
Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up
in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught,
and overflowing with thankfulness.
We have seen how Jesus
lived and died.
As a sheep
before her shearers is dumb, so opened he not his mouth.
-- as Isaiah tells us.
That is our model to follow.
I have some acquaintances who work with Baptists,
but are actually Mennonites. As Mennonites, they take
nonviolence very seriously. I like what the Mennonites
say, but I also believe that there are times when violence
can be justified in the restraint of wickedness.
Anyway, these two sometimes work in situations where
it would be very tempting to use threats and human authority
to make people behave as we would like them to behave.
But, as Mennonites, they can’t do that. So they sit
down and negotiate. They explore why people are not
getting on with each other. They try to help the factions
to understand each other and to find workable solutions
for all parties.
And it works. It solves
what seemed insoluble problems.
COL 2:6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as
Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up
in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught,
and overflowing with thankfulness.
In nearly every instance,
it is fear which drives people to extremes, it is a
sense of powerlessness which drives people to abuse
power in their struggles for space.
Husbands and wives abuse each other because they
feel powerless. Nations abuse each other because they
feel helpless. Each says, “I am only fighting to have
power equal to what my enemy has.” But the enemy experiences
it as overwhelming superiority.
We have a promise from
God. Our power is so great that we do not need to use
it. We can be meek, we can have our power under control,
because we have power to spare.
As Paul reminds us,
COL 2:9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity
lives in bodily form, 10 and you have been given fullness
in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.
11 In him you were also circumcised, in the putting
off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done
by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by
Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism and
raised with him through your faith in the power of God,
who raised him from the dead.
The triumphant Christ
is the embodiment of the fullness of Deity, raised from
death itself by the power of God. And he shares that
fullness and that resurrection power with us, because
he went all the way through the sufferings of the cross
for you and for me.
Think again what you have in him, and resolve
to live his way, to live by the way of the cross and
not by the way of violence.
COL 2:13 When you were dead in your sins and in the
uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive
with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having cancelled
the written code, with its regulations, that was against
us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing
it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and
authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing
over them by the cross.
Nick and Chris were
partners. They loved each other, but they fought. Nick
wanted change, and ranted and raved and thumped tables,
because Chris seemed never to want to change anything.
The more powerless Nick felt, the louder were the shouts,
the more violent the attacks on furniture.
Chris wanted change, but felt terrified by Nick’s outbursts.
The louder Nick shouted, the less capable Chris felt.
The more violently Nick thumped the table or kicked
the lounge, the more Chris thought, “I’m going to be
next.”
So Nick ranted and raved
and Chris withdrew further and further into a shell.
And nothing changed — ever.
We don’t need to fall into those traps. There
is a power available to us which is greater than the
power of the world, but we can’t use it to disempower
other people.
But what is that power?
Jesus showed us. Jesus chose the way of weakness
and he triumphed. There is great power in choosing not
to win.
I went through a long period of conflict. I didn’t
know how to end it. I tried; I managed to hold my own,
but I made no progress. Deep down, I felt powerless,
and struggled to win.
A friend advised me,
“Don't try to win. Just ask questions: ‘What are you
trying to achieve here?’ ‘What did you really want to
know through that question?’ ‘Can you summarise what
you just said? I didn’t quite get it.’”
When I chose not to be in control, not to try to win,
everything changed. And when the conflict flared, and
my opponent tried to draw me into head–on, one–to–one
conflict, I turned to those around me and said, “Have
you seen this? I don’t know what to do about it.”
And they dealt with it. They made a fair decision and
they enforced it, and the conflict ended.
When I gave in and died to my need to win, victory came.
Try Jesus’ way — it works! |
