Series: "… until Christ be formed in us ".

Jesus and Faith.

9. A new lifestyle – the power of weakness

Isaiah 11:1-9; Matthew 5:38-48

The abiding challenge

Our question is still the same.

We can't copy Jesus. We are not asked to repeat Jesus, to be little Jesus's. We are different. And our world is different.

But the challenge is: how can our faith in Christ be filled from what we mean by "Christ". If it is not filled from what is "Christ", then our faith is shaped by our culture, our desires, our passions, our interest. So: will Christ or we determine what our faith is about? There is no other alternative.

We therefore keep asking who was this Jesus who became the Christ of our faith? What was Jesus' passion? What was Jesus' understanding of God and of life? What was Jesus on about?

Our aim

Today we want to get a handle on what the apostle meant when, trying to give words to his faith in Christ, he said: "when I am weak, then I am strong." Indeed he heard God speaking into his conscience: "my power – God's power – is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor 12)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer must have had something like this in mind when musing about what it means to believe in Christ while you are powerless in prison he wrote: "God allows himself to be pushed out of the world on to the cross. God is powerless and weak in the world and only as such and in such a way is he with us and helps us. According to Matthew 8:17 it is clear that Christ does not help us because of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness, his suffering!1 Here is the decisive difference to other religions.... only the suffering God can help us." (16.7.1944).

Violence

These understandings of faith in Christ clash with the vision of reality that determines our life. We live in a violent world, and violence lives in us.

Sometimes I just want to relax. Have a cup of tea and watch some TV. I open the program and what do I find: crime and murder shows, indeed series. Why are there so many murder and crime shows? It is commercial television. They survive by ratings. They only give us what we want to see. So it is obvious: we want to see murder and crime shows. Shows that major on violence. Violence is in. Non-violence is out.

Jesus and non-violence

It is in such a violent world in which the name of "Jesus" stands for an alternative life style. We can't hear the beatitudes often enough. They are the classic reminder of an alternative to violence.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. …" (Matthew 5:1-16)

The stuff of which these people are made is further explained in the Sermon on the Mount:

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; …" (Mt 5:38-42)

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? … And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? … Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Mt 5:43-48)

These words express a new way of being.2 

Please note that these words do not call for a passive or disinterested attitude to life. A commitment to non-violence in a violent world is not weakness but strength. It does not mean being passive or withdrawing from responsibility for life. Non-violence must be actively lived. It must be waged!

When God raised Jesus from the dead, God validated Jesus' new way of being. Jesus' way of non-violence. And at the same time God also relativised the powers of violence that led to Jesus' crucifixion. God's power of love proved to be stronger than the violence of the world that had Jesus crucified.

The early Christians used many metaphors to confess that by raising Jesus from the dead, God showed that love is stronger than death. God thereby established that at the centre of reality there is life, not death, peace, not war, reconciliation, not retaliation, non-violence, not violence. On the basis of the resurrection of the Crucified One, we may therefore speak of non-violence as God's way of being. On that basis we can affirm in a world of war and violence, that peacemakers are the children of God. We can confess in a world where political, economic and military power seems to dictate what is right and what is wrong, that ultimately the meek will inherit the earth. "Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain" (1 Cor 15:58).

Possibility for the "world"

Does this new way of being, God's ways, only apply to us Christians and to the church? Or is it also a possibility and therefore an invitation to the world and to the governments of the world?

In the law courts and in government offices around the world, Romans 13 is often quoted to argue that the state under God "bears the sword"3 to execute God's "wrath on the wrongdoer" (Rom 13:4). But the immediate context of Romans 13 makes quite clear where the apostle's theological heart beats: "bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. … Do not repay anyone evil for evil, …. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.' No, 'if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (Rom 12:14-21) These immediately preceding words are underscored by what immediately follows: "Owe no one anything, except to love one another; …. Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom 13:8-10).

A different trajectory

Although our life style has been one of competition and violence there has been an undercurrent of history where God's new way of being was heard and implemented.

In recent times we think of the soft revolutions in the 80's in middle and eastern Europe and most recently in Lithuania. We also think of Ghandi's struggle with the British Empire and Martin Luther King's struggle for civil rights in the United States.

An often told story is that of Rosa Parks. She changed the history of a nation. She was an African American seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama. On Decenber 1, 1955, after work, when she was asked to give up her seat in the front of the bus for a white person, she quietly said "No". Mrs. Parks was tired of the treatment she and other African Americans received every day of their lives. "Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it," writes Parks in her book, Quiet Strength (1994). She was arrested. A people's movement under the leadership of the young Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr. started. There was a 381-day Montgomery bus boycott, and, finally, the Supreme Court's ruling in November 1956 that segregation on transportation is unconstitutional.

In this non-violent protest both Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were motivated and carried by a strong faith in Christ: "I'd like for [readers] to know that I had a very spiritual background and that I believe in church and that my faith has helped to give me the strength and courage to live as I did."

What can we do?

Can we tune into this new way of being? Can we echo the new lifestyle of non-violence? Will we witness to the newness of Christ in a violent world?

1. May I remind you that we have already done so. With our faith in Christ and our baptism into the new reality we have been born to a new way off living. We only need to remind each other what this new way of living is, otherwise we easily fall back into the old ways of violence.
2. Intentionally with our prayers, our words and our actions we can tune in to the new consciousness of letting Christ rule our lives. We shall then be kind with each other, we shall walk softly on the earth, and we shall seek new and non violent ways to deal with human conflicts.
3. We need to examine and unmask elements in our thinking about God and the church to see whether violence has crept into our language and thoughts. Whatever we think and do, it must be an echo to the central Christian confession that "God is love".
4. We can encourage our churches and our government to contribute to the United Nations Millenium Development Goals. The reduction of poverty and injustice and the empowerment of the oppressed are more effective antidotes to terrorism than the ever turning spiral of violence.

There is no better way to end than to remember the words from the prophets Isaiah and Micah that are hewn into the United Nations Headquarters in New York:

"They shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more."

TL: Canberra, May 22, 2005