Bishop's Column
Posted Thursday, May 03, 2007
On Violence
May 2007
When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. When evening time came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. (John 6:15-16)
How tragically ironic that while twelve of us – Lutheran Bishop Claire Burkat, Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell, the Rev. Wilson Good, Rabbi Leonard Gordon, Arthur Larrabee of the Society of Friends, Imam Muhammad Miller, the Rev. Russ Mittman of the UCC, the Rev. James Moore of the Black Clergy Association, the Rev. Emanuel Prinzikakis of the Greek Orthodox Church, Cardinal Justin Rigali, Rabbi David Strauss, and I – conferred for three hours the morning of April 16 about what the religious community can do to stop the violent shootings in Philadelphia that, as of May 1, have killed 137 this year, Seung-Hui Cho was carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 dead, 15 others wounded, and our nation once again under a cloud of confusion, fear, and grief.
Jesus knew about violence. One evangelist records him as saying, "The law and the prophets were until John; since then the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone enters it violently." (Luke 16:16) – meaning that, like crowds forcing their way into a theater, people are jostling against each other trying to get in. Another evangelist has him saying, "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force" (Matthew 11:12) – meaning that the kingdom's increase excites violent rejection by its opponents. In either case, with Jesus the kingdom dawns, the old comes to an end, decisive change occurs, and violent conflict results.
Jesus experienced violence personally, too, not only at his crucifixion on a cross-beam of wood in Jerusalem's garbage dump, but also during his ministry. We are told that because of his feeding of the five thousand, the crowds came to "take him by force to make him king" (John 6:15). He was a king, of course, but not the sort of king they wanted to make him. There is violence in trying to make others into something they are not, in denying people's unique identities.
How did Jesus respond to such violence? The evangelist tells us that "he withdrew again to the mountain by himself" (John 6:15). He repaired to a place, not of loneliness, but of solitude, where he could both depend and draw upon his own inner strength, as he had discovered it in his filial relationship with God.
Amidst the violent student struggles in the late 1960's and early 1970's, the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote usefully from the campus of the University of Chicago about the differences among such key words as strength, power, strength, force, authority,and, finally, violence.
Strength, she held, is always held by the individual, while power always belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together. Authority is the power vested in offices occupied by individuals whom others unquestioningly recognize and obey without being coerced or persuaded. Force indicates the energy released by physical ("forces of nature") or social ("force of circumstances") movements. Violence is an instrument or tool designed and used for the purpose of multiplying the natural strength of those who, amidst the power of the group, feel weak.
In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, we have learned that Seung-Hui Cho was an extremely lonely and radically isolated young adult who, feeling weak in the face of the power of the collective, fantasized and then realized a dream of multiplying his strength through instrumental violence. Would that he had read Arendt's warning of the futility of his attempt to gain power. "Violence," she writes, "can always destroy power. Out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it is power."
Would that he had known that amidst the powerfully overwhelming turbulence of life, he was never alone, that Jesus was ever there for him. Jesus' first disciples discovered that. The evangelist John tells us that they "went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum" (John 6:16).
Now Galilee was merely a lake – thirteen miles long and seven miles wide. But the evangelist calls it a "sea" because he wants to evoke for us memories of the primordial deep as a metaphor for the violent powers that can overwhelm life (Genesis 1:1-2; Psalm 77:16; Revelation 21:1).
In the very middle of the Sea of Galilee, with the night dark, waters rough, and winds blowing, the disciples, John tells us, "saw Jesus walking on the sea" beside their boat. In their versions of this story, the other evangelists tell us that the disciples pulled Jesus into their boat with them. By contrast, John tells us that before they were able to do so, their boat landed at its destination (John 6:21). Though they did not come to hold on to him (cf. John 20:17), he remained beside them – comforting, encouraging, strengthening, emboldening them.
He remains beside us, his present-day disciples on violent waters, too. At the same time, to reverse the dyad, we are to remain beside others in their storm-tossed boats. If Jesus is God's love personified, the church – the Body of Christ – is God's love organized. And this story from John 6 reminds us that it is not absolutely necessary that we get into others' lives. Amidst the violence of our times, it is at least a start if we simply are beside them, saying, as he said to them, "Do not be afraid."