Today's Scripture Reading (February 3, 2024): Matthew 25
Sometimes, I
feel I need to admit my bias. I have acknowledged that I am a reluctant
pacifist. My struggle is that while I believe in peace and know that peace is
the path that Jesus taught, what bothers me is this: How can I sit here in my
office and say that we will not help those in need because of an accident of
geography? It is easy to sit in my home in peace when the nearest conflict is
across an ocean, and the closest I have to get to the battle is when watching
the news on my television screen.
I understand
Jesus's instructions about turning the other cheek, but at some point, it seems
apparent that I must do something. Nothing is not a viable option, and I feel
that that is not just my opinion; Jesus instructed his followers to go and do
something. If I am not willing to pick up a gun and go and fight for the least
of these, and I am not saying that that is in any way the proper Christian
response, I have to understand that sitting on the sideline is also not a
Christian option. I have to do something. I have to find ways to support
nonviolent intervention. I must be willing to fund people or stand in the gap. I
must be willing to let the cheek that is being slapped be mine.
I also believe
that the form of the action might change. There is an old black and white movie
that starred Cary Grant called "Sgt. York." The film tells the true
story of a Tennessee-born man who was drafted into the army. York started as a
conscientious objector. The movie describes his objection this way;
Alvin York: You see I
believe in the bible and I'm a-believin' that this here life we're a-livin' is
something the lord done give us and we got to be a-livin' it the best we can,
and I'm a-figurin' that killing other folks ain't no part of what he was
intendin' for us to be a-doin' here.
But Alvin
York changed his mind, kind of, when he got to Europe. Sargeant Alvin York
received the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine gun nest,
taking 35 machine guns, killing at least 25 enemy soldiers, and capturing 132
German soldiers all by himself.
Again, in the
movie, York makes this statement to a Major when questioned about whether he
had changed his pacifist ways.
Alvin: Well, I'm
as much agin' killin' as ever, sir. But it was this way, Colonel. When I
started out, I felt just like you said, but when I hear them machine guns
a-goin', and all them fellas are droppin' around me... I figured them guns was
killin' hundreds, maybe thousands, and there weren't nothin' anybody could do,
but to stop them guns. And that's what I done.
Maj. Buxton: Do you mean
to tell me that you did it to save lives?
Alvin: Yes sir,
that was why.
Maj. Buxton: [amazed] Well, York, what you've just told me is the
most extraordinary thing of all!
Again, you
can agree or disagree with Alvin York's reasoning, but he remained an objector
to the war even after the incident. But in this moment, this was the most
logical response to an impossible situation. Alvin York believed that his
action on the battlefield was in defense of "the least of these." And
at a time when his colleagues were being killed, York believed that he couldn't
stand on the sideline; he had to do something.
I don't know
the answers to some of these questions, but an attitude of inaction seems to be
outside of what God would want from us. We must do something; we are the army
of God, his hands and feet on this planet, which means that we can't sit on the
side of the action as if we are watching a baseball game at the local park. Whatever
we feel God is asking of us, we have to do something to defend "the least
of these."
Tomorrow's Scripture
Reading: Mark 12
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