“Is this just a long-winded
way of saying we should obey the Golden Rule?” was the question that started
our conversation at the roundtable this week. We read through these verses and
found a lot to agree with. It’s about peace, it’s about love, it’s about
acceptance. Cool. Yes, we were a little bemused by the part about heaping
burning coals on our enemies’ heads, but we found reasonable explanations for
how we should understand the intention. When someone treats you badly, it is
still best to treat them with compassion. When we do, we might even find that
our actions have a softening effect on them.
Then, the more we talked
about this particular verse, the more we became aware of what this passage is really
asking us to do. Paul is asking Christians to be the light that the world wants
to snuff out. Return evil with good; return hostility with hospitality; return
curses with blessing.
The key to understanding these
words is to realize that we are being asked to extend Christian love to people who
actively seek to cause us harm. While all of it might be contained in the
Golden Rule, it certainly causes us to consider it more deeply than just a
saying we would stitch into a needlepoint pillow. And when we think about what is
involved in living these words, we quickly see it is more complicated and
difficult than we thought before.
Our thoughts turned to the
recent protests and counter-protests around the topics of racism and white
supremacy, in particular. Our nation reveres the value of free speech, but when
speech turns to violence it is no longer free. And when things turn violent, it
raises the question: should violence be met with more violence? Or nonviolent
resistance?
“If it is possible, as far
as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” When is it possible? We would
not all draw the line in the same place. One of the loosely-organized groups
that showed up in Charlottesville is Antifa. The name is short for
anti-fascists, and they exist to fight fascism and racism wherever they might
be, using violence if necessary. Unsurprisingly, they often find it necessary.
Antifa members have taken
on the task of defending peaceful anti-racism demonstrators. When armed Klansmen
or Nazis show up, Antifa members are the ones to step between them and their
targets. At the Charlottesville protests, clergy of all denominations came
together to form a nonviolent resistance to the white supremacist protestors –
to be the light that the world wants to snuff out. For much of the day they
were the targets of nothing more than verbal abuse and some shoving. But later
in the afternoon the white supremacists turned violent, and Antifa intervened,
giving counter-protestors a chance to disperse. As one clergy member put it, “That’s
when Antifa saved our lives.”
A couple of weeks later the
same groups showed up in Berkeley, California. Signs were seen that read “Avenge
Charlottesville.” Video showed Antifa members attacking and beating a man,
rather too vigorously to be called a defensive action.
“If it is possible, as far
as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” There is a part of me that
would like to remove the first clause of this sentence and leave it at, “As far as it depends on you, live
peaceably with all.” That would be ever-so-much simpler to interpret. But
determining what is possible? That is a much longer conversation.
No comments:
Post a Comment