PALM SUNDAY AND NONVIOLENCE

WATCH CLOSELY NOW. It is not likely you have ever heard this take on Palm Sunday before. In theological terms, I imagine Palm Sunday to be as much about ushering in nonviolent love as everything else it represents. Palm Sunday is at once an outwardly naïve social moment and at the same time an inwardly authentic signal of a new way of living and leading. It is not that Jesus has not thoroughly exemplified nonviolence before now. It is that he is now allowing himself to be publicly declared Messiah in the heart of the polis and the stakes are ever so much higher. Watch him ever so closely now. Strain to observe as he faces his foes and darkest hours having completely renounced violence inside and out.

HIGHER POWER. The complete renunciation of violence is heard in Jesus' voice and seen in his actions. But never mistake nonviolence for weakness. Jesus is not at all powerless as he enters Jerusalem. It becomes clear as the week advances, even as the cross is planted and the tomb is sealed, that Jesus is the controlling enigma. His chosen response to intimidation, pressure, accusations, betrayal, desertion, condemnation, suffering, violence, and even death is a nonviolent nonresistance. It is not about giving in to fate or conceding anything, it is about exercising power that is nothing more or less than faith and trust in a loving God to bring meaning and life to one's existence and journey.

ON AN EXCEPTIONAL PEDESTAL? When it comes to thinking of nonviolence as a way of life, we mistakenly set Jesus on a heroic pedestal. We think of his actions as exemplary, exceptional, unique, and unrepeatable. They certainly are not, we surmise, the pattern for our own lives or social and political behaviors. We sentimentally accept Jesus as personal savior and Lord, but immediately bracket and set aside the very core of his witness and pattern. We say "yes, but…" We want his forgiveness and laud his sacrificial life, but we are not willing to live nonviolently, nonresistantly, lovingly, trustingly, powerfully ourselves. We want, in the martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer's phrase, "cheap grace."

SAYING ONE THING, LIVING ANOTHER. For all our words, worship, songs, and altruistic actions, when it comes to the most powerful aspects of Jesus' witness, do we imitate Christ? If not, we neither truly follow him nor glorify God. Though we say so, we evidently do not trust God and before the world make a mockery of faith in God's name. We are certain the future of the world is best left in our self-defending hands and in our calculating control. Better yet, in the hands of self-serving politicians and power brokers who give lip service to Christianity but live and act by the same power sources as did the Pharisees, Herod, and Pilate. And we bless them.

CHOOSE YOUR POWER SOURCES CAREFULLY. In Christ, particularly in his so-called triumphal entry scenario, we are challenged to continuously renounce our violence every day in every encounter. We are given opportunity to renounce the subtlest uses of threats, intimidation, controlling, fear, and shaming. We are invited to let go of the impulse to be self-defensive or to coerce others for the sake of keeping the peace or promoting just causes. Whether the arena is our household or the global stage, the opportunity is the same. We are shown how to live from a different place in our soul when it comes to exercising power or taking authority. It is a place of strength, the strength to love. So, choose your sources of power carefully.

A ROAD LESS TRAVELED. Nonviolence is not easy. Folks try hard to be nonviolent. It takes more energy and determination than going with the flow of violence that defines our culture. It is a road less traveled. It is marching to a different drumbeat. Sometimes we can be quite militant in our vigilant commitment to nonviolence, to the point of taking on a violent spirit. I am convinced that a commitment to and actions for nonviolence are not enough. Renunciation is pointless if not for a surpassing love that transcends violence and endues us with a higher power, a life-giving source.

AN EMBRACED TRANSCENDENT LOVE. Nonviolence apart from an embraced transcendent love remains mere idealism. It is right, but only partly so. Renouncing violence is unsustainable personally and socially in merely humanistic terms. I am not sure that as a social agenda without a spiritually inward transaction it will work. It seems to me that nonviolence can only lead to shalom if violence is supplanted by agape love.

LOVE AND VIOLENCE. But why is it that many who claim the name and love of God never renounce violence? Why do we not include personal and institutional violence when we declare, in the great confession, that we renounce Satan and all his works? Why do we continue to live in reflection of a violent god? Why is the spirit and example of Jesus on Palm Sunday and Holy Week not incorporated into the pattern and practice of our lives? This remains an open question for me. It puzzles me. It keeps me looking forward.

DOING JUSTICE - FREE METHODIST STYLE

I have permanently posted the essay on doing justice, "To Break Every Yoke," that I prepared and present to the Free Methodist Historical Society on March 13, 2006. Your feedback and conversation via e-mail is welcome.

FREE METHODIST ROOTS IN JUSTICE ADVOCACY. Free Methodists formed a new communion in America in 1860 in affirmation of the freedom of all human beings (against slavery) and free access for the poor in houses of worship (against pew rents and pew sales); also, in affirmation of teaching Biblical holiness and practicing freedom in worship. My essay traces the roots of "doing justice" in the Bible, in early Methodism in England in the mid-1700s under the leadership of John Wesley, and in the priorities and practices of the early Free Methodists in America in the mid-1800's under the leadership of B. T. Roberts. I conclude the essay by citing barriers to and opportunities for "doing justice" in local Free Methodist congregations today. But you don't have to be a Free Methodist to imagine and begin to live justice through your faith!Here is a very brief excerpt:

'PRE-EMPTIVE JUSTICE?' Some will argue that today we, in fact, ‘do justice’ quite routinely. It is true that much could be made of preventive (dare I say ‘pre-emptive?’) work against injustice which vigorous inreach and outreach ministries of a local congregation offer. Who can adequately measure the redemptive care and positive spiritual formation impacts that Sunday School, Christian Life Clubs, addictions recovery, Bible study groups, cell groups, counseling, solid Biblical preaching, and compassionate outreach achieve in individual, family, congregational, and community lives? Daily and weekly, Free Methodists are calling people to live as salt and light in the world, equipping them to stand against temptation and evil, and forming them to be people who are not conformed to the world but who may well transform it. But all our positive, formative, preventive action does not reduce in the least the question of our action or inaction in the face of outright injustice in our community, society, and world.

DANGER: POLITICAL CO-OPTATION. Perhaps part of our conversation should focus on the kind of justice we Free Methodists are currently prone to do. It seems rather obvious that over the past 25 years, Free Methodist members and pastors have been and are involved in the struggle regarding abortion, the provision of positive alternatives for pregnant women, and other “culture war” issues related to public education, sexuality, bioethics, and court decision-making. On the one hand it appears that “culture war” issues have been framed and promoted completely outside Free Methodism, wed to partisan politics, and accepted by our members, pastors, and congregations. On the other hand it appears that historic concerns of Free Methodists and others have been co-opted and distorted by political influence groups. As far as I am concerned, the wedding of partisan-motivated issue advocacy to denominational identity should be resisted at all levels in Free Methodist ecclesiology and practice, both now and in the future. As we consider involvement in justice issues, we should be asking: who is initially and ultimately being served by these priorities and passions? Is the manner in which this issue is being approached and addressed reflective of the Spirit of holiness or the heritage in which we serve? And, are we thinking globally, or even beyond our own socio-economic group or consumer desires, when we vote or act?

MOVING TOWARD OUR ROOTS. One step further, let us ask: who is setting the social justice agenda? How are some issues deemed more important than others? It appears that current evangelical issues overlook and/or bypass core concerns that originally motivated Methodism and defined early Free Methodism: poverty, human slavery, and feminism. Let us ask ourselves: why has poverty and slavery, though these are the two gravest global issues, not even registered on the agenda of either major American political party in years? Why are we not alarmed at this? And what might we do in concert with other branches of the Body of Christ to focus on these global crises, even if national or Western political will regarding them is currently all but nonexistent?

Read the full document here.

A FREE METHODIST IMAGINES "DOING JUSTICE"

The following is the conclusion of a presentation I made on Monday at "In Search of the Free Methodist Soul III," a symposium hosted by the Free Methodist Historical Society in Indianapolis. The theme of the event was a phrase often used by John Wesley to describe the applied or outward life of inward holiness - "justice, mercy and truth." I was honored to present the essay on "justice." After reviewing ways John Wesley and the early Methodists (mid-1700's in England) and B. T. Roberts and the early Free Methodists (mid-1800's in America) went about "doing justice" out of their similar faith orientations, I concluded by reflecting what I imagine sincere justice-making that is incorporated centrally into the life of a Free Methodist member and congregation today might look like, be like...

1. We stop convincing ourselves that justice issues are too messy and complicated to get involved in. We seek to fully understand the nature of particular injustices. We begin to trace their sources in irresponsible or sinful values, actions, approaches, alliances, or habits at personal, corporate, social, and/or national levels.

2. We no longer just hope somebody else is doing something about poverty or human trafficking. We identify how Free Methodists and others are engaging in both relief and redemptive counter to these injustices. We support this work financially and prayerfully. We identify corrupting activities and also commend best practices to our representative church, government, corporate, and community leaders at all levels.

3. We incorporate "doing justice" into the center of our descriptions and proclamations of salvation and discipleship. We reclaim Biblical guidance regarding "doing justice" and forge a fresh Free Methodist spiritual formation with this mandate and heritage at heart. We both preach grace and do justice in our evangelism and discipleship. We incorporate 'justice, mercy, and truth" into our Christian education, discipleship, leadership development, worship, and group life curriculum. Justice is not something talked about one Sunday of the year; it is woven into the texture of our life together.

4. We do not accept at face-value any politically-motivated or fear-based description or solution to social problems or injustices. We exercise a deeper sense of spiritual discernment and broader sense of social responsibility than can be reduced to sound-bytes, slogans, campaigns, and election-cycle political interest action.

5. We are educated and engaged regarding what is being accomplished within the Body of Christ and others regarding historically-core Free Methodist concerns--poverty, human slavery, and women's issues (for starters). We encourage involvement in local and international initiatives like the Christian Community Development Association, the Blueprint to End Homelessness, and the International Justice Mission.

6. We take a global outlook and approach to "doing justice." We move beyond Americanism for the sake of authentic Christianity and our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. While we address specifically American justice challenges like homelessness, affordable housing, livable wages, affordable health care, and access to quality public education at all levels, we do so within a global perspective. North American and Western lifestyles and choices are linked with the prevention or propagation of global poverty, human trafficking, fair labor, women's rights, and economic domination.

7. We openly commit to solidarity with the poor and the plight of the poorest of the poor in our society and around the world. As best we can, we look at the world through the eyes and experiences of marginalized people and groups. We no longer insulate ourselves from contact with the poor; instead we look for ways to engage the poor with meaning, linking our own lives inseparably with theirs. We visit, develop relationships, and become increasingly aware of the immediate struggles of neighbors. We give more weight to their testimonies and experiences than to politicians and news media sources. We work with neighbors to understand and address poverty.

8. As we act for relief of the poor and vulnerable, we link relief with reform and establish just structures, policies, and opportunities whenever possible. As we give ourselves to salvage lives that have been swept over the proverbial waterfall, just as readily we move expediently to address what has caused people and groups to be swept downstream in the first place. We treat symptoms and we address sources of harm. To modify a well-worn adage: give people fish, teach them how to fish, guarantee their right to fish, and do all in your power to insure that the water upstream is not being polluted so that they can actually eat and sell the fish they catch.

9. We are as redemptively involved in our communities for social reform as we are in our congregations for spiritual formation and revival. Free Methodist spiritual formation encourages active neighboring as well as service to support congregational life. Volunteers serve local justice concerns in balance with congregational outreach ministries. We see the two as complementary, not competitive or exclusionary.

10. We act as responsible investors in global market dynamics. If we invest in the stock market or benefit from stock market investments (such as through tax-sheltered retirement accounts), we do so, as much as possible, without blindly contributing to or benefiting from unjust labor or unethical business practices. We refrain from investments that promote violence, war-making, addictions, or unfair trade and labor practices. We examine local labor and market practices of companies in which we invest and call for social responsibility. When stock-market and multi-national corporate activity is identified as rapacious, it is called to accountability and change.

11. We act as responsible consumers of global products, resources, and services. We see a higher value than the lowest possible retail price tag. We challenge our habits of purchasing and consuming whenever it is known to directly or indirectly feed injustices for laborers and the poor around the world.

12. We refute violence against human beings in all its forms. We speak prophetically to militarism and the violence of unjust war, to be sure. We also reject of the language and norms of violence in our society and world. Alternatively, we engage in, pursue, and encourage methods of conflict resolution and shalom-bearing that are a positive testimony to the power of a holy God whose way is love.

13. We address justice issues in the Spirit and manner of perfect love. Even as we identify injustice, seek to relieve the oppressed, call perpetrators of injustice to accountability, and work for reform, we do so with the redemption of the perpetrating individual or organization in focus. Our very approach and spirit is the key to transformative outcomes. As one early Free Methodist put it: "to find the remedy is easy; successfully to apply it involves the principle of holiness."

14. We show by example and precedent what is possible when people of heart-felt faith and vision creatively engage the call to "do justice." We demonstrate the promise of restorative justice initiatives. We model best practices in socially redemptive ministries and volunteer services. We are proactive instead of reactive. We exemplify to the best of our ability, acting with all the light that we currently, collectively have, the principles of the kingdom of God. We live earnestly the petition we constantly make: "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Read my paper, "To Break Every Yoke," online... or print it out to share and discuss.

B. T. ROBERTS' ECONOMICS OF JUSTICE

MONEY MATTERS ARE HEART MATTERS. Earlier this week, I got to spend some time with a rare copy of B. T. Roberts little book First Lessons on Money (1886). Though it seems a bit of an an apology of Adam Smith’s economic philosophy, the book offers insights into the Free Methodist founder’s leadership on issues of markets, debt, and economic justice. Roberts, like John Wesley, saw in such matters an outworking of Christian love--reflecting God's loving justice and loving neighbor as self.

AGAINST MONOPOLY. For instance, in First Lessons on Money Roberts disparages unnecessary mergers and acquisitions for their negative impacts on workers and the market. “Monopolies,” he says, “whatever may be their form, operate against the welfare of the community at large." He advocates for a money market over against a paper- and/or stock-based market. He cautions against undue indebtedness. Regarding inherited money, Roberts declares that “our laws should make it difficult for one man to amass a vast fortune and it in his family from generation to generation.”

IN WHOSE INTEREST? Regarding influence peddling, he says, “the people should see to it that their representatives in Congress pass laws in their interest, and not in favor of the moneyed class and rich corporations to the injury of community generally.” He promotes “systematic benevolence” and quotes the enduring dictum of John Wesley: “Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can.”

10 GOOD IDEAS FOR ENCOURAGING PEACE & JUSTICE

These are in no particular order. I have had direct engagement with most of these and believe deeply in all of them. They are not necessarily "in your face" acts for peace and justice, but they are effective at achieving significant outcomes in the face of isolating urban environments, depressed economies, neighborhood demise, lack of community connectivity, unfair wages, etc.

1. NEW URBANISM. This community architectural design approach creatively and comprehensively retrofits urban and suburban areas that don’t work in terms of neighbor isolation, non-connectivity, fear, and over-commercialization followed by big-box vacancies. Particularly the principles of mixed-income level dwellings and neighborhoods, walkability, green space, and town centers are good hope for communities and neighbors who want to see the promise of urban living fulfilled. Where implemented, this design does a lot to indirectly impact social change in a community.

2. RESTORATIVE JUSTICE. Instead of merely locking up the perpetrator of a crime, restorative justice brings perpetrator and victim together in conferences that confront hard facts and feelings but often bring mutual healing to both--and to the community. Victim and perpetrator agree to consequences and restitution. I’ve seen this work for non-violent crimes and particularly with juvenile offenders. This is what “justice” is supposed to be about.

3. PAID TIME FOR SCHOOL INVOLVEMENT. Employers who take a broader view of their workplace health and long-term viability of their business in a community will see the value of encouraging their employee-parents to get directly involved in helping make their children’s formal educational experience a success. Businesses and manufacturers have nothing to lose and everything (including positive community image and regard) to gain.

4. LOCAL ECONOMY. Shop local. Buy locally-made and exchanged products when possible. Frequent the farmers’ market. Check out the consignment shops. Ask for more locally-grown and locally-produced products at the stores you like. Let retailers know you’re interested in local products.

5. NEIGHBORHOOD BLOCK PARTIES. When’s the last time you attended a block party? Why not host one? If that’s not your cup of tea, what is? Neighborhood clean-up? Neighborhood garage sale? Neighborhood collection for the food bank? What can you do to get to know your newer and older neighbors? What are you waiting for? What holds you back?

6. CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGES. Take the opportunity whenever you can to expose yourself to any other culture than the American suburban consumerist one. No, going to Taco Bell is not crossing cultures. What ethnic festivals are held in your community? What restaurants are authentic? What communities of faith are available? Take in a student for a semester. Seek to develop relationships across cultures. Know that it will take your time. How sad to come to the end of a lifetime and only to have experienced one’s own culture.

7. LIVING WAGE. Try to live for a month on what the income from a $7.00 per hour (or less) full-time job. Until you do, don’t you dare say another careless word about the minimum wage or how hard it is to get good service at restaurants, retail outlets, or just about any service-industry location. Every worker deserves to be able to actually live on the fruit of their work. Don’t tell me about it being impossible to pay living wages when CEO’s, managers, and stockholders are laughing all the way to the bank. Pay the living wage and see what happens to worker loyalty, productivity, and readiness to support your interests.

8. INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT ACCOUNTS. Michael Sherradin’s work, The Assets of the Poor, begat a good thing. He found that the major difference between intergenerational poverty and ending it are assets. Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) are special savings accounts for neighbors living at poverty levels. For every dollar saved, three will be matched by a special fund. The catch: the multiplied savings can be used only for asset-building: to pay for higher education, vocational training, purchase of home, equipment for starting one’s own business, or cash to buy into an existing viable business.

9. RESPONSIBLE CONSUMER SPENDING & STOCKHOLDER INVESTING. Wonder why these prices are so low? You KNOW it’s not a wonder. It’s usually based on unfair trade practices. It’s usually based on cheap or near-slave labor being pressured by US-based big-box retailers. You are not contributing to a developing economy unless your product bares a “fair trade” indication. Consumers reinforce bad international capitalist behavior daily. We are complicit. Each of us can buy more responsibly. Stock traders have a much higher level of responsibility and opportunity than consumers. Do the right thing by working neighbors and consumers in other parts of the world!

10. ASSET-BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT. John McNight and Jodi Kretzman started a good thing, helping folks who want to help their neighborhoods and communities overcome dependency on experts and big outside dollars to renew their communities. Instead of counting what you don’t have, start cataloguing the capacities and resources in your neighborhood and community. Then, organize together. See what a difference you can make.

GANDHI & KING: COMMON GROUND?

COMMON GROUND. Last week, I viewed the movie “Gandhi” for the first time in about ten years. The movie made a significant impact on me when I first saw it, but I’d forgotten several critical points in his story. For instance, Gandhi’s upbringing assumed the compatibility of diverse religious and ethnic groups with the belief that they all ultimately served the same God. This childhood vision and local reality served Gandhi well in his later years when tensions between Hindu and Muslim factions erupted into violence, nearly turning the dream of independence into a nightmare of chaos.

COMMON PURPOSE. While much could be said of their differences, in this regard Martin Luther King, Jr. had a similar upbringing as Mohandas K. Gandhi. In contrast to the chaotic background of Malcolm X, King was able to articulate his dream against the backdrop of a childhood in which he was taught that there was one God who willed diverse people to overcome their oppression, prejudices, and sins. King, like Gandhi, believed in such a transcendent and self-evident common ground. As an emerging leader, King appealed to all--oppressed and oppressor alike--to move resolutely and non-violently toward the common ground revealed in one God. Like Gandhi, King held to this vision, formed in childhood, when violence and factions in the civil rights movement threatened to undermine it.

COMMON GOD? Apparently, neither grass-roots leader succumbed to the “principalities and powers” represented in the authorities and institutions that they so boldly challenged. Instead, they were both killed by out-of-focus people who not only did not share a belief in one God but who were, on the contrary, convinced that the very idea of a common dream in which all shared a part was at the heart of the social problem. It is instructive by association, I think, to consider the backdrop against which our current national and international conflicts are being waged. To the point: do we believe that there is common ground to be found in a Source whom we all, ultimately, believe is One and who wills us to move toward peace?

MISSING LEADERS. One of the critically missing pieces in human rights struggles, so-called “culture wars,” and international conflicts today is the conviction that, behind all the specific and multiple names and attributions of religious deities, is the one God who wills peace for all and among all. It's hard to find a religious or political leader these days who believes--and acts in the conviction--that, ultimately, we are all calling upon the same God and that this same God wills us to find and live on the common ground that lies beneath our specifically-defined domains, claims, assertions, suspicions, notions, and/or “rights.”
BELIEVING IS SEEING. Whether or not this common God can be proven or this proposition embraced by any particular religion or political influence group acting the name of a particular religion is not the point. The point is that great progress toward justice and peace in specific culturally-divided, politically-explosive settings was made under Gandhi’s and King’s influence. And at least these two spiritual and social leaders believed that common ground was possible because a common God existed and willed it. By and large, today’s leaders cannot lead toward common ground because they do not believe it exists and they do not believe it exists because they cannot believe or see beyond their own conceptions of God.

DRYING UP TERRORISM. I find it interesting that conceptions of God are closely intertwined with civil, cultural, political, and international conflicts. Today’s most significant conflicts are religiously-based. Denying or recognizing this is, I am convinced, critical to America's war on terrorism. Since 9/11, American leadership--across the board--has mis-framed the sources and motivations of Islamic terrorism and they have taken an approach to fighting terrorism that continues to fan its flames. I contend that intentional and unintentional religious offenses by the West are fueling resentment and hatred. The West has failed to take Islamic fundamentalism seriously, or refused to accept its claims on its terms (we’re too modern for that!). As we continue to make a secular assessment and take a non-religious approach to address terrorism, we foment it. When American leadership comes to deeply understand, truly respect, and act with high regard for the religion of Islam, Islamic fundamentalist-sourced terrorism will begin to be dried up. Gandhi and King, I believe, would have articulated this.

A CALL TO COMMON GROUND. Please note: I am not a unitarian. I am not a universalist. I am, in fact, a Christian standing squarely within the Arminian, Wesleyan, and American Holiness traditions. And from this very specific belief, theological orientation, and perspective, I reach out in hope to challenge people of all beliefs and backgrounds to search your hearts deeply to find the common ground upon which we all stand and where we can all meet and dwell as diverse and respectful neighbors upon this fragile earth.