Monday, December 4, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Ain’t gonna study war no more
We shall beat our swords into plowshares. We shall not raise the sword against one another, and study war no more.
Children play cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, and they play with cap guns, water guns, water cannons! They know not what they do. They have not heard the verses from Isaiah, and aren’t very interested.
At Miles’ chess tournament he played five games. He won the first and last, lost the second, and drew the third and fourth. That gave him three points, and he brought home both a ribbon and a medal. Chess is a game of war, of course. Capture all the pieces you can and trap the king. Checkmate! Meaning, I win, meaning, you lose. But do not hang your head. There is always the next game, the next battle, and both players start brand new.
I remember the disagreement between Martin Luther King, Jr. – older statesman of the civil rights movement – and many of the younger leaders. Should we fight or should we practice civil disobedience, non-violence. Ain’t gonna study war no more? Of course we are! War is the only way we can change anything.
O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
How many years did it take MLK to come to his own senses, come to the way of Jesus and Gandhi? He must have felt driven to violence more often than almost anyone, but those feelings did not win out.
Come and save us, Lord our God; let your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.
Jesus did not practice rejection or violence even against those who trespassed against him. A Roman centurion? A soldier who commanded soldiers to follow orders that often included killing Hebrews?
Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. I say to one, “Go,” and he goes, and to another, “Come here,” and he comes.
Jesus did not hesitate, he healed the centurion’s servant. Later he preached to the people, “Love your enemies.” Study war no more. Do with me what would otherwise for you be impossible.”
Steve Garnaas-Holmes considers the nature of miracles, and how they arrive in the wake of the death of our ego:
You will not have enough.
It will be taken from you.
It will be blessed by hands not your own.
It will be broken.
It will be given away.
And you, you will not be enough.
You will be taken.
You will be blessed by hands not your own.
You will be broken.
You will be given.
This is how miracles happen.
On this Monday of the first week of Advent 2023, I want to find faith like the centurion, trusting God with the big things, patiently awaiting the banquet in the Kingdom of Heaven.
(Isaiah 2, Psalm 122, Psalm 80, Matthew 8)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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