War and peace

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 22, 2024

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War and peace

Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from?

Perhaps that is a rhetorical question. James answers it immediately, with another question.

Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?

Does he mean within my own self, or between me and other creatures?

I think both.

You covet but do not possess. You kill and envy but you cannot obtain, so you fight and wage war.

This is not going to get us anywhere. We are trapped in the maelstrom.

I watched a silent movie classic from Sergei Eisenstein, 1926, The Battleship Potemkin. The sailors on the battleship rose up against the men in charge, men who represented the Russian czar and who treated them badly. The captain commanded some of the sailors to execute some of the others, and they refused.

In the final climax the sailors of the overthrown vessel had to decide between shelling other boats in their squadron, or sending a message asking those sailors to join them, to stand up against their oppressors like they did. They sent the message but prepared for its rejection.

Several scenes pictured their cannons each one facing the camera head-on, one by one preparing to fire, but the moment arrived the sailors could see their compatriots lining the decks of their ships, waving at them. Not a shot was fired.

You do not possess because you do not ask. You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, driven by your passions. But the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who cultivate peace.

Here are ten “commandments” for those seeking to live a spiritual life of nonviolence.

1. Recognize and respect “the sacred” in every created one, including myself
2. Accept myself with all my gifts and richness, all my limitations, errors, failings and weaknesses, and realize that I am accepted by God
3. Recognize that what I resent and perhaps even detest in another, stems from my difficulty in admitting that this same reality lives also in me
4. Renounce the “we-they” mentality, a dualism which divides us into “good people/bad people” and allows us to demonize the adversary. This is the root of authoritarian and exclusivist behavior. It generates racism, personal conflicts and “patriotic” wars.
5. Face fear and deal with it less with courage and more with love
6. Understand and accept that God’s creation and the building up of a community of beloved, is always carried forward with others, never a solo act
7. Remember that the destruction of our planet is a profoundly spiritual problem, not simply a scientific or technological one. We are one.
8. Be ready to suffer, perhaps even with joy, if we believe this will help liberate the divine in others. Accept my particular place and moment in history, along with its trauma and ambiguities
9. Celebrate with joy when the presence of God is accepted, and when it has not been to help discover and recognize this fact
10. Slow down, be patient to plant the seeds of love and forgiveness in my own heart and the hearts of those around me. Notice and rejoice in my own slow growth in love, compassion and the capacity to forgive

Richard Rohr says “war is a means of seeking control, not of seeking peace.” He imagines an unholy pyramid, perhaps a city of high buildings and tenements in the alleys below.

Every time we build a pyramid, certain people at the top will have their peace, yet there will be bloody bodies all around the bottom. Those at the top usually don’t recognize the price of their false peace.  

When German director Fritz Lang saw the New York City skyline, he immediately envisioned the overall plot of his silent 19272 science fiction protest film, Metropolis. In its unforgettable opening scene, barely three minutes long, the consequences of work at the bottom show in the downturned faces of hundreds of marching workers. Simply called “Shift Change,” the scene drags us through anger, recognition, and a seeking after justice.

War? Peace? God’s strength of love which results at last in justice?

Beloved:

Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist,

there is disorder and every foul practice.

But the wisdom from above is first of all pure,

then peaceable, gentle, compliant,

full of mercy and good fruits,

without inconstancy or insincerity.

And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace

for those who cultivate peace.

(Wisdom 2, Psalm 54, James 3, 2 Thessalonians 2, Mark 9)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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