"A Nonviolent Lifestyle"

Matthew 5:38-48

A Sermon preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

World Communion Sunday

October 2, 2005

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

My name is Doug and I am a recovering violent person. I have drunk deep from the well of violence in my life. I have said and done things that are violent to my sisters and brothers. I have consumed more than my share of natural resources. I have harbored hatred in my heart for my fellow human being. I have even lifted my hand to strike another in anger. But with your help and God’s help I’m trying to get better.

Many of us are stuck in a cycle of violence. Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer says that the most popular religion in the world is not Christianity, not Islam, not Hinduism or Buddhism or Judaism. The most popular religion in our world is violence. We have the mistaken belief that violence saves us. We have the mistaken belief that the only way to defeat violence is by superior violence. We glorify violence. We project our myth of redemptive violence onto God and we end up in the place we are—living in fear of our sisters and brothers, making sure that we are one step ahead so that we can not be overtaken by the superior violence of our adversary.

But Jesus never used violence. With the possible exception of turning over the tables of the moneychangers, he never succumbed to the temptation to return violence with violence. He embraced a nonviolent lifestyle.

I heard Coretta Scott King speak at my alma mater a number of years ago. She made the distinction between nonviolence and passive resistance. She said, there is nothing passive about nonviolence. Nonviolence is an active exercise of body, mind and soul. It is a lifestyle choice. It cannot be passive, for violence is active and the only way to oppose violence is actively, persistently and passionately.

Today’s scripture reading is a classic example of nonviolence in action. Jesus starts out by quoting an old scripture, "you have heard it said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth", but I say to you, do not resist the evildoer with violence." According to Biblical scholar Marcus Borg that "with violence" part is the best translation of verse 39. Gandhi said that if we live by an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, then we end up with a world full of blind people without any teeth. Jesus is not saying don’t resist evil or the actions of an evildoer, he is saying don’t resist them with violence.

He then gives us three examples of nonviolent resistance. These are the great turn-arounds. You know these very well, turn the other cheek, give your coat and go the extra mile. But the popular understandings of these sayings are that we are to let people walk all over us. We are to suck it up and be patient. That is all well and good, but there is an underlying political element to each one of them. In each one of these instances, Jesus tells the people to do something will confuse and trip up the one who does evil to you. When this happens, you can resist the evil without becoming evil yourself. Each of these instances merits an entire sermon. Luckily we have the sermon talk-back time after coffee hour.

Let me just focus on one of these. "If anyone forces you to go a mile, go also the second mile." Now, historians have told us that it was lawful for a Roman soldier to make someone carry their belongings for one mile, but no more than this. They could force a peasant to carry armor and food and clothing, whatever for a mile. That means the person had to drop whatever he or she was doing and go with them for a mile. But there was a law against forcing anyone to go more than a mile. It was unlawful. The peasants needed to get back to their fields in order to keep the economy going. So why does Jesus tell them to go a second mile? I think it is to take the power back from the Roman soldier to the peasant. The peasant knows that the Roman soldier can get into trouble for going more than one mile with a peasant. Jesus gives them a nonviolent way to confront a violent situation.

When I was in college, my Head Resident was named Teddy Pearre. Teddy was an ox of a man who had the amazing ability to show no pain. He was a rugby player who would limp back to the dorms after a game or a practice with blood all over him, just smiling. Lots of people thought he was a bit odd. He was. It was one of his charms. But he was smart as a tack when it came to interpersonal conflicts.

During my first year in college, I lived in a dorm with lots of football players. It was Division III, so there were no scholarships. One of the favorite pastimes of many of these guys was to get drunk and to start breaking things. Sometimes when they were done breaking things, they would start breaking people. The worst and most feared of the bunch was Joe. One night Teddy found Joe in the hall of the dorm trying to break down a door. He had already been responsible for destroying some furniture, but no one could ever catch him, let alone make him stop.

Teddy walked up to him in his calm cool manner and said, "Joe, if your want to hit something, hit me." Cocky Joe, whom everyone feared swung with all his intoxicated might and landed a right into Teddy’s stomach.

Teddy took the blow, looked him straight in the eye and said, "Have you had enough, Joe?" Joe hurled around in frustration and landed another hard blow. This rock of a man took that one, too. A crowd had started to gather by this time. To everyone’s surprise, he said again, "Have you had enough, Joe?" A series of blows by Joe followed and Teddy just stood there, showing no signs of pain, and not budging an inch. Joe got more and more frustrated and before long, turned into a whimpering heap on the floor. That was the last time he fought or broke anything.

I don’t know how Teddy did this and I am certainly not suggesting that any of us take blows like that, but he demonstrated to me how nonviolence can take violence, turn it around, expose its futility and make it stop. Teddy gave Joe the opportunity to let it out of his system. He was strong enough not only physically to take the blows, but emotionally to know that this behavior was not all there was to Joe. Teddy went an extra mile with Joe. He probably saved him from expulsion.

Nonviolence is more than simply a concept. It is a lifestyle choice. Jesus gave us some tactics in today’s scripture, but the real work of nonviolence comes in our hearts. Martin Luther King said that as we seek to be nonviolent, we need to resist our own propensity toward violence of the fist, the tongue and the heart. This means that we are to not hurl insults, we are not to write people off with whom we disagree, and we are not to even think thoughts of violence.

The only way to live this way is to have a spiritual awakening and be supported in that awakening by a community. That’s what the church is all about. This is the subversive spirituality that we seek.

Violence needs only fertile soil in which to grow. The fertile soil is all around us. It is alive and well in our culture. The counter-cultural lifestyle Jesus calls us to is one of nonviolence. When we someone does something evil to one of us, we are to resist that evil, but not with violence. The nonviolent way is the creative way. It is the just way. It is the way that values all people regardless of their actions. It is the subversive way. It is the Christian way that Jesus wanted for us.

Today is not only World Communion Sunday. Today is also the Sunday closest to the start of Ramadan, the Sunday closest to Rosh Hashanah, the Sunday closest to the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. It’s a Sunday when we remember that there is a whole lot of world out there that we need to be paying attention to. And we need to pay attention to the parts of the world that are living in a world defined by cruelty and violence.

On this world Communion Sunday, may we remember that all of the world are our sisters and brothers. May we remember that Jesus called us to be in right relationship with one another. May we remember that our lifestyle is how we will be known. And may we find a new way to be in our world and with each other that embraces love, justice and mercy. That’s the subversive and healing lifestyle we choose. May it be so with us.