There Is Nothing Revolutionary About Violence

April 4, 1968. Memphis, TN. A single shot rings out and kills Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he stands on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. While James Earl Ray was ultimately convicted of the killing, many in King’s family and close circles were convinced that his death was orchestrated by multiple players including the FBI and the Memphis police.

King was in Memphis to provide support to the striking sanitation workers. He was counseled by those close to him to not go back to Memphis because of the threats against his life. But he knew that he needed to be there.

The night before he was killed, King gave his historic, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech in which he openly called for boycotts and the anchoring of direct action with economic withdrawal. He also was issuing a call for Black people (and allies) to get vocal and get active.

His continual message to the country was “be true to what you said on paper” and he held up the U.S. Constitution as a mirror for our country to look in and see that we were not living up to what it could be.

In our readings today, we have a troubling reading from Wisdom 2 that makes plain one of the uglier parts of the human heart – the desire to harm another because they get under our skin, make us uncomfortable or threaten us somehow. The reading says, “The wicked said among themselves, ‘Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings…reproaches us for transgressions of the law…’ The reading goes on to say, ‘With revilement and torture let us put [the just one] to the test that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience. Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him.’ These were their thoughts, but they erred; for their wickedness blinded them…”

Of course the Christian tradition interpreted these words in light of Jesus, but so many people throughout history have been the victims of hate and anger. My heart grows heavy thinking of so many – just in my own lifetime – who were hurt, attacked, bullied and even killed for speaking up or speaking out. Some just for “daring” to be themselves in public. Some are known only as “collateral damage.”

I just want to pause there for a moment and honor all of them. Maybe certain people come to mind for you.

Then is the gospel today, John 7 tells us that Jesus is trying to keep a low profile as he moves about because he knows that people are out to get him. Some of the people in Jerusalem recognize him as they hear him continuing to speak openly. But the people kind of mock him and chide that they “know where he is from” and that “the Christ” will be unknown. And Jesus rebukes them and says, “Of course you know where I am from,” and then says that what they fail to recognize, however, is that he is speaking for God and the people refuse to recognize that.

This further infuriates the crowd and the authorities and they try to arrest him, but he eludes them this time.

Hate is a reality that we must address in our world, and it is not an easy one to engage, in part, because I think we all have capacities in us to succumb to it. 

It seems so easy to “other” someone or groups of people. It seems so easy to see them as less than human and objectify them with derogatory terms. It seems so easy for people to focus their rage and anger on others – only to create more harm and hurt in the world.

And it has been going on for a long time.

Of course, hate and violence are not the only responses available to humans. We have other resources and capacities within us if we can access them. But it takes practice and dedication.

Someone who I have turned to over the years is Kazu Haga. Kazu is a nonviolence teacher and practitioner who has written some powerful books on nonviolent resistance. Even back in 2016, Haga was saying that as “hatred, division and ignorance [have] escalated…,” it is only natural that we want to respond to it with an escalating intensity.

He said that he understands the impulse, but that it is “hatred, division and ignorance” that got us in this predicament in the first place. He says that “If we choose to be motivated by anger and hatred, if we choose to divide our communities even more, all we do is continue to feed the exact energy that got us”to where we are now.

He goes on to say that, “As a society, we have studied violence for centuries. That’s all we know. So, we assume that’s the only thing that’s going to work, or it’s the most radical thing, or the most effective thing, as a last resort. And that’s because that’s what the state teaches us. We have not studied nonviolence. We do not know what it means or how to use it effectively. We have never given it a real chance, despite the evidence that is out there. We have not invested in it the same way we have with violence.

There is nothing radical about violence. There is nothing revolutionary about a force that has destroyed communities forever, a force that we are all too familiar with and a force that got us into this mess. What is radical and revolutionary is using a tool that is new.”

While our readings today are about hate and violence, Jesus’ life and witness offer us an alternative – if we are willing to embrace it. 

It will take study, prayer, practice and more study, prayer and practice. It will take a community of people – deeply committed to the hard work of love, healing and reconciling with one another – to unleash this revolutionary tool that has a power to build the Beloved Community that Jesus inaugurated so long ago and lives on in the likes of the Martin Luther Kings in our world.