Pacifist in Training

"Christians today are desperate to show they represent the best humanisms around, 

and I think that's a strategy that's deeply unfaithful. 

Let's start with Christians recovering why they have a problem with war."

(Stanley Hauerwas in an interview with America: The National Catholic Weekly, May 2010)

I continue to wrestle with the issue of what makes me (or any Christian for that matter) any different than my neighbors who are not. Nice people come in all sorts and conditions, and one needn't be a follower of Jesus to be a good human being. In fact, throughout my life, I've met plenty of atheists who are every bit as respectful of others (and in some cases even more so) than those claiming a "relationship" with Jesus.

In spite of some Christians' desire to make it otherwise, the "Christian" life is about more than nice manners, politeness and "accepting Jesus" so that one gets her/his ticket punched through the pearly gates for eternal life. The Church is more than a self-improvement society. The Church, as the Body of Christ, actually stands over and against the structures and powers which attempt to convince us we can make our way through this life under our own power.

And we crave our own power, don't we?
At least I do.
Maybe the craving of power
Is the heritage of being born in a country
That projects its power all over the world.

But for Christians
(at least as I read the New Testament)
The power at work in Christ
Is the power to lay it all down...
To offer it all up...
To trust that God is working
Even in those moments when it seems
God is absent.

To hope.
To love.
To pray.
To die.
To trust that
In dying
New life will arise.

The victory of Easter
Doesn't come through legions of angels
Sword-wielding seraphim or
Bomb-dropping cherubim.
Easter overcomes Death
In the shadows,
From within the dankness of the grave.

This is the message we have
Not of superior numbers or
Advanced technology.
Rather, a beaten, bruised
And very dead
Corpse.

The remains of the
Prince of Peace
Slaughtered
By the whims of Empire.
Easter isn't the
Happy ending to a fairy tale.
Easter is Hope Incarnate
That the human penchant for killing
Will not have the last word.

Maybe if we could trust the
Unsettling Good News of Easter,
We could forego our trust in the
Dehumanizing machinations of war.
And if Christians could
Recover our problem with war,
Who knows?
We might just become interesting again.