Two cock pheasants, formerly friendly to each other during the long winter, seemed to enjoy jousting with each other this spring. It got pretty vicious outside my south window. Now they have adjacent territory, and we occasionally see a few hens in the vicinity. It's clear they have learned to coexist. I wonder if they even remember their previous battles. But there never was, as far as I could tell, any bird bloodshed.
Humans are different. We kill each other one by one, and it's called murder. We kill each other by the thousands, and call it war. We have a few thousand years of history to teach us how to remember battle casualties. We tend to remember and bear grudges. This remembering often leads to more bloodshed.
Jesus insisted on being remembered. He and the gospel writers were explicit about his bloody, violent death. He explained why his followers would not be fighting to preserve himself and his mission (John 18. 36f). He didn't expect that our remembering his unjust death would nurture demands of vengeance. For his followers, his death was his victory. The motley crew of early Christians instead launched an opposite, more powerful remembering that would put in place the principles of justice, fairness, respect, and righteousness upon which this nation itself was founded. If acted upon, these principles still become powerful tools of battle against evil in this world.
Yet Jesus agonized over the sacrifice. Soldiers confronting violent death in war might ask, "Why me?" Jesus's words echo those of the soldier when he said, "If it's possible, let this cup pass from me!" No one wants this kind of violent death. Yet Jesus knew that his encounter with evil would remain triumphant.
St. Paul knew this too. He put remembering Jesus into action. He framed his specific instructions for remembering Jesus' death on the cross, and these instructions are still the most important source for our communion services in our churches. But often omitted in our remembering is Paul's expectation that this communion ritual will dismantle human prejudice and hatred, and peace will be built. The two are connected. St. Paul wanted the Corinthian's memorializing of Jesus' violent death to heal human strife (See 1 Corinthians 11. 17-33). It follows that memorializing Jesus' death isn't really right if the participants are steeped in hatred and division.
Today, as we celebrate Memorial Day, the highest patriotic remembering will not call us to
blindly prepare for the next generation's sacrifice on the altar of warfare. Remembering will mean examining carefully and rationally the injustices that naturally arise in our world community, just as injustices arose in the first century A.D. That was Jesus's and Paul's teaching.
As our remembering this Memorial Weekend prods us to wonder, to question national priorities and policies, to consider alternatives to the next generation's sacrificial deaths, let's hold our heads with pride.
There is no greater patriotism, no greater honor to bestow on any who have made the ultimate sacrifice, than to creatively and energetically pursue the path carved out by Jesus and Paul. The freedoms won by blood-shedding sacrifice for our nation are many. But none are greater than the freedom to reveal the truth of war propaganda, and the truth of the powerful options to combat evil without modern warfare (See A Force More Powerful, by Jack Duvall, or check out the DVD, or come borrow my copy).
It's amazing to me that the critters on the world's back 40's seem to understand these alternatives better than us humans. Sure, they fight. But it's extremely rare for them to kill each other. They quickly learn respect for each other's place at the table of God's nourishing earth.
Coexistence is an assumed postulate of their conflict. If we can't learn from Jesus or Paul, let's at least watch the critters in our back 40's.
Comments and previous Spirit and Dust columns: http://greenwoodback40.blogspot.com/
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David Graber
Hardin, MT 59034
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