Sermon on the Mount

I wrote to a friend and told him what I've said in the last two posts, and his reply is worth sharing. Comments are welcome!

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Yesterday, in our church meeting, I said something like this while lighting a candle for pacifists and fallen warriors. It came after Amy read the section from the Sermon on the Mount which says to turn the other cheek and to walk the extra mile. Then it ends with the injunction to be "perfect as God is perfect."

Well, the word "perfect" is probably better translated "whole" or "complete", giving the whole passage a more inclusive feel accented by the invitation to love your enemy as well as your neighbor. Be complete in your embrace of the persons.

The passage has no mention of a preferred or correct ideology. In that sense, importantly, it is an realistic, rather than an idealistic assessment of the human fix. Realistic because it does not christen a particular ideology, but admits that we are in the midst of enemies and friends and our call is to accept what is and not rally around some chosen, fallible position.

So I made the application to Memorial Day. What if you are a pacifist; how do you deal with Memorial Day? I am not a pacifist, but I wonder about my preference for peace and distaste for the warrior agenda and that part of me which would just as soon ignore the day as a kind of indictment on war and a sort of "told you so" rebuke.

What I understand, as a realist, is that both pacifist and warrior positions have members of the club whose reasoning and action all make sense. For whatever reasons, we humans chose sides and are willing often to kill for our side. Jesus does not say one position is wrong and another right; he says love both yourself and the buddy who has chosen the other path. All positions are fallible, but care is universal and necessary and trumps all ideology.

An idealist believes his position is so right that even if it comes to killing the opponent, that is a valid act in the name of the preferred ideal. So I must learn to live above every urge to anoint a position at the expense of this fact of fallibility of all dogma.

I think you are practicing that by sitting down with the ROTC persons and having lunch and conversation. I would not fight to get rid of ROTC; I would fight to have the campus put as much of its resources into peace studies. The real world must include both options and that is what the lion lying down with the lamb might mean in practical reality on a college campus when that metaphor is rescued from an other-worldly, apocalyptic interpretation.