Our weekly newsletter creates a space to take a breath. Once we slow down, we can see the way desire, imitation, and conflict operate in our lives and in the world, and begin to create peace. In addition to the newsletter, you will receive the free "Unlearn the Bible" ebook when you subscribe.
[vc_row el_class=”olive-branch-bg-r”][vc_column][vc_column_text]“Peace be with you.”<\/a><\/p>\n I start with these words of the risen Jesus to his disciples because I wish you peace, but also because I<\/em> need to remember the peace of God in my own heart in this frightening time.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t feel peaceful these days. An uncomfortable trepidation about a strange and difficult future hovers in my consciousness even as I try to keep hope alive. And my vague fears seem so insignificant in the face of so much suffering as this global pandemic strangles a world that was already gasping for relief.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t feel like any Easter I have ever known. The triumphal joy is muted. It is a heavy, fearful time.<\/p>\n The very first Easter was also a heavy, fearful time.<\/p>\n Like many of us, the disciples were shut up inside, not daring to emerge until the streets were deserted. They worried about being caught by the authorities, just as we worry about ourselves or our loved ones being \u201ccaught\u201d by the virus.<\/p>\n But when Jesus first appeared in that locked room, the disciples \u2013 for a brief moment before he speaks \u2013 have something else to worry about.<\/p>\n Imagine standing face-to-face with a murdered man back from the dead, a man you had abandoned at the hour of death. You had believed this man to be the Messiah, but had probably given up that hope when he was brutally killed by religious and political authorities.<\/p>\n And now he\u2019s alive again.<\/p>\n Every ancient story of a dying and rising god up until now has ended the same way: in bloody revenge! So, before Jesus offers peace, there was probably an instant of terror in which the disciples had to grapple with the same question that we at Raven have been exploring for months: \u201cIs God violent?\u201d<\/p>\n Another way to ask that question is, \u201cIs the ultimate power that orders and moves the universe\u2026 violence?\u201d But the disciples may have wondered in a more visceral way, \u201cIs a violent God after us?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The answer to all these questions was, is, and always will be, \u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n But the disciples, like all of us, are forgiven for being confused, for needing a lifetime to discern what God\u2019s absolute nonviolence means in a world so saturated with violence.<\/p>\n Human<\/em> violence killed Jesus. Humans shouted for his crucifixion, cracked the whip, drove the nails. Those who killed him had thought they were acting in the name of God \u2013 the priests who condemned Jesus of blasphemy and the Romans who believed in the divinity of Caesar, but they were wrong.<\/p>\n When the Jewish and Roman authorities together killed Jesus, though they belonged to different faiths, they represented the whole world\u2019s ultimate worship of violence.<\/p>\n All religions are mixtures of God\u2019s revelation and humanity\u2019s limited, faulty understanding. Throughout history, human faith in love and mercy has been entangled with faith in the righteousness of violence, of defeating enemies, of bending others to one\u2019s will.<\/p>\n And the disciples had begun to see, but not fully comprehend, how Jesus was disentangling human violence from the mercy of God. They saw him apply the law to heal rather than condemn.<\/a> They saw him restore the sick<\/a>,\u00a0feed the hungry,<\/a> \u00a0welcome the marginalized<\/a>, and reinterpret sin not as a fault of those excluded, but as exclusion itself<\/a>. They saw him begin to turn the world upside-down not with a drawn sword but a healing embrace.<\/p>\n And then they saw him arrested, humiliated, crucified.<\/p>\n And they ran away.<\/p>\n They had never quite stopped believing in violence. Even as Jesus was showing them a new way to change the world, the old world order of violence captivated them. They were ready to fight for Jesus<\/a>, for themselves, for liberation. But they weren\u2019t ready to lose.<\/p>\n Now the Lord they had abandoned is suddenly standing there in that locked room. Had they fled one authority only to be caught by the one they should have feared more? Was the whole world about to come crashing down on their heads?<\/p>\n But Jesus blesses them. He bestows on them the only peace that can heal them from the inside out. He shows them all he has suffered, shows the marks of death on his body. And he forgives them for leaving him. In doing so, he demonstrates once and for all that God’s role in violence is not to command it, but to suffer it with the suffering and to forgive it. Jesus has no anger, only love, to give.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_section el_class=”post-quote”][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1566306295282{background-image: url(https:\/\/ravenfoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/0c0caab3a0b06f49d1f4e4069f7acecc-e1562958862845.jpg?id=19638) !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”none” el_class=”quote”]<\/p>\n Even as we distance ourselves, we are realizing our profound interconnection. This is Jesus \u2013 this is Love<\/em> \u2013 at work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n [\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”20452″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]But now that they know that Jesus isn\u2019t \u201cafter\u201d them, the disciples must follow after Jesus. They must continue to learn what it means that God desires mercy, not sacrifice, in a world that has sacrificed God on the altar of power and violence and fear.<\/p>\n Those who had thought they might change the world through killing their enemies are being called to change the world through loving their enemies instead. And that will leave them as vulnerable as Jesus. Yes, he overcame death, but only by going through it.<\/p>\n And the disciples are going to have to learn, step by stumbling step, how to submit and commit themselves to that vulnerability. How to focus their hearts and minds and energy on building relationship with those who are suffering and thus open themselves up to suffering \u2013 but also to joy that comes from compassion. How to live into their forgiveness by forgiving others, by recognizing that the infinite human capacity for good is so much greater than all our mistakes and shortcomings, because we are living images of Love.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space height=”16px”][vc_column_text]And they know that opening themselves this way can lead to as much pain and humiliation as they have seen Jesus suffer. But they can\u2019t run away this time, because love is calling them forward.<\/p>\n \u201cThey,\u201d of course, are all of us. All of our eyes are being opened to a world of violence caving in on itself. And it\u2019s going to take extraordinary love to pull us through this mess, and none of us are going to come out unscathed. But in ways we cannot yet know, we are going to have to open ourselves to trust and vulnerability and compassion.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”16px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_section][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1566393555121{background-color: #f6ebdf !important;}” el_class=”optin”][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”none”][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n It really feels in so many ways like the very first Easter.<\/p>\n The Coronavirus, like nothing else I\u2019ve ever seen, is exposing the crumbling foundation of violence upon which this teetering world is about to collapse.<\/p>\n This disease is not the punishment of a violent God. God does not bestow sickness, but rather comforts and heal us.<\/p>\n But this disease does betray human faith in violence. The sheer devastation it reaps like wildfire is fueled by the kindling of inequity.<\/p>\n We are all vulnerable. But the most vulnerable among us are those who were already sick and without access to care, those without clean air or water or nutritious food. The most vulnerable are the homeless, the refugees, the prisoners. Those displaced from war and those in the midst of war also are not spared.<\/p>\n And there are vulnerable people on the front lines of this crisis, risking their health out of necessity to provide food and medical care, to clean and sanitize. Many who work for less than a living wage and can least afford treatment are keeping the world turning.<\/p>\n All of this inequity is violence. Jesus would draw the connection between this suffering and the idolatry of violence and greed, the worship of Moloch and Mammon.<\/p>\n And finding us entangled in the consequence of human violence, Jesus reminds us that every aching body, worn down from work and stress and illness and despair, is a member of his own body. Whatever we do to the most vulnerable we do to him.<\/p>\n And in response, Jesus embraces us with unconditional love, empowering us to love one another.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n [\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″][vc_column_text]Isolated in our homes, Jesus is breaking through the walls of our hearts. We are discovering our dependency upon the most vulnerable. We are recognizing that our wellbeing depends on the wellbeing of one another. Even as we distance ourselves, we are realizing our profound interconnection. This is Jesus \u2013 this is Love<\/em> \u2013 at work.<\/p>\n Like those first frightened disciples, we are being called beyond our fear. The peace Jesus wishes us is a call to repentance, to change our minds and be healed from the pandemic of violence that distorts our vision.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”16px”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3\/4″][vc_empty_space height=”24px”][vc_single_image image=”20453″ img_size=”full” alignment=”right”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]To repent is to recognize and live into our unconditional Love, which emboldens us to trust rather than fear each other.<\/a> On a firm foundation of Love, we can become the world we need to be to care for each other through this unimaginable suffering.<\/p>\nComing to Terms With God’s Nonviolence<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Called Into Vulnerability<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Our Violence Exposed<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Letting Love In; Letting Love Lead<\/strong><\/h3>\n