There are two numbers etched into the American psyche that have forever changed how we think about public policy (foreign and domestic): 9/11.
In fact, that Tuesday was such an apocalyptic event that Christians in America have never been able to ignore that the only real equivalent in Christian memory is Good Friday. In the days after 9/11/2001, we were just like the disciples on that Good Friday: Dazed, confused, disbelieving, grieving, angry. We were all afraid of the terror. The disciples were sure that the Roman terror unleashed on Jesus would be unleashed on them. And we Christians in America were afraid that the terror of that day would become "business as usual".
For the followers of Jesus, there were two days of eclipse then -- resurrection! An even more apocalyptic event for them than Jesus' crucifixion. Why?
The resurrection of Jesus in the Jewish mindset made them think it was the end-times. God would now put the world to rights. Bring the old world of suffering and death to a dramatic conclusion and begin a new world of justice and joy. Surely a cause for celebration, you might think. But -- watch this! -- the immediate reaction of the disciples to the presence of the risen Christ is not joy -- but, again, fear. A different kind of fear, the commentators tell us, than frightened fear, rather "awe" in the presence of the holy. But I wonder if there isn't a bit of special pleading here. I wonder if there wasn't that same fear-as-fright about their reaction, except now with a different object: Not Caiaphas and Pilate but Jesus himself. For had not the cowardly disciples denied, betrayed, abandoned their leader to his fate? In other words, hadn't they behaved in such a way as to invite and expect some sort of payback? Indeed, isn't it that the most astonishing thing of all about the resurrection of Jesus: There was no payback!
Now think about 9/11. Rising from the ashes of Ground Zero, what was our resolve? Melodramatic speeches about ... payback. First, the easy-pickings of Afghanistan. Then, the full-scale invasion of Iraq. And now, thirteen years later, very little has changed. Recently, one of our political elite said that water boarding (torture) is how we should "baptize terrorists". With the empty rhetoric of democracy, clinging to the conviction --against a growing mountain of evidence! -- that we "did the right thing", we'd do it all again. Bring on the superior fire power. The swift and righteous sword of Caesar. Bring mighty justice down on the terrorists and vanquish evil.
But after Easter, what does the crucified and risen Jesus do? Does he respond to his execution by marshaling that legion of angels he refused to deploy on Golgotha, smashing his way into the imperial palace with shock and awe, overwhelming the hopelessly outgunned royal guard, and exacting a righteous and terrible revenge on Pilate, who, of course, had form as a ruthless tyrant long before his showdown with the rebel from Galilee? Does he storm the Temple in a way that makes the disruptive demonstration the Sunday before look like the piece of street theatre that, in fact, it was, then advance beyond the court of Gentiles and invade the court of priests, seize the hapless Caiaphas and -- how ironically apt -- cast him from the spire he had once stood atop with the devil himself? IDoes he round up those reprehensible disciples, perhaps hood and humiliate them, or take them down to the pool of Bethesda for a bit of baptism by water boarding, which, after all, isn't really torture, or, at the very least, give them a tongue-lashing they'll never forget and send them away in guilt and despair? None of the above. No violence, no vengeance -- no payback!
So what does the crucified and risen Jesus do? He ignores Pilate and Caiaphas, his judges and executioners, completely. And when he meets his followers -- who would believe it! -- he says things like, "Do not be afraid", and "Peace be with you". He shows them his wounds to reassure them, and to demonstrate that even in his regnant glory his decorations will always be scars. And he commissions them to carry on his ministry -- how? As avenging furies, agents of retribution? ("I'll be back, through you, my shock troops, and this time it’s personal.") No, no payback! Indeed the mission impossible he gives them is a ministry of forgiveness and reconciliation.
So why does that even surprise us? Jesus disarmed his followers in the Garden. He forgave his torturers, even as he died of asphyxiation on the cross.
We expect the Risen One to have changed his mind?
This is what blows my mind. In John's gospel Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on the disciples as he gives them the gift of peace (John 20.21-22). This is John's version of Luke's Pentecost. But the peace of Christ is not for them alone. The man for others commissions a church for others (Bonhoeffer). The peace they receive they must share, declare, and effect. And this peace takes the form of -- forgiveness! Jesus says: "If you forgive people's sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven" (John 20.23). And though the construction looks like a conditional, as if forgiveness were discretionary -- as if the disciples might grant forgiveness to this one but withhold it from that one -- the key to Jesus' command is its gracious sweep and urgency. Forgiveness itself is God's judgement on sin, and forgiveness itself is the condition that makes justice possible. Wrath -- whatever that might mean -- must be left to the Father. This is John's version of Matthew's Great Commission.
So let me put the matter as plain as I can: Forgiveness is the central plank in ANY policy for Christians. Terrorists? Forgive them. Murderers? Forgive them.
Now let me ask a question that has haunted me since the late hours of 9/11: Why are people so astonished -- even going so far as to ridicule me -- for that suggestion?
What difference does discipleship make if you can't forgive those who do evil things to you?
What difference does discipleship make if, in following Jesus on the way to the cross every day, you have to hunt folks down, baptize them by water boarding torture?
I've said this a thousand times. It gets me in trouble with someone every time. But I'll say it now, again, here, for the record: If Jesus is risen from the dead, and we can respond with paybacks, we are liars. We're ignoring the events of Holy Week and Easter. We're ignoring Jesus' life and teaching. We're denying to honor the seventh beatitude. We're living as if Caesar (in American garb under an imperial standard of war) is Lord. We're living as if events in the news were more real, more true, than the Bible. We're living as if violence is how the world really works, not peace, not forgiveness. If the origin, goal and very grain of the universe is that violence, then Jesus is just a dead first-century Jew. And I'm SOL.
If being Christian trumped being American, British, or whatever, and if the church itself practiced a politics of peace, then at least we would have something to say to government that wasn't the mere echo of its own loud voice. We could reclaim the language of "baptism" as participation in the very life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
I all-the-time hear folks say that that Tuesday in 2001 changed everything. That the world is fundamentally, essentially a different place. When, in fact, 9/11 changed nothing!
No, it was that spring weekend in 33 AD that changed everything! Easter makes the difference. Easter is God's rude interruption -- and judgment! -- of the way the world does business.
A gruesome gibbet, an empty tomb, an unarmed man passing through locked doors, cold hearts, and closed minds, waging peace.
Though you wouldn't know it. And why on earth should anyone, governments included, believe it when even the church doesn't?
My friend and seminary prof Stan Hauerwas was once asked, in his dissent about the war on terrorism: "Well, what alternative foreign policy do you have to bombing Afghanistan?" He replied: "My only response is I don't have a foreign policy. I have something better -- a church constituted by people who would rather die than kill".
We Christians are folks who believe in Jesus -- a guy who died rather than killed. Who lives and rules the world in truth and grace and forgiveness. No paybacks!
God is non-violent. And in him there is no violence at all.
What do you think about that, Ms Palin?