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Published on Saturday, December 24, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
"Peace on Earth" Means "No More War"
by John Dear
The story goes that when the nonviolent Jesus was born into abject
poverty to homeless refugees on the outskirts of a brutal empire, angels
appeared in the sky to impoverished shepherds singing, "Glory to God in the
highest and peace on earth!" That child grew up to become, in Gandhi's
words, "the greatest nonviolent resister in the history of the world," and
was subsequently executed by the empire for his insistence on justice.
This weekend, as tens of millions of Christians across the country
celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, the U.S. wages war in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Colombia and elsewhere; crushes the hungry, homeless, elderly,
imprisoned and refugee; and maintains the world's ultimate terrorist
threat--its nuclear arsenal.
Like Herod, Pilate and their soldiers, we have rejected the angels'
call for "peace on earth." When Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their warmaking
supporters celebrate Christmas, they mock Christ and his steadfast
nonviolence, and carry on the massacre of the innocents.
If the angels are correct, then Christmas requires us to welcome God's
gift of peace on earth. In such a time, that means we have to work for an
end to war. Christmas calls us to become like Christ--people of active,
creative, steadfast nonviolence who give our lives in resistance to empire
and war.
In pursuit of this Christmas gift, a group of us met this week with
Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico, and asked him to dismantle our
nuclear weapons and disarm Los Alamos, the birthplace of the bomb. In this
day and age, it is surprising that any elected official would meet and
listen to anti-war activists. Yet Richardson asked to begin a public
dialogue with us about nuclear disarmament. We take this as a sign of hope,
even as we continue our protests at Los Alamos.
When Gandhi was asked one Christmas day for his thoughts about
Christmas, he spoke about the connection between the wood of the
crib--Christ's poverty--and the wood of the cross--Christ's nonviolent
resistance to evil. He said Christmas summons us to the same lifelong
nonviolence. It has social, economic, and political implications. I think,
like Gandhi, that we have to make those connections and pursue those
implications. Here are a few of them.
First, Christmas celebrates the birth of a life of perfect nonviolence
and calls us to become people of active nonviolence. Christmas invites us to
practice the vulnerable, disarming simplicity of children, to live the
disarmed life in solidarity with the children of the world, and to spend our
lives in resistance to empire. It summons us to study, teach, practice and
experiment with creative nonviolence that we too might live the life of
nonviolence which Jesus exemplified so that one day peace might reign one
earth.
Second, Christmas demonstrates that God sides with the poor, becomes
one with the poor, and walks among the poor. God does not side with the
rulers, the rich or the powerful, but with the homeless, the hungry and the
refugees. Christmas puts poverty front and center and demands that we work
to abolish poverty itself so that every human being has food, clothing,
housing, healthcare, education, employment and a lifetime of peace.
Third, since Christmas illustrates how God sides with the poor in
order to liberate the oppressed from poverty and injustice, it calls us to
reject greed, give away our money and possessions to those in need, and also
live in solidarity with the disenfranchised.
Fourth, Christmas pushes us to stand on the margins of society, where
we will find God. Christmas announces that every human being is a beloved
son and daughter of the God of love. Every human life is beautiful in the
eyes of God, since God has become one of us. From now on, we reject
exclusivity, racism, sexism, and discrimination of any kind, and embrace
everyone as equal. We stand on the margins with the excluded, the
marginalized, the outsiders and outcasts. From there, we envision a new
reconciled humanity.
Fifth, as Gandhi pointed out, there is a straight line from the crib
to the cross. Christ practiced steadfast nonviolent resistance to imperial
injustice and was brutally executed. That bloody outcome is crucial to the
story, and calls us to work for the abolition of the death penalty so that
Christ will never be crucified again and the killing stops once and for all.
Sixth, since the birth of Christ means that every human life is
beloved by God, that all human beings are God's children, we have to treat
every human being on the planet as our very own sister and brother which
means we must oppose war and work for the abolition of war itself. In
particular, we denounce Bush's war on Iraq, demand that the troops return
home, and call for reparations and nonviolent solutions to the horrors we
have brought upon the people of the Middle East.
Seventh, if the angels celebrate the coming of "peace on earth," that
means they are environmentalists. We too have to protect the earth, oppose
its destruction, defend God's creatures and the universe, and help make the
earth a place of peace for every life form.
Eighth, Christmas means working for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
These weapons are idolatrous and blasphemous. Their very existence insults
the God of peace and mocks the nonviolent Jesus. We can't celebrate
Christmas and at the same time work at Los Alamos, Livermore Labs, the
Nevada Test Site, or the Pentagon, or be silent while this work goes on We
must reject this love or death and destruction, and pursue life, the God of
life, and a new world without nuclear weapons.
Ninth, Christmas calls us individually to prepare for the gift of
peace on earth. It invites us to welcome peace in our hearts and our
personal lives, and learn to be at peace with ourselves, with God, with our
families, friends, neighbors, and local communities, and with the whole
world.
Finally, Christmas invites us to be human in an inhuman time. The
scandal of the story is that God wants to become human and show us how to be
human. We, on the other hand, want to play God, to be powerful, in charge,
in control, to dominate the world. Perhaps the best way to celebrate
Christmas and welcome the beautiful gift of peace on earth is simply to be
human, despite the callous inhumanity around us, and to trust that our
modest, vulnerable humanity--our nonviolence, compassion and love--like the
humanity of the child in the crib, will one day bear good fruit and sow the
seeds of peace on earth.
John Dear is a Jesuit priest, peace activist, and the author/editor of
20 books on peace and nonviolence, including most recently "The Questions of
Jesus" and "Living Peace," both published by Doubleday. He is the
coordinator of Pax Christi New Mexico. For information, see:
www.fatherjohndear.org and www.paxchristinewmexico.org
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Quaecomque sunt vera ----
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