I Object: Saying No to Violence and War

As I was putting the finishing touches on the outline for the youth workshop on militarism and non-violence, I heard about the fatal shooting at Ingraham High School. Two beloved members of our community were in the building. Several of our families over the years have had students at Ingraham. Many of our faith family live in the neighborhood. A student was killed by another student.

 
I'm sure you, like me, had the sinking, awful, scared, not-again feeling in your guts. Maybe you, like me, shed tears of grief and rage. Grief that young people continue to be endangered by their own peers with firearms, grief at the loss of life and devastation to a family, grief for the students and staff traumatized by witnessing this event, and others who will not know how to walk back into this place that has been violated, grief for the hearts of the young persons who turn to lethal violence, and absolute rage at a system and government and nation whose obsession with militarism and individual freedom continues to cause these griefs.

Everything - EVERYTHING - that Jesus taught and lived was an embodied objection to the militaristic and violent practices of empire. He grieved and got angry about it too! And yet he even rejected the violence of those whose anger let them to rebel against their oppressors with force. We, his followers, are called to raise our voices in objection as he did.

It's one of the reasons that I feel like the crash course I'm offering for youth on conscientious object is still relevant, even though it's been literal decades since young people have been called up by military draft. It's all connected. The same individualistic, militaristic culture that spends half its discretionary budget on "defense" is the culture which infects the hearts and minds of people - young and old - such that they wield a gun against a fellow human.

This morning after election day I am absorbing the news with some relief that the "red wave" has not been as overwhelming as some predicted. But democrats are not going to save us from gun violence. They are not going to save us from militarism. We can, though continue to object. To cry out. To learn to articulate our opposition to violence that is rooted in the call of Jesus and modeled on the action of Jesus.

It is extremely unlikely that any of our youth will encounter a draft board, challenging their stance on war and violence. Even so, I want them to be able to articulate their understandings of war and violence and to demonstrate that they come from a community of faith that supports them when they choose peace. That's why one of the concluding activities of the crash course is to complete a "Peacemaker Registration." It asks them how they've come to their beliefs and to "explain what most clearly shows that your beliefs are deeply held. You may wish to include a description of how your beliefs affect the way you live."

In some ways this last question should convict us all, the grown-ups in the room, for how we live should be rooted in our own deeply held beliefs about the image of God in all humans and all of creation and our commitment to follow Jesus in the way of peace. We are the models for our children. So I am even more determined to object. To keep objecting. And to let this little class be one among many ways that I affirm love over death.

On Hamilton: A Canadian Mennonite reflects on 'An American Musical' after Independence Day

I keep asking myself what took me so long.  After all, in my family I am surrounded by Hamiltons (or Epp Hamiltons). But now that I’ve finally listened to it, the cast recording of Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton has been playing pretty much non-stop since I downloaded it several weeks ago.  It gets better every time.  I get caught up in the battles, the debates, the romance and betrayal. I’m not the first to express astonishment that the birth of this adopted nation of mine could be so interesting and dramatic, not to mention danceable.  And I don’t have to elaborate on what the internet has already said about how Miranda has recast the founding fathers as people of color, celebrates the work and contributions of immigrants (they get the job done), and given women a place in history through his musical. 

Is Hamilton making me love America? The dream that Miranda captures is compelling.  The optimism, hope and creativity are contagious.  But as many facts as I learned about the birth of this nation, the story is still historical fiction.  Washington repeats the refrain, “You have no control: Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?”  The losers definitely have no control.  This, like most of the stories of history passed down tell the story of victors.  Yes, Miranda tells the story of Alexander Hamilton with the voice of the man who was his adversary, villainized in memory, played by an actor of color, but we still hear the story from the perspective of the ones who came, saw and conquered.  Violently.  I don’t love that.

I don’t love the American celebration and idealization of violence (although those songs in Hamilton are so good) and I don’t love how we celebrate independence when we are not independent but, in fact totally dependent.  We are interdependent. We need each other, in our communities and in the community of the world.  I feel grateful to be a part of a Mennonite congregation that celebrates our dependence not only on each other but on the God who created us and all people, all creation.  It is a kind of dependence – among people and on the earth – that was well known to the first peoples of the Americas. 

Even as a latter day immigrant, I live with the complicated complicity of being a settler.  In Canada my ancestors farmed on Cree land in Saskatchewan, and now I live, work, and worship on what was Duwamish territory in Washington.  At Seattle Mennonite Church on Sunday we acknowledged our interdependence and were explicit: American ‘independence’ was achieved at the cost of many lives, European, African and Indigenous, and colonization pushed indigenous folks into reservations that were small compensation for all they lost.  And I live too understanding that many of the privileges I have taken for granted are because of my European heritage, won through violent means.

Although I feel the discomfort in my gut at having to face the complicity, I’m grateful.  And I feel grateful too that the Mennonite community here in the United States has, in my experience, been more engaged than in Canada with the question of how and whether we participate in government.  Or whether Christians of conscience should vote in federal elections.  Here in the US voters directly elect the person who is the Commander in Chief of the nation’s military, yet we Mennos place our allegiance in only in Jesus, whose message is peace.  I have been challenged to understand that there are many ways to participate in civic life and to build community and to love my neighbor and my enemy.  I’ve learned that the church can play the role of prophet in civic life: speaking the truth unspoken by history, calling out government on violence and injustice, renouncing doctrines that brutalize, building community and peacemaking in locally and internationally.

In Hamilton, as George Washington prepares to leave office, he quotes a prophet: “Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree.  And no one will make them afraid.” Washington imagines settling down in his retirement in the verdant landscape of Mount Vernon, “At home in this nation we’ve made.”  For Micah, the prophet whose words he quoted, these words are part of God’s imagination for the whole earth, not just one exceptionalist part of it: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid”

I’m not sure that’s what Washington had in mind.  And I’m not sure how realistic it is, but it is certainly my prayer and dream for this nation that I live in and that we all inherited from Hamilton and his colleagues.  After the shooting at Pulse in Orlando, the cast of Hamilton performed ‘Yorktown (the world turned upside down)’ at the Tony Awards without the guns that they usually carry during that battle scene.  May we all learn to lay down our guns and not war against other nations (never mind each other).  May we learn instead to care for the earth and for our neighbor.  May we all have a share of what is good and made by God.  May we acknowledge when we have been the ones who cause fear and been takers and tyrants.  And may everyone go out and listen to Hamilton now so that we can have a group discussion and I won’t be the only one holding these questions!

On Hamilton: A Canadian Mennonite reflects on 'An American Musical' after Independence Day

I keep asking myself what took me so long.  After all, in my family I am surrounded by Hamiltons (or Epp Hamiltons). But now that I’ve finally listened to it, the cast recording of Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton has been playing pretty much non-stop since I downloaded it several weeks ago.  It gets better every time.  I get caught up in the battles, the debates, the romance and betrayal. I’m not the first to express astonishment that the birth of this adopted nation of mine could be so interesting and dramatic, not to mention danceable.  And I don’t have to elaborate on what the internet has already said about how Miranda has recast the founding fathers by people of color, celebrates the work and contributions of immigrants (they get the job done), and given women a place in history through his musical. 

Is Hamilton making me love America? The dream that Miranda captures is compelling.  The optimism, hope and creativity are contagious.  But as many facts as I learned about the birth of this nation, the story is still historical fiction.  Washington repeats the refrain, “You have no control: Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?”  The losers definitely have no control.  This, like most of the stories of history passed down tell the story of victors.  Yes, Miranda tells the story of Alexander Hamilton with the voice of the man who was his adversary, villainized in memory, played by an actor of color, but we still hear the story from the perspective of the ones who came, saw and conquered.  Violently.  I don’t love that.

I don’t love the American celebration and idealization of violence (although those songs in Hamilton are so good) and I don’t love how we celebrate independence when we are not independent but, in fact totally dependent.  We are interdependent. We need each other, in our communities and in the community of the world.  I feel grateful to be a part of a Mennonite congregation that celebrates our dependence not only on each other but on the God who created us and all people, all creation.  It is a kind of dependence – among people and on the earth – that was well known to the first peoples of the Americas. 

Even as a latter day immigrant, I live with the complicated complicity of being a settler.  In Canada my ancestors farmed on Cree land in Saskatchewan, and now I live work, and worship on what was Duwamish territory in Washington.  At Seattle Mennonite Church on Sunday we acknowledged our interdependence and were explicit: American ‘independence’ was achieved at the cost of many lives, European, African and Indigenous, and colonization pushed indigenous folks into reservations that were small compensation for all they lost.  And I live too understanding that many of the privileges I have taken for granted are because of my European heritage, won through violent means.

Although I feel the discomfort in my gut as having to face the complicity, I’m grateful.  And I feel grateful too that the Mennonite community here in the United States has been, in my experience, more engaged than in Canada with the question of how and whether we participate in government.  Or whether Christians of conscience should vote.  Here in the US, voters directly elect the person who is the Commander in Chief of the nation’s military, yet we Mennos place our allegiance in only in Jesus whose message is peace.  I have been challenged to understand that there are many ways to participate in civic life and to build community and to love my neighbor and my enemy.  I’ve learned that the church can play the role of prophet in civic life – speaking the truth unspoken by history, calling out government on violence and injustice, renouncing doctrines that brutalize, building community and peacemaking in locally and internationally.

In Hamilton, as George Washington prepares to leave office, he quotes a prophet: “Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree.  And no one will make them afraid.” Washington imagines settling down in his retirement in the verdant landscape of Mount Vernon, “At home in this nation we’ve made.”  For Micah, the prophet whose words he quoted, these words are part of God’s imagination for the whole earth, not just one exceptional part of it: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid”

I’m not sure that’s what Washington had in mind.  And I’m not sure how realistic it is, but it is certainly my prayer and dream for this nation that I live in and that we all inherited from Hamilton and his colleagues.  After the shooting at Pulse in Orlando, the cast of Hamilton performed ‘Yorktown (the world turned upside down)’ at the Tony Awards without the guns that they usually carry during that battle scene.  May we all learn to lay down our guns and not war against other nations (never mind each other).  May we learn instead to care for the earth and for our neighbor.  May we all have a share of what is good and made by God.  May we acknowledge when we have been the ones who cause fear and been takers and tyrants.  And everyone, go out and listen to Hamilton so that we can have a group discussion and I won’t be the only one holding these questions!

God Loves People with Guns

The current issue of Geez magazine is all about stereotypes.  What kinds of assumptions do we make about people based on gender, skin tone, age, country of origin, religious affiliation?  The magazine examines all these and more.  The first piece in the magazine is a list of 'Contradictions: 10 stereotypes held by one of more Geez editors.'  Number 4 reads as follows, "People who regularly read the Bible are unredemptively lost to a conservative worldview that oppresses everybody, including themselves. Of course, Jesus loves them anyway." This made me chuckle and Naomi asked me what I was laughing at so I read it out loud.  

I’m sure she didn’t even understand half of those words, but she said, “Really?” 

So, I answered in all seriousness, “Yes, of course.  Jesus loves everyone.”

She looked at me skeptically.  “Does Jesus even love people with guns?” 

Busted.  We’ve worked pretty intentionally at talking about how guns hurt people, about how Jesus wants us to be peacemakers, about being a family that doesn't even play at or pretend to hurt or kill.  I thought that we’d also talked about God’s love for everyone, even the person who hurts others or does bad things.  But it seems that in all our intentionality with teaching peace, we neglected to teach about God’s forgiveness and expansive grace.

“You know that song we sing sometimes, ‘God’s love is for everybody?’” I sang the chorus.  Naomi nodded.  “Well, that’s what it’s about.  God loves people everywhere, all over the world, no matter what they’re like.  Even if they do bad things.  Even people with guns.  Doing a bad thing doesn’t make you a bad person – you’re still God’s child.”

Naomi was making an assumption – one that we had taught her – that people with guns are unlovable and that Jesus wants nothing to do with them.  The Gospel is different than that.  Peacemakers are indeed blessed, but Jesus doesn’t turn anyone away – his healing is for the daughter of a soldier as much as for the child of a temple leader.  Not to say he doesn't have critiques and biases himself (see Mark 7) but his arms are open to for everyone, 'Atheist and charlatans and communists and lesbians and even old Pat Robertson, God loves us all.  Catholic or Protestant, terrorist or president, everybody!'  God is love.