The whole world is on pause at the moment, it seems, waiting to see what will come of the escalating conflict between Iran and the US.
Mourners in Iran at the funeral for Qasem Soleimani.
Now is the time to pray-
for peace- for true peace, which we have not known,
for cooler heads to prevail,
for our leaders to recognize that there are no winners at war,
for understanding between different peoples,
for wisdom.
In the midst of human culture where conflicts tend to escalate and responses to aggression, both real and perceived, grow completely out of proportion, the Biblical wisdom of “an eye for an eye” was meant to temper the response, so that conflict would not grow beyond its initial victims.
But we, as humans, have the terrible tendency to see the evil in the others actions and intentions, but never in our own. We have the terrible inability to see ourselves from the vantage point of the other. We never agree on where violence started, and have no concept on where it should end. We always believe that our actions, no matter how heinous, are justified.
Otherwise, we wouldn’t do them, right?
Perhaps the greatest flaw of all is our tendency to believe that to be great we need to respond to every slight and vanquish every foe. That is not, however, a recipe for greatness. It is the path of the petty. It is the road to destruction.
To be truly great, we need to learn to be above the vile and evil ways we have learned, and to seek out possibilities for peace, even when peace seems impossible to achieve. The path to greatness is the harder way, of mercy, forgiveness, and rising above the desire for revenge.
As a candidate for president, Donald Trump was asked if he had a favorite story or verse from the Bible. He responded by citing a commandment about punishment from Leviticus, “an eye for an eye.” Importantly, as he went on to explain, he chose that verse as a way of claiming the need to respond to the perceived attacks on our country with violence against those aggressors. This week, as Iran began contemplating its response to the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, they may have been considering “proportionality” and an eye for an eye, or perhaps further escalation. President Trump let them know that any response of theirs would be met by much greater destruction, threatening an attack against 52 cultural sites, potentially and intentionally targeting huge numbers of civilians as well as pieces of history that the entire world holds dear. Even if we were completely innocent in the events leading up to this point (which, to any reasonable observer, we clearly are not) this heinous threat represents an escalation of conflict far beyond the lessons of the passage that President Trump claims to hold most dear.
The president shows that he has missed the point of this passage from the Torah completely. Just as with the assassination of Soleimani, he seems to inherently gravitate to the path of the petty and fragile, in an effort to appear powerful. This is not strength we are seeing from either side; it is the depth of weakness.
If the leaders of both countries follow this path, if none will show true greatness and find a solution which will allow both countries to win, we are headed for destruction.
We, in the US have little influence over what the Iranian leaders choose to do now. But everything that our president and our military do is completely our responsibility.
Oh, how I wish that Mr. Trump would revisit his favorite verse about an eye for an eye, and seek out the wisdom that Jesus shared as he expounded on that very passage. Jesus begins, in Matthew 5:39, “You have heard it said an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you…” The following line is usually translated, “Do not resist an evil person.” But going into the Greek, it is just as likely that the expression τῷ πονηρῷ refers not to an evil person, but to evil itself. I believe that instead of saying “do not resist an evil person” it should be understood “do not resist by evil means.” If this is true, Jesus is not telling us to be pushovers in the face of evil and not resist at all, but to chose means which are consistent with the ends that God would have us achieve. We should not become the evil that we hate.
The following verses give concrete examples on how we could and should resist evil, not by an escalation of violence, but by choosing transforming initiatives which seek to rescue the humanity and dignity of both the recipient of aggression and the aggressor. My friend and colleague Daniel Buttry has developed some excellent resources on how turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile and giving up one’s cloak are not acts of contrition, but initiatives designed to transform the relationship from abuse to equality.
http://globalpeacewarriors.org/r…/training-videos/section-4/
Our president has said he is a Christian and therefore claims to take Jesus’ words as his guide. Oh, how I wish now, more than ever, he will learn to take the higher path, the difficult path toward peace. It will require humility, understanding and wisdom, traits which he has not seemed to show until now in his leadership.
May God grant these traits to all of those whose hands are guiding our nations now.
This is my prayer.
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