Hiroshima in
flames on the afternoon of August 6. By hibakusha (nuclear-bomb survivor)
Nakano Kenichi, 47
years old in August 1945. The inscription tells of ‘living Hell in this world.’
Happy are They who Build Peace
Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
August 9, 2017
“Happy are they who build peace; they are God’s own
children!” (Matt. 5:9)
When Jesus says God’s blessing rests on and is found in the
work of peace-makers, he is thinking of peace not simply as an absence of
conflict and violence, but as shalom,
the abundance of life that is God’s intention for creation. It implies justice and fairness, but also
gentleness, compassion, and mercy. It
is premised, of course, on forgiveness and reconciliation, and in organizing
our common life as truly a thing shared, no longer with “us” vs. “them.”
Hearing the current mutual threats of violence and war of
the top national leader in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North
Korea) and in the United States, it is easy to chalk it all up to macho chest
thumping and bloviating, angry eructation, “sound and fury, signifying
nothing.” But in this week that marks
the 72nd anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, we cannot be too blasé when we hear the U.S. President threaten to
rain down “fire and fury the likes of which the world has never known” upon the
people of North Korea if its leaders do not cease threats against the U.S., and
the North Korean ultimate leader reply by specifically threatening to nuke
Guam. In this among all months, we
should remember that Barbara Tuchman’s fine history of the start of World War
I, The Guns of August, describes the
accidental but irresistible slide into world conflagration in 1914 as a series
of shriller and shriller chest thumping and threats by petty national leaders
thought by their nations’ elites incapable of actually pursuing the
unthinkable.
Building peace does not come through mutual threats and
hatred. It does not come through
stronger and stronger armaments in an arms race. It does not even come through ostensibly
“non-violent” sanctions and measures seeking to put irresistible pressure on
one’s opponent. No—all of these things
actually build war, not peace.
I worked for 25 years as a small part of the U.S.
government’s North East Asia security team and know very well it is no simple
task to design and implement productive policies to help encourage a regime as
vicious and fragile as the DPRK to cease hurting its own people and threatening
its neighbors. But now, as a minister of the Gospel, I must
point out the obvious: bullying never
brings peace. And when a bully tries to
force another bully to back off and stand down, only bad can result.
This does not mean that use of force or threat of use of
force by nations’ seeking to safeguard their own security is never allowed or
recommended. But it does mean, at the
very least, that such tools be handled very, very carefully and with the
greatest wisdom. “Be smart as snakes,”
says Jesus, “but harmless as doves” (Matt
10:16).
Grace and Peace,
Fr. Tony+
No comments:
Post a Comment