One of Jesus' most provocative actions and statements occurs at the Garden of Gethsemane. When Judas leads a crowd armed with swords and clubs to Jesus in order to betray him, Jesus is arrested. One of his disciples, furious, draws his sword and cuts off the high priest's servant's ear. Jesus says to his disciple, "Put your sword back in its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword." In Luke's Gospel,Jesus then touches the servant's ear and heals it. Jesus has unequivocally rejected violence. Even in hideous pain on the cross, he does not resort to verbal violence by screaming out invectives or curses at his executioners. In fact, through the whole Passion narrative, we learn he is still and opens not his mouth.
Jesus lives and dies according to his own words of "Love your enemies." This non-violent stance of Jesus, if we ponder it, is enough to challenge us as individuals and as a country. It's a part of his message which has been rejected by the "fickle crowds." Whether many like to admit it or not, in a choice between God and money, the false god of money always wins out, and war-making is intimately connected with making money.
War is the ultimate act of violence. The U.S. likes to call itself a Christian country, yet war has always meant Big Business for us. In "Master of Wars," (America magazine, April 3, 2017),Kevin Clarke, Chief Correspondent for America magazine, gives us the following facts:
"The United States is well-known as the world's biggest spender on arms and weapons systems. Catholic Bishops have regularly denounced as a moral scandal a defense budget measured each year in the hundreds of billions; $657 billion is the anticipated request for 2018, a 10 percent increase over 2017 spending.
"Less noticed is the nation's status as the world's top merchant of arms and the government's role as facilitator in that market. With a 33 percent share - roughly $38 billion in 2016 - the United States dominates an annual global weapons export market that has topped $100 billion. 'The USA supplies major arms to at least 100 countries around the world - significantly more than any other supplier state,' Aude Fleurant, director of the Arms and Military Expenditure Program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) reported in a press release in February.
In 2015, when Pope Francis addressed Congress, he told them
"Being at the service of dialogue and peace...means being truly determined to minimize, and in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world....Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade."
The Pope was given a standing ovation. But, as always, his words fell on deaf ears. In 2015, the U.S. once more led the world in arms transfer agreements, signing deals for about $40 billion (according to a congressional study), half of all sales that year in the global arms bazaar. Last year, global arms transfer agreements reached a level not seen since the end of the Cold War. In fact, regarding the small arms trade, which supports about half of all global killing yearly, the U.S. ranks as the world's top exporter and importer of small arms, according to the Geneva-based small arms survey.
Marie Dennis, co-president of Pax Christi ("The Peace of Christ") International, argues that the arms trade "is one powerful component of a geopolitical infrastructure that helps drive conflict." (Clarke) Why aren't we, intellectually and financially, investing in developing non-violent approaches for peace-keeping and peace-building?
To really grasp the horrendous effects of war, just look at Syria. During the six years of Syria's civil conflict, regional and global powers chose sides and supplied their preferred side with money, weapons, and fighters - so that according to Fr. Ziad Hilal, S.J., the struggle has become more foreign than domestic. The international media, he says, has not been objective, but has shown only the violent and negative sides of all the parties involved. According to Fr. Hill, who is the Project Consultant for Syria of the agency "Aid to the Church in Need,"
"Trees and park benches (in the city of Aleppo) are chopped up by those seeking fuel for heat. Many homeless families are living in the streets, in deserted factories and semi-constructed buildings started before the war in the cold of winter....Most of the evacuated children have been without proper teaching or schooling for the last three years....a catastrophe for the upcoming generation....Aleppo was home to five million people before the war; now only 1.5 million remain. There were 120,000 Christians in the city six years ago; today 30,000 Christians remain." ("In Aleppo: finding God among the ruins," by Kevin Clarke, America magazine, April 3, 29017.)
In the last six years, the Church has suffered in Syria: five martyred priests, one nun, two Bishops and three priests kidnapped, and thousands of martyred and kidnapped ordinary citizens.
Yet among these innocents most wounded by the Big Business of War, faith continues to be expressed. Even though the number of Christians has dropped by over half, church bells continue to toll. Daily Mass and prayer continue, children are baptized, young couples are getting married, ordinary Christians and Muslims work together to relieve each others' misery. To help visualize the amount of misery there, in just this one city, picture this: Jesuit Relief Services is providing 10, 000 hot meals a day, in addition to medical and social services, to all the needy in Aleppo, regardless of their religion. Ten thousand meals a day! In just one city!
Syria is in the top ten of countries receiving arms from the U.S. and Russia. Isn't it ironic that, even as we help to physically destroy this nation, we refuse to take in more of these Syrian immigrants, these refugees from violence, when their war-torn cities have become almost uninhabitable? Isn't that the height of moral compartmentalization?
"Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword," Jesus says. Don't read this as tit- for- tat retribution. Jesus is reminding his followers that our life styles, our choices, have repercussions. Those who embrace violence will, in the end, be destroyed by the violence they have chosen. Watch the members of any street gang, and you see how it plays out. Watch the Democratic and Republican political parties who daily indulge in warlike language and polarizing activity, and see how financial and economic and even physical violence engulfs the embittered and now-cynical country they are supposed to be protecting and empowering.
Do we honestly think that we can continue to choose the course of being the world's top supplier of weaponry, of having the world's biggest military budget, and not have violence circle around and engulf us? God, as Jesus also told us, should be the Source of our Peace - and we cannot have peace without justice and mercy. it is neither just nor merciful to make money from other countries' conflicts. It is neither just nor merciful to destroy countries, create refugees, and then refuse them safe refuge here. If we truly want to give our country back to God, we need to remember that those who live by the sword will die by the sword, that God is the One Who should rule our nations and that these nations should espouse justice, mercy, and peace, not war.
Maybe we think that it's morally fine for our businessmen to make money from selling arms across the globe, and, in doing so, help perpetuate warfare. Maybe we think that it's a grand reality show to watch Congress members - and the President - tearing each other to pieces instead of working together for the common good. Maybe we think it's worth our safety to keep refugees and immigrants out because, after all, we don't really think that God is in charge of our safety - even though this is what Scripture tells us: "I have overcome the world."
But, maybe we're those fickle crowds who thought that Jesus was great on Palm Sunday, but then, when we REALLY heard what he said, decided to turn against him. Quietly leave him because he wasn't worth the trouble. Maybe we'd even yell "Crucify him!" today if we heard him say "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword."