“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.
Matthew 5: 38-40 NRSVue
There are good guys and bad guys in wars. Everyone knows this and each side portrays itself as on the moral high ground. Sometimes holy texts are cited to claim God's blessing and give permission for combat and even slaughter. A long time ago the Christian church developed the notion of a "just war" with criteria for what that sort of conflict would entail.
This is what is proclaimed and preached, yet Jesus certainly never said it. He must have shocked those who heard him urge that in conflicts we turn the other cheek when we are struck. Societies have never liked pacifists, often holding them in contempt, even putting them in prison or executing them.
Russian conscripts
During the week we've heard that those we feel are the bad guys in the unjustified Ukraine/Russia war are approaching a grim milestone. Within a few weeks a total of a million Russian soldiers will have been killed or wounded, 250,000 dead. Ukraine has suffered terrible losses as well -- 60 to 100 thousand deaths -- but the totals for Russia are staggering. Young people, mostly men, are thrown into battle with little training, let alone any understanding of why they are there in the first place. They are loved and mourned because they have died, and to what end?
We know that the Russian Orthodox church in the major denomination in both Russia and Ukraine. It is a hideous reality that church leaders in Russia have endorsed the war and support Vladimir Putin, a megalomaniac. How can they do so, and how can they justify being in opposition to Ukrainian brothers and sisters in Christ?
We continue to pray for peace, despite our discouragement and sense of the folly of it all.
Surely Jesus weeps.
2 comments:
And then there are churches south of our border who proclaim Trump to be a godsend !
We have family members who would say, of course he is! It is a mystery, Judy.
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