The Harder Way

Like most of the world, I’ve been thinking a lot about war lately. Ukraine and Russia. Israel and Gaza. There are probably a few dozen others going on at the moment that aren’t getting much press. And it seems to be one of the rare moments in history that our country is not directly involved in one somewhere. (Give us time.)

And I’ve been thinking about peace. Peace is not the opposite of war. War is one way of life, peace is another. Just as vegetarianism is not the opposite of the paleo diet, they are two different ways. A.J. Muste wrote “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life.”

Peace is not an easy path. War, though horrific as it is, is the easier path. You simply figure out how to beat the other into submission. Or you get beaten into it. Formerly whoever had the largest army had the advantage. That is no longer true. Because war is a method or way of life, it never ends completely. World War I was called “the war to end all wars.” Where’s my sarcasm emoji? Simon Sinek would call it an “infinite game.” Although I doubt it will happen, Israel may destroy Hamas or Hamas may destroy Israel, but the clash will continue. In World War II, the one that followed the war to end all wars, the Allied countries beat the Axis countries. But Nazism is still alive and well in Virginia, Michigan, and at Kanye “Ye” West’s home. To quote an old song, “And the beat goes on.”

The movie War Games ends when the military computer that is planning on winning a “game” of war by launching nuclear missiles, stops. Leaves the game. WOPR, the computer program, says (prophetically, I think) “the only winning move is not to play.”

Which, according to Sinek, is the only way to end an infinite game. (By the way, his excellent book is not about war. It just happens to fit in it.)

Jesus was confronted by crowds and soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane, to be carried off to be crucified. His disciples were ready to fight, pulling out what few weapons they had. Jesus tells them to put them away. Instead of fighting, he said he could have called on God and God would have sent more than 12 leagues of angels to fight for him. (Matthew 26)

Those early hearers of this story knew Jewish history. They knew that King David had 12 divisions of soldiers to protect him. Each division was 24,000 men. That’s 288,000 soldiers. It still did not stop them from having war. It was so commonplace that 2 Samuel 11 casually starts the story about David’s seduction of Bathsheba with “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war…” It was just what they did.

It seems to be the same for us today.

Jesus chose a different path. Rather than calling for the angelic army, and really only one angel would have been enough, he chose to go to the cross. It was the harder way.

For my friends who say that this is why Jesus was sent, and it was his mission and his alone, I gently remind you of what Jesus himself said. “If anyone will follow me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.”

G.K. Chesterton once said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult, and left untried.”

Peace is the way. But it is the harder way.