The good news is … revealed through nonviolence ~ Will Clancy

I care about politics. Like, a lot. I’ve spent the last four years of my life studying it. So, it is not surprising that when I read the scripture for today, I read it largely about the relationship between Christianity and the government.

Politics and government are present throughout the whole of the Bible, but especially in our text for today. In Luke 22:47–53, Jesus is arrested. Having previously been condemned by the Sanhedrin (a judicial-religious authority), the chief priests and the temple police find Jesus on the Mount of Olives. The disciples try to defend their teacher from arrest, picking up swords, but Jesus instructs them not to. He heals a slave wounded by one of his disciples. He decries the fact that he is being arrested by guards armed “with swords and clubs as though [he] were a rebel”. But he does not respond violently.

In Luke 23:33–38, we see the outcome of Jesus’ arrest: crucifixion by the Roman state. Crucifixion was a special form of punishment that Rome reserved for (among other groups) enemies of the state. It was a violent, public death, designed to be so gruesome it acted as an implicit threat towards others: “Disobey us, and this will be you.” Rome’s execution of Jesus was not just a punishment for Jesus’ perceived offenses, but a method to assert control of the general population through fear.

I think what this passage does a good job of demonstrating that Jesus’ ministry was fundamentally one of nonviolence. Rome, in this passage, demonstrates its intention to exert control through violence by crucifying Jesus. Through fear, Rome exerts control. Centurions, slaves, and priests—no less human than Jesus—are forced to crucify him to perpetuate the Roman state. Jesus, on the other hand, reveals his ministry though nonviolence. When one of the slaves (so, one of the very people sent to arrest Jesus) loses an ear to the disciples. Jesus does not discriminate against the man because he’s on the other side. Where Rome’s violence divides people, Jesus’ nonviolence returns them to wholeness.

More personally, I was reminded while reflecting on this of Max Weber. Weber was a German sociologist and political theorist who came up with one of the most widely known definitions of the state (i.e., government). Weber defined the state as “a compulsory political organization… [which] upholds a claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force”. This may sound familiar, especially the concept of the monopoly of force or violence. To Weber, the monopoly on violence is the reason the government had authority. The state is empowered to raise taxes, enforce laws, build hospitals, raise armies, etc., because of the implicit threat a monopoly on violence provides.

I bring this up because I think Weber’s theory tells us something important both spiritually and conceptually about the government: the character of the state is fundamentally violent. In Rome, if you committed an act “against the state”, they crucified you. But we’ve all seen how the state uses violence against people in our own country—the murders of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and the six others who have died at the hands of ICE come to mind. These people stood up against the government, or were considered “illegal”, and were killed as a result. The details are different, of course, but the principle is the same. “Disobey us, and this will be you.”

Getting a degree in political science, I always assumed I’d wind up working for the government at some point. Because of that, I think I find this passage to be especially troubling for me.We all have a vision of what the world could be (I certainly do!), and the promise of the government is that you too could have the authority to make that vision a reality. I look at our current government, and at the harms they’ve inflicted against people of color, immigrants, queer people, and I am angry. I believe I can fix that. “They, of course, f****d it up,” I think, “but I will do it better.”

The problem is: I’m not sure I can. For example, I’ve long dreamed I’d work at the State Department one day. Diplomacy always seemed like a noble, exciting career, where I’d get to make the world better and promote peace (all while living in very cool places!). But the reality is complicated, because even the tools of diplomacy tend to be violent and coercive. The U.S. may want to end a dispute somewhere, but if that’s achieved by sanctioning other countries into economic ruin, how much good have we really done? And for whose benefit? Ours, or our country’s?

To me, this is the problem today’s scripture raises. I’ve spent four years studying how I might one day make the world a better place. Now, I am confronted with the fear that I have perhaps chosen the wrong method to do so. The Roman state crushed Jesus, who preached healing for the sick, welcome for the outcast, hope for the downtrodden. Who might I crush from my cushy, State Department office?

At the same time, despite my personal fears, I think this scripture is still good news for all of us. The message of healing and hope that Jesus preached did not need the state. Jesus did not need a bureaucracy to heal the sick, he needed only his hands. Jesus’ solutions to today’s problems don’t need the tools of the state—all they call for is for us to turn to the people closest to us and begin to care. While the policies of the state are carried out through violence, the good news is revealed through nonviolence.

I think this reading implies I may need to do some rethinking about my career path. And that’s okay. Because the promise it comes with is that the world I dream of can still be a reality—I just need to look to a different method to achieve it. Jesus’ promise is that the world we all dream of is possible, and we don’t need the state to do it. All we need is to set down the tools of violence, and to try for something better.

Will Clancy is a senior studying political science.