How many of you read the National Catholic Reporter? I’m going to tell you a story I read in the current issue. [NCR, Vol. 50, No.24, Sept. 12-25, 2014] It’s about a man and his family who live in an area outside of Bethlehem. His name is Daher Nassar, and his grandfather purchased land in that area in 1916 to build a farm for his family. At the time the area was part of the Ottoman Empire.
After the Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War I, the British took control, so the Nassars registered their land with the British. After World War II, the state of Israel was formed and the farm came under Jordanian control. They registered their land with Jordan. In 1967 Israel annexed the West Bank and the land became part of Israel. In the 70’s Jewish settlers began building towns on the hilltops of the West Bank and in the 80’s friction between Arab and Jewish neighbors escalated. The Nassar farm was vandalized several times. Water tanks, olive trees and other properties were targeted.
In 2002, 250 olive trees were destroyed. Considering that it takes 10 years for an olive tree to produce any fruit, this was a terrible loss for the family. But rather than retaliate or leave or wallow in their misery, the family decided to create a nonviolent resistance movement they call the Tent of Nations.
Daher’s brother, Daoud, says it like this: “We refuse to be victims,” and “we refuse to hate. No one can force us to hate. It’s easy to say; difficult to live, of course. For us, it is very difficult not to hate the situation like this. But…we are trying to distinguish between hating the other, and not accepting their actions. So we started a new way of [resistance] under the title ‘We Refuse to Be Enemies.’…We cannot overcome evil with more evil, we cannot overcome hatred with more hatred. This is our nonviolent, Christian way of resistance. It’s not a passive way; it’s an active way…We are trying to channel this negative energy in a constructive way.”
The Nassars are Lutherans in a sea of Jewish and Arab neighbors. After the Israeli military bulldozed an entire orchard on their farm in May, Daoud said: “We watch these trees grow up as our own children.” This is “a very dry environment. When you plant a tree you have to water it three times a week for the first two summers. All the work is done by hand.”
Through their organization, Tent of Nations, “almost 100 international volunteers came to help restore the orchard for planting this winter,” according to the NCR. Daoud told the reporter: “Of course, the vision is full of challenges and suffering, but we have to remember the suffering of the cross is not the end of the story. It is the pathway into a new situation. This is how we see it here. We do whatever we can within our capacities in this very difficult situation, and whatever we can achieve we try to invest in the new generation. That’s why we always say in small steps we can continue — together in small steps we will make a difference.”
Here is the Gospel of nonviolent resistance in action. Beneath all the politics surrounding the symbol of the cross in history we find its spiritual message to be continually true and life-giving. That message is about nonviolence in the face of violence. That is the REAL reason we “Exalt” the cross. The cross is a powerful reminder for us that the central symbol of Christianity is not about death, but about what gives life in difficult and even violent circumstances.
The cross reminds us of Jesus’ response to humiliation, injustice and violence; it reminds us that he did not strike back, did not avoid or run away, did not respond with anger, hate or resentment. Jesus stood humbly before his accusers and met their aggression and brutality in the full strength of his conscience and innocence. There was no bitterness or spite; there was only acceptance of their worldly power and compassion for their lack of understanding.
Today we read the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians. Paul’s entire theology can be summed up in two words: “Christ crucified.” These two words were his shorthand for nonviolent resistance to the imperial forces of his day. Crucifixion was reserved for those who challenged, defied or resisted domination by the Roman Empire. That Empire rested on a theological foundation fashioned by Caesar Augustus, its first undisputed Emperor. He proclaimed himself God, Son of God, Lord and Savior of the world. Paul, writing in 50 A.D., was the first to ascribe these titles to Jesus.
Rome’s entire theology of Empire crumbles under Paul’s theology of the cross. If God raised Jesus from the dead after the Empire executed him, then it is Jesus who is Lord, God who is God, not Caesar! The Empire has no power or justification in the end! Paul points directly to the cross and refutes that claim with all the passion of his formidable personality.
Preaching Christ crucified alongside his testimony that God raised Jesus from the dead, Paul underscore his point that the EMPEROR ISN’T GOD! This is what Paul’s theology is really about. Paul, the real Paul, is a traitor in the eyes of Rome. He is a radical thinker who promotes the cross as a nonviolent statement against the world’s many systems of injustice. According to Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, it is the radical Paul we encounter in his undisputed letters. [The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon]
The ways of the Empire, the ways of the world and the ways of the worldly wise do not achieve peace Paul tells the Corinthians in the today’s second reading. Domination, violence, subjugation and injustice of every kind belong to the imperial forces. Jesus nonviolently resisted these methods through the cross and destroyed the theology of Empire for all time.
The cross is about life and how to be faithful to life in a broken world. There is power and wisdom in its shadow, a wisdom the world has yet to embrace or understand. The Nassars, like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Bourgeois, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and so many other examples of respectful, nonviolent resistance in our day, hold up the cross as a way of speaking truth to power. Today we “Exalt” the cross of nonviolent resistance as a path to the transformation of our world.
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