Every Advent brings a switch in the particular Gospel to be read for the coming year; Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. This is a problem when the slated Gospel is Mark because Mark has no infancy narrative to raise our awareness of Jesus’ coming birth. Thus, Sunday’s Gospel is instead raising our awareness of Jesus’ coming death. The Gospel reading concerns our awareness of three things; violence by rulers, the signs of the times, and being hopeful. Jesus is aware of the violence rulers routinely practice and promote as salvific. The signs of the times indicate the rulers will be using violence against Jesus. Jesus is hopeful his life witness will endure. The Gospel is thus pertinent in these Ferguson filled days of awareness; of violence by rulers, of the signs of the times, and of hope.
Practicing violence as a saving act is an inherent element of the ruling class. It is an inherent element in the military system they have constructed. A military system consists of a class of commanders who rule over a subservient class of soldiers and police. These subservient class members willingly follow their commander’s orders to harm and kill common people. Military and police personnel are trained less as social servants, less as peace promoters, and more as armed enforcers for the ruling class and their military system. We are all of us propagandized by Militarism, also to value its value of violence. This is especially true of young men; especially white young men given the U.S.’s white supremacist culture. Men are routinely influenced and trained in Militarism’s qualities of domination, justified suffering, and salvific violence. This social truth is all very troubling. It is especially troubling in a current sign of the times, the killing of a black man, Michael Brown, by a white police officer, Darren Wilson, in Ferguson, Missouri. The two men may not have been so very different from each other. They may have been equally influenced toward violence and to believe it is a saving act. Granting that influence, however, only one man was trained for it, only one man practiced its deadliness, police officer Darren Wilson. Even if the man victimized by official violence violently retaliated, there is no proof he did, it would be important to understand the difference between them. A follower of Jesus, Dom Helder Camara (1909-1999) was aware of the rulers system of violence, of the signs of the times, and was hopeful. Camara wrote about a Spiral of Violence and it having three stages: First, “You will find that everywhere … injustices are a form of violence. One can and must say that they are … basic violence, violence No. 1. … This established violence, this violence No. 1, attracts violence No. 2, revolt, either of the oppressed themselves or of youth, … Generally in the world today the oppressed are opening their eyes.” “And then comes repression. When conflict comes out into the streets, when violence No. 2 tries to resist violence No. 1, the authorities consider themselves obliged to preserve or re-establish public order, even if this means using force; this is violence No. 3.” The Spiral of Violence is a viscous cycle put into operation by the U.S. military system and specifically in Ferguson Missouri. It needs to be replaced by a virtuous revolution, the Spiral of Peace. The Spiral of Peace establishes peacemaking, processes discord, and reestablishes peacemaking.
There is every reason to believe that Darren Wilson, Michael Brown, and all the rest of us are, to varying degrees, caught up in a spiral of violence. This is likely because we live in a culture that believes violence is a saving act rather than believing Jesus’ peacemaking is a saving act. We need to be aware of rulers violence, of the signs of the times, and of being hopeful. Our hope can be in our commitment to peacemaking as the world’s saving practice.
Prayer: Spirit of Peace, give us the courage to practice peacemaking.
Question: How aware am I of being conditioned toward violence as a saving practice and away from peacemaking as a saving practice?
November 30, 2014 Gospel Mark 13:33-37 First Sunday of Advent