Sunday’s first reading makes the judgment all the earth and all her people are evil. One man alone is just, Noah. The Lord God of the Old Testament was thus believed to have saved only that one man and killed everything else. When everything living is dead, that Lord God promises not to do that again. Don’t you believe him. Such Lord Gods will keep on killing. They will kill because they are conjured up by killers to make them and their killing holy. On pain of that killing they demand all people bow down and worship them. What becomes of we who will not worship such evil? And it is evil. Isn’t it? Not according to Bible believers. The Flood killing story is part of God’s saving action in the world. Killing is thus godly.
Do we know that killing has a godly history? Killing has been made holy through the ancient and still pervasive religion of Militarism. Militarism is a world-wide religion. It is the spawn of the three elements regarded as religion; cult, creed, and code. Cult is the worship of supreme dominating beings (Yahweh, Allah, Moses, Muhammad, Patton, Obama, Trump, Putin). Creed is the belief the suffering these supremacists inflict is justified (floods, 10 plagues, austerity cuts, rape, racism). Code is their violent behaviors and the many weapons they use all being made holy (killing the Egyptians’ first born with a knife, crucifying Jesus on a cross, waging war using swords, guns, drones, …). To be blasphemous is to be unholy about holy things. It is to speak or act irreverently about God or religion. Let us consider who is our God and what is our religion by considering blasphemous questions. Which is more blasphemous, to say Jesus is not my savior or to say soldiers are not my saviors. Which is more blasphemous, to say I do not support Jesus or to say I do not support the troops? Which is more blasphemous, to say it is fiction that Jesus lived or to say it is a fact the military is killing us all off? Which strikes more fear into a Militarist’s heart – or do both – to say Jesus is a peacemaker or to say ‘We are coming to take your guns’? Following an unarmed peacemaker is the most blasphemous of acts in a warmaking society. Peacemakers courageously speak and act irreverently about War Lord gods, their soldiers and their weapons, and the violent religion of Militarism that has invented them all and keeps them holy. We are therefore not only challenging a particular weapon in these days after yet another school shooting (MSD Parkland, Florida). We are challenging the religion of Militarism; its violent god and the ‘good guys with guns’ who believe they are justified by that god in the killing they do. They say we must live under Militarism’s dominating relationship model. “We call B.S.” They say we must live with Militarism’s justification of suffering. “We call B.S.” They say we must live with Militarism’s sanctified violence. “We call B.S.” Our challenge is great. We are challenging the religion of the world, Militarism.
To be evil is to be adversarial, to life. Sunday’s first reading on Noah’s evil Yahweh who is adversarial to life, is our signal to move into a time of life – Spring, sometimes called Lent. We can face an old desert image of an evil god, appearing in the form of a devil, and we can proclaim a new spring filled life-giving one. Militarism’s commentaries interpret Jesus’ desert time as a victory over evil – but they are the evil he dissolves. Jesus is sent into the desert by the Spirit to be energized in his mission to take on Militarism, a devilish religion. He does so. Should we decide, we can be energized for that same powerful mission and bring about a peaceamaking spirituality.
Prayer: Spirit of Peace, energize us for life ahead
Question: How does it make sense that Militarism is a religion?
February 18, 2018 Gospel Mark 1:12-15 First Sunday of Lent