Jesus lives in a culture dominated by the religion of Militarism, practiced by both Rome and Israel. Militarism is known by its cult of worshiping War Lord supremacists, by its creed of inflicting suffering on enemies, and by its code of sanctified violence. Jesus transforms the world by telling the people, “To you who listen… love your enemies.”
Jesus of Nazareth, a person of color, has a learned disciple in another man of color, James Lawson. Lawson too lives in a culture dominated by the religion of Militarism, the U.S. He knows all too well its cult of supremacy, specifically its white supremacy, its creedal belief that white people have the right to inflict suffering on people of color, and its code of ethics that sanctifies the violence people who are white do to people of color. Lawson was born in the Jim Crow North in 1928 and from an early age was challenged with learning to love those who treated him as an enemy. Abused as a child by a white boy inflicting a racial slur, he physically fought the other boy. Upon telling his mother, she did not laud his victory. She spoke to him of the love of Jesus. He listened as she told him, “Jimmy there has to be a better way.” James Lawson set out to learn that better way. His United Methodist Church and its youth program was a great help by instilling in him his responsibility for witnessing the loving ministry of Jesus in the world. As an adult, he rejected his registration for the draft. He then spent 14 months in a hostile place designed by Militarists for suffering; he was sentenced to jail for refusing to kill people during the U.S. war in Korea. He had listened to Jesus and had thus learned to love his enemies. He became a United Methodist minister and decided to spend two years learning more about love in Gandhi’s land of India. Gandhi, a Hindu, was also a learned disciple of Jesus and a tactician in non-violence. Lawson knew Gandhi’s nonviolent revolution which, among other elements, addressed the segregating enslavement of untouchables, could be applied in the U.S. The U.S. has the same segregating enslavement of Blacks targeting African Americans with weapons of inequality, hostility, mass incarceration, police brutality, systemic discrimination, and violence. Arriving 5 years after Gandhi’s assassination by a militant Hindu nationalist, Lawson met with and listened to the people who had been a part of the nonviolent struggle. He was then methodical in applying the strategies of nonviolence when he returned to the U.S. He did so just as the Civil Rights Movement was emerging. He listened to its young leaders and joined with Bayard Rustin, Diane Nash, Gloria Richardson, and others in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, with John Lewis, Fred Shuttlesworth, C.T. Vivian, Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and numerous others. Lawson led weekly trainings in nonviolence. He invited various leaders as well as youth to learn the theory of nonviolence and its creative strategizing that could make changes in the U.S. culture of segregation. His students listened as Lawson taught them love in action. Participants went forth to engage in boycotts, freedom rides, marches, sit-ins, walk-outs, and many other direct-action strategies to create the egalitarian and loving world they sought. They have been doing so for decades. We are beneficiaries of the love in action Lawson and his friends and students have given their lives to creating. Their love is sometimes forgotten, sometimes ignored, sometimes belittled in this white supremacist nation that tends not to listen to love. James Lawson, at 93 years old, listens still. He listens still as a civil rights activist, disciple of Jesus, student of Gandhi, labor rights advocate, radio host, pastor, scholar, and, especially, as a lover.
“Commit your life to being a lover… for the rest of your days, cultivating the heart, the soul, the mind, the capacity of life. Living out the meaning of what it is to see your neighbor as you see yourself… move into the areas of love, and life beyond your present imagination.” “So, be that life singularity, that life force, that energy of love and truth. May I then urge you to be a human being who is a citizen of the human race. Learn the power of life, the power of love.” “Let your life with others create the world.” (2021 Soka University Commencement – James Lawson)
Prayer: Spirit of love, thank you for the love witness of Black activists.
Question: How well do I listen to love? How often do I put love into action?
Feb 20, 2022 Gospel Luke 6:27-38 Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time