Jesus is cautioning listeners about rulers, “They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.”
The heaviest of burdens laid upon people’s shoulders is the annihilating weaponry rulers keep producing. Not only will rulers not lift a finger to move them, rulers keep adding to their numbers and to their lethality and thus to their burdensome weight on all humanity. The Biden Administration’s Department of Defense recently announced a new nuclear weapon is slated for production. It is another in the line of B61 gravity bombs. The B61-13 has a much higher maximum yield which will result in significantly greater radioactive fallout. The design enables soldiers to kill a great many more innocent people than the previous B61-12 bomb. Also, people in the strike range need not worry about building bunkers and survival tunnels because the bomb’s earth penetration capabilities will be enhanced enabling the bomb to destroy deeper underground targets. The Department of Defense (DOD) assures the people of the United States it is lightening the worrisome load of their death and destruction because it is laying a heavier worrisome load on all others for death and destruction. The DOD assures people the B61-13 “provides us with additional flexibility” by “providing the President with additional options” in warfare that “provide greater kill range and kill depth. The people do not need heavier nuclear gravity bombs. The earth does not need heavier nuclear gravity bombs. The only people who need the bombs are the rulers and their soldiers. Rulers lay the heaviest of burdens upon the people’s shoulders and do not lift a finger to move them. When will the people reject the politicians who devise the weapons, refuse payment of the war taxes that afford the weapons, and stop supporting the troops trained to use the weapons?
‘I have come to you not just for the stoppage of nuclear proliferation, nuclear plants, nuclear bombs, nuclear waste, but to stop the proliferation of nuclear minds, of nuclear generals, of nuclear presidents, of nuclear scientists, who spread nuclear waste and human waste all over the world.’ (Reflections after the June 12th March of Disarmament – Sonia Sanchez)
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, teach us that we are all brothers and sisters to one another.
Question: What does peacemaking mean to me?
November 05, 2023 Gospel Matthew 23:1-12 Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time