Luke 19:41-48
“As he came near and
saw the city, he wept over it, saying ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on
this day the things that make for peace’!”
I am moved by today’s reading. Jesus
weeps over Jerusalem and its inhabitants because they just don’t get it.
Because they don’t understand Jesus’ message, he “predicts” the destruction of
the city and the Temple. He “foresees” that the enemy will crush the nation “to
the ground.” In their spiritual blindness, they don’t recognize God’s
non-violent alternative for the ordering of society, nor what makes peace
possible. Instead, as the end of today’s reading illustrates, the leaders are
addicted to violence: they seek ways to kill Jesus.
I am moved by today’s reading because I see all the ways I just don’t get it
either. I am reminded of the violence that wells up inside me, or the way I
fall into tribalism, carving the world into “us” versus “them.” I see how
prevalent this attitude is in our society and even in our churches. We just
don’t get it.
I am inspired by those who do seem to understand, and so they work for peace
and reconciliation in the midst of violence and militarism. Ruth Patterson
is a Presbyterian minister in Ireland who heads up Restoration Ministries, a
project to bring reconciliation between Ireland’s Catholics and Protestants.
She describes taking a group of Presbyterian elders to a closed convent of
Catholic nuns so that the two groups could meet one another. Some members of
her church had never met or even had a conversation with a Roman Catholic
before. After the initial anxiety of meeting, Ruth noticed that one of her
church elders was sobbing as he spoke with one of the nuns. The elder explained
later that he and this woman were from the same village, were intimately
familiar with the land and the farms, and yet because of the animosity between
the two religious groups, had never formed relationships across religious
lines. Through her ministry, Ruth is following the way of Jesus.
She teaches: “If you want to make peace, don’t talk to your friends, but talk
to your ‘enemies.’”
May we recognize what makes for peace.
-David Shumaker
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