Dorothy Sayers, "Why Work"

This is a marvelous essay, think I'll include various quotes for a few days...

In nothing has the Church so lost Her hold on reality as in Her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to find that, as result, the secular work of the world is turned to purely selfish and destructive ends, and that the greater part of the world’s intelligent workers have become irreligious, or at least, uninterested in religion.

But is it astonishing? How can any one remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life? The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.

Love and violence

“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matthew 5:44)

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount teaching on the advance of his kingdom through hearts transformed by love obviously has far-reaching consequences, in our families, our communities and nation, and our world. I shared Sunday about “creative non-violent engagement” as Jesus’ “Third Way” of responding to evil (rather than violence or withdrawal), and how often we “do violence” in our hearts when we do not (cannot) love our neighbor, let alone our enemy.

Ultimately, Jesus lived this to the full when he went to the cross, neither violently attacking those in power nor running away into the Judean desert. Along the way to the cross he taught us, in Matthew 18, how to engage one another when we experience conflict, offense, or sin in our relationships. In essence, he said, “creatively and non-violently engage one another (and guard your heart in this process!); don’t attack, don’t hide; go and talk face to face seeking restoration and reconciliation, if that doesn’t work then slowly expand the circle of people committed to bringing about restoration and reconciliation… trust me, and know this, I’ll authorize your loving and courageous engagement, I’ll hear your prayers, and truly, I’ll be there in the midst of you.”

I’ve been thinking of an old and beautiful song that came out of the Jesus movement called “Charity” by Kenn Gullicksen (check it out on YouTube). It’s basically 1 Corinthians 13. The refrain is my prayer for me and for us:

If I have not charity

If love does not flow from me

I am nothing

Jesus reduce me to love

peaceful overseers, righteous taskmasters...

We've been talking in church some about the Kingdom of God, and seeing how it has everything to do with the Redemption and Reign of God (cf. Dwight Pryor); the context is virtually always with regard to the captivity or affliction or bondage of God's people and creation.

Here's a clear and beautiful connection, from Isaiah 60, with regard to the Kingdom of God being about redemption from bondage unto the reign of a gracious Savior King:

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
2 For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will be seen upon you.
3 And nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your rising...

16 and you shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior
and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

17 Instead of bronze I will bring gold,
and instead of iron I will bring silver;
instead of wood, bronze,
instead of stones, iron.
I will make your overseers peace
and your taskmasters righteousness.
18 Violence shall no more be heard in your land,
devastation or destruction within your borders;
you shall call your walls Salvation,
and your gates Praise.

Andre Trocme - Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution

Here are some comments from the Introduction to Andre Trocme's "Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution." Andre Trocme was a French pastor during WWII, whose community sheltered and helped safely transport thousands of Jews to safety. The end of this reminds me both of our Matthew study discussion of Jesus' Third Way (Walter Wink) in reference to Jesus' arrest in the Gethsemane, and of Isaiah 58 which we discussed yesterday in church:


"Yet, as Trocmé shows, Jesus refused both the way of violence and of spiritual quietism. He called for practical changes but rejected violence as a means of achieving social change. Instead he articulated and exemplified a way of life that obviates the kind of social order that produces injustice and poverty, and the violence inherent in them. Jesus’ nonviolence was not a philosophy or a tactic, but a matter of obedience to God.

"Trocmé makes it clear that Jesus should be the center of the church’s life and practice, not nonviolence or revolution or justice. Jesus’ nonviolent revolution, and ours, is rooted in the cross. Jesus was ready to sacrifice his “cause,” the liberation of his people, for the sake of a single human being in need of healing. Human need–be it physical, emotional, spiritual, or social–was Jesus’ reason for being, and should be ours. Jesus’ sacrifice makes possible a new social order where human lives are dignified with justice, uplifted in compassion, and nurtured by peace." (p. x)

Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution is available at Plough Press as a free downloadable ebook.