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Will you give some practical suggestions as to ways to
implement opposition to war and our giving of ourselves
to some positive alternative to war?
Clarence's Answer:
I think first we've got to make
up our minds that we're not going to fight! Now, that
might be a negative thing, but it can be a very positive
king of thing. I remember one time when my wife
and I were coming from the roadside market, and we had come
around a curve on a lonely country road, and I was just
thinking about how we ought not to be coming along that
way, that it was too narrow a road with too many overhanging
limbs. And as I came around the curve, I noticed
a pickup truck down at the bottom of the hill, and as we
approached, it pulled over right quick into the middle of
a little one-way bridge and stopped. When the fellow
in it got out with a shotgun, I remembered right quick what
Jesus said, that if any man smite you on the right cheek,
turn to him both cheeks. And I put that car
in reverse. I got out of there. Now, that
might not be a positive approach to the problem, but I don't
see any point in arguing with a man who can win the argument
with a slight pressure of his finger. So, one
thing we've got to do is make up our minds we are
NOT going to be participants in annihilating mankind.
Now maybe that is a negative thing, but it's a negative
action that has to be taken. And in taking it,
I think it will be some pretty positive action.
In the next place, I think we need to realize that
Christ has called us to a way of life that is dangerous,
and that we should get on with the living of that kind of
life. Wars are generally fought for material things;
they're not fought over ideals. After we get into
them, we are told we are fighting for ideals. We are
fighting for oil and tin and rubber and markets, and as
long as we insist on a standard of life that is so high
above all the rest of the world, we're going to have to
pay for our standard of living with a lot of blood.
I think we ought to re-examine the fact that Jesus was a
pauper, and we should be committing ourselves to a very
humble, simple way of life.
Then I think we can engage in
this business of trying to redeem mankind and give them
a new idea that men can be brothers. It's an important
idea. Martin (England), you remember when you-all
were down at Koinonia, your boy, John, was collecting stamps?
They'd been over in Burma, and he had some stamps from Burma,
and I think he had some from Japan, and the school principal
went into John England's desk one day and got his stamp
collection and took it to the county school superintendent,
and told him that he had evidence that Koinonia was a spy
nest, that we were getting mail from Japan and all these
other countries. There was quite a good bit
of investigation going on there for a while.
I remember after that blew over
(I think it was after you-all left), some guy who had read
all about this came out to Koinonia (this was during World
War II), and he said, "You know what I don't like about
you folks?" I could have named quite a few things,
but I asked him what. And he said, "I don't
like it 'cause you won't fight." I said, "Buddy,
you've got that wrong." He said, "You fight?"
"Yes, sir," I said, "we'll fight."
He said, "Well, I heard you wouldn't." "Well,"
I said, "we don't fight that way ." "Oh,
then you won't fight." I said, "Wait a minute
now." And I looked out across there and saw an
old mule with his head stuck out the old barn that was about
to fall down, and I said to this fellow, "Suppose you
walked by the barn out there right now, and that old mule
reached out and bit you in the seat of the britches, would
you bite him back?" "No, I ain't no mule!"
I said, "Of course you wouldn't, and you've given the
reason also why you wouldn't bite him back, because you're
not a mule. "What would you do?" He
said, "I'd get me a two by four, and I'd beat his brains
out."
"Sure you would,"
I said, "you wouldn't let the mule choose the weapons,
would you? You'd fight him, but you'd do it on your
terms, not his. Suppose you'd say, 'Well, old mule,
I ain't scared to fight. You bare your teeth, I'll
bare mine; you bite me, I'll bite you; you kick me, I'll
kick you. You'll lose! Now," I said, "you've
got to choose some weapons that a mule can't compete with.
You go to the jungle and fight a lion and say, 'Old lion,
let's fight. I feel good today.' Old lion say,
'Okay, let's fight with fang and claw, that's all, let's
go.' The man will not exert his superiority over the
lion. He's got to choose the weapons."
I said, "Now, we will fight, sir, but we will choose
the weapons." He said, "What kind of weapons
you got?" I said, "We'll fight with humility.
But we're not going to fight with the devil's weapons, because
if we do, the devil can whip us."
HE DIDN'T GET THE POINT, BUT I
THINK THERE WAS A POINT THERE.
Click here for the text of Clarence
Jordan's PEACE AND BROTHERHOOD sermon.
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Christianity
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