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Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm John, Father John Deere, and this is a project

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of www.beattitudecenter.org where you can find many other podcasts and Zoom programs

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on the nonviolence of Jesus, practicing nonviolence, and working for a more just,

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more nonviolent world. I thought I would offer today a general reflection and overview on the

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nonviolence of Jesus and make ten essential points, which I'll probably go into more detail later on.

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Some of you may have heard this already, but we can never hear it enough. If you're interested

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in exploring this further, I recommend my latest book, The Gospel of Peace, A Commentary on Matthew,

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Mark, and Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence, as well as my other books on Jesus,

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The Beatitudes of Peace, Jesus as the Rebel, and Walking the Way.

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So let's begin with a little prayer. And so I invite you just wherever you are,

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just to take a deep breath and to relax, to notice how you're feeling as we

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turn to this reflection and invite you to enter back into the presence of the God of Peace,

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who loves you infinitely, personally. Let's welcome the nonviolent Jesus here into our hearts

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and ask for the grace to follow him ever more faithfully and to do God's will.

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God of Peace, thank you for all the blessings of life, love, and peace that you give us.

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Be with us as we reflect on the nonviolence of Jesus. Inspire us to be true to you,

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inspire us, disarm us, heal us, and help us to become more nonviolent like him. That we might

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do your will and do our part to help end war, poverty, racism, nuclear weapons,

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environmental destruction, and all violence. That we might welcome your reign of universal

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love, compassion, and peace, and be who you created us to be, your holy peacemakers,

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beloved sons and daughters. We ask this mighty blessing in Jesus' name, amen.

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So, Gandhi and Dr. King spent their whole lives, morning, noon, and night, calling us to be people

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of active, creative, consistent, steadfast, dedicated, relentless, truthful, prayerful,

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loving, troublemaking, public, daring nonviolence. They described nonviolence as a whole new way of

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life, and then as a political methodology for social transformation, and then as a spiritual path,

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and then as power, the power of God at our disposal to help disarm the world if we dare

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step up to the plate. They proved that active, creative nonviolence is a much better way of

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ending violent conflict and ending wars than anything else that we're doing in the world,

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and a way of sowing seeds for a future of universal peace. So, in light of their teachings,

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what we want to do is figure out how to become more nonviolent ourselves and work to create a

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culture of nonviolence and educate every human being on the planet in nonviolent conflict

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resolution, and even develop a new theology and spirituality of nonviolence, and fund and build

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whole new structures of nonviolence. That's where we're headed, Gandhi said. And so, Gandhi said

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nonviolence is way beyond the refusal to hurt or kill. It's active love and truth as a force for

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positive social change that always works. And this is where the rubber hits the road, because it uses

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the method of suffering love, ultimately, to melt the human heart and disarm humanity, to disarm

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liberate the oppressed and oppressors together. So, here's my definition. Active nonviolence

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begins with a vision of reconciled humanity, the reign of God in our midst, the truth that all life

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is sacred, we're all one, we're all equal, all ready sisters and brothers. And so, we can never

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hurt or kill anyone again, much less remain silent in the face of war and poverty and global

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destruction. So, nonviolence is not passivity. There's nothing passive about the nonviolence

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of Gandhi or Dr. King. It's a political methodology that ultimately involves organizing bottom-up

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people power grassroots movements to confront systemic violence, even empires, as Gandhi showed

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getting the British to leave India nonviolently, as Dr. King showed through the civil rights movement,

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bringing down the segregation laws nonviolently. So, it's organized love pursuing the truth of our

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common humanity that stands up and resists the systems and structures of injustice and evil,

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and persistently reconciles with everyone, and that calls for unconditional, all-inclusive,

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all-encompassing, non-retaliatory, universal love. Isn't this exciting? With one catch,

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there is no cause, however noble, for which we will ever again support the killing of a single

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human being, much less support the mass murder of warfare. We don't kill people. We don't kill

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people who kill people to show that you shouldn't kill people. We don't support our countries in

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its projects of killing people. And instead of killing others, we are willing to give our lives

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in the struggle for justice and peace to stop all the killings. And we work out the root causes of

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killing and warfare to educate every human being in nonviolence and to institutionalize nonviolence.

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And Gandhi discovered that nonviolence is at the heart of every religion. So, he came to this

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shocking statement. I'm going to read it. It's still awesome to me. Devotion to nonviolence

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is the highest expression of humanity's conscious state. Wow! Do you agree with that? I think it's

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true. Well, so, in light of Gandhi and Dr. King, when you turn to the life of Jesus, they say

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that the scandal of the four Gospels is clearly that Jesus was totally nonviolent,

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the greatest person of nonviolence in history, Gandhi said. That God, according to Jesus then,

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is a God of total nonviolence, and that the Gospel of Jesus demands that every human being

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is called to become totally nonviolent, like Gandhi and Dr. King and Dorothy Day and all the saints

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and peacemakers of history. That the church and all the churches are supposed to be a global

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community of Gospel nonviolence. Wow! Not a church that supports war or blesses violence of any kind,

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under any condition, for whatever justification. So, when Gandhi says that Jesus never hurt anybody

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or never supported hurting or killing anyone, that he was totally nonviolent, he's saying therefore,

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as he wrote many ways and many times, Jesus had to be totally against the Roman Empire,

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which was killing and oppressing millions of people, and the religious establishment

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which blessed the empire and collaborated with it to make money off of the oppression of millions

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of people. So, Jesus could not be passive. He taught active, creative nonviolence, built a

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grassroots movement, a campaign of nonviolence, and the outcome could only be his inevitable

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arrest and execution by the empire. But the Gospels show that I think anyone can be violent,

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but it takes real courage and power and faith and trust in the living God to be totally nonviolent

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and go forward publicly into the world of violence like Jesus did with his vision of a whole new world

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of nonviolence. And that's what the Gospel calls about. And there's so much to talk about,

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and I've been talking about this for 45 years, but here's what I came up with, like 10 essential

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points, angles to look on the life of Jesus as presented in the four Gospels. First,

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well, the first public words of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, the first thing he said

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publicly, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the Gospel. Who says that today?

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I think this is total revolution, that he's saying, today I'm announcing the revolution

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of nonviolence is at hand. Renounce the Roman Empire, therefore the American Empire,

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and join me in welcoming God's reign of universal love and total nonviolence here on earth starting

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today. So change your life and get with the program. Now, remember, the Gospels are the

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first of the four Gospels. Now, remember, after every Roman army imperial victory,

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the Roman troops would march into the next town and what? They would proclaim the Gospel

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of Caesar. Hey, we've just killed another thousand people and taken over another region for

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Caesar, and this is the good news of Caesar. So when the Synoptics say Jesus is announcing

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God, it's in direct opposition to the Roman Empire and every empire since. In other words,

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the days of empire and the culture of violence and war are over. A new world of nonviolence,

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what he called the kingdom of God, the reign of God, is at hand. The word repent, well,

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in the Greek metanoia actually means not what we say it means today in the mainstream, it means

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turn around and go in the opposite direction you're going in. Now think about that. He's

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saying where everyone, millions of people are going right along with the world of culture and

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the Roman Empire and you do what you're told, otherwise you're going to get in trouble.

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He says turn around and go against the maddening crowd, the whole world as it goes along with the

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Roman Empire, the American Empire, the Russian or Chinese Empire. A translation of this would mean

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renounce the United States. We are done with its wars, racism, violence, nuclear weapons,

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destruction, and we are pursuing and living in God's reign of universal love and peace. We are

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citizens from now on in God's kingdom, not in the Roman Empire or the American Empire. So this has

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huge political consequences. Well, this really was good news for the poor oppressed people.

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He's saying you don't have to go along with empire anymore. We're going to build a grassroots

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movement like Gandhi and Dr. King and bring down the Roman Empire, which by the way, the early

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Christians did nonviolently. So that's the message and that's what he trained the disciples to say.

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And so the question for you is, for all of us, how are we doing with this command? How can we

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turn away today from America and seek first God's reign of universal love and peace and nonviolence

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from now on? Do you want God's reign or are you quite comfortable living off the comforts

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of the first world American Empire? How do you proclaim this? The way I've been doing it

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over the course of my life is I learned this from the abolitionists 200 years ago.

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Those people, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass were amazing. They literally said around

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1820 in one famous launching of the movement, today we are announcing the abolition of slavery.

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Well, that's what Jesus did. And so we're saying today in 2025, today we are announcing

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the abolition of war and nuclear weapons and corporate greed and gun violence and systemic

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racism and environmental destruction and global poverty and the coming of a whole new culture

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of justice, nonviolence and peace. This is our work and this is what we're going to be talking

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about for the rest of our lives. Point number two, all of the teachings of Jesus are about

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total nonviolence. I'm convinced of this now having really studied Gandhi and Dr. King

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that they were right. He's practicing nonviolence, promoting nonviolence, calling us to work for a

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more nonviolent world and teaching nonviolence left and right. I could go on forever about this.

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What does he mean when he says other than total nonviolence in these teachings? Love your neighbor,

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love one another, love yourself, love God, show compassion to every human being like God,

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seek justice for the poor, liberate the oppressed, forgive everyone, do unto others as you'd have

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them do unto you, turn the other cheek, take up the cross and the nonviolent struggle for

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justice and peace. There's no greater love than to lay down our lives in love for humanity.

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So, you know, as I said when I talked about the Beatitudes, the climax of the Sermon on the Mount

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is blessed with the peacemakers. They're the sons and daughters of God. That's the beginning

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of the Sermon on the Mount. But then he goes on, and I'm going to do a podcast about these

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two climactic teachings later on, and he says, well, first he says,

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you have heard it said, thou shalt not kill. I say to you, do not even get angry at another.

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And here's the commandment, instead go be reconciled. So, he's getting deep into the

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roots of the violence, the roots causes of war in our own hearts, and he says, oh, you're angry,

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you go and make amends with all the people you've hurt who are angry at you. This is deep.

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But then it leads to, you've heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,

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which Gandhi said just makes the whole world blind and toothless.

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But I say to you, and this is the fundamental teaching of the gospel,

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offer no violent resistance to one who does evil. That is the teaching of nonviolence.

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And Gandhi read that sentence from Matthew chapter 5 every morning and every evening for

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the last 45 years of his life. And he's the one who took it seriously and unpacked it and discovered

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that it wasn't just meant for us personally, but for communities and nations in the whole world.

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It's powerful. The world says you can only respond to violence in two ways.

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You respond to violence by using violence, or you do nothing and be passive or run away.

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And Jesus comes in with a third way, a third option, active, creative, nonviolent resistance.

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You don't run away from the threat of violence. You stand your ground, but you creatively respond

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to your opponent with love and truth, trusting in the Spirit of God to work through you to disarm

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the opponent until you're reconciled. And you go, well, that's never going to happen. That's what

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all the peacemakers in history have tried. And it works if you try it. It's certainly been my

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personal experience. And Gandhi proved it can be worked on a national level, and now we're seeing

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it being played out if you look carefully throughout the last century. But that's not even the climax

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of the teachings. He says, you have heard it said, love your countrymen and hate your enemies.

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But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for your persecutors. Then you will really be sons

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and daughters of the God who lets the sun rise on the good and the bad and the rain to fall on the

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just and the unjust. So this is the climactic teaching of Jesus. Notice he doesn't say, by the

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way, they're, however, if they're really bad and you follow these seven conditions, bomb the hell

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out of them. There is no such thing as a just war here in the Sermon on the Mount. There's no excuse

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for killing or warfare. Christians are forbidden to participate in war or in any military ever again.

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So I think this sentence not only outlaws war and killing. Actually, I think it undoes the whole

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nation-state system because it's calling us to universal love. We're all one with everybody. It's

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so beautiful. But did you listen to what he said? Here in the most political sentence in the entire

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Bible, love your enemies. No more war, no more nation-states. Here in this political sentence,

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I submit Jesus gives us the best description of the nature of the mystery of God in the whole Bible.

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I already said it to you. Why do we do this? Jesus says, well, didn't we just agree you are

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sons and daughters of God? You are the sons and daughters, listen to this, the God who lets the

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sun rise on the good and the bad and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. In other words,

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God practices universal, generous, all-inclusive, all-encompassing, nonviolent love. Jesus here

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describes the nature of God as totally nonviolent. And he says, well, if you are son and daughter

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of God, this is what you do. You practice universal love. You go into the world of war and make peace

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and you live out your true identity as the beloved sons and daughters of God. So, my question as we

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reflect on this is, how have you been offering no violent resistance to one who does evil?

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How do you practice nonviolent resistance today in a world on the brink of global destruction?

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How are you loving the enemies of your nation-state? And most of us listening, the enemies of the

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United States government. Is your God nonviolent? Do you want a God of nonviolence? If Jesus is your

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Lord and Savior, shouldn't we obey these commandments of total nonviolence and universal love?

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Why not? What's holding us back? Third, then Jesus goes and organizes a grassroots bottom-up

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people power movement of nonviolence. It's actually more like a nonviolent military campaign,

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like Gandhi's salt march, really like Dr. King on the march from Selma to Montgomery.

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And it's very clear, all this is in Luke 10, and this is critically important, I think,

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in the life of Jesus. I don't know of anyone in my whole life I've ever heard talk about this,

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and yet here it is. Go study it, Luke 10. He sends 72 people in pairs ahead of him.

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Well, that's classic labor movement organizing. Jesus is just a movement organizer. Here's the

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sentence, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. As I always say when I talk about

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this, are there any questions? You know, have you ever thought about a little tiny lamb surrounded

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by, let's say, 100 starving wolves? That's Jesus' image of you and I as disciples. And that's why

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the early church talked about him as a good shepherd, his flock, his sheep, but then named

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him as the Lamb of God. This is very rich. So we're supposed to be totally nonviolent,

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building a movement, and he says you're to do three things. It's amazing. And they totally apply

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today. Number one, you're to heal all those wounded by the culture of violence. Well, that's

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what we're all trying to do, isn't it? We're all wounded now. Every human being is wounded by

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violence in one form or another, whether from our families and our childhood or from the culture of

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racism and sexism to just dealing with a culture of war and nuclear weapons and now climate change.

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Number two, you're to expel all the demons of violence. Well, that's not brain surgery.

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He's just saying free each other from your allegiance to empire and war and weapons.

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You don't have to be stuck in the Roman Empire anymore or in America and all its lies and myths.

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You're free now to live in the new life of nonviolence and peace. And three, you're to

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proclaim God's reign of peace and nonviolence is at hand. Isn't that what Dr. King did in 1963?

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I have a dream. A new day is coming when we're all reconciled. So it's so beautiful. So he

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sends us all forth as innocent, gentle, nonviolent lambs into the culture of violence to proclaim

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God's reign of total nonviolence and universal love. How have you been doing this with your life?

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How are you carrying on that mission today? Fourth, so the movement is going to Jerusalem.

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He's marching to Jerusalem. He gets closer. He sees Jerusalem. And what does he do?

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He breaks down sobbing. And here's the teaching. If today you had only understood the things that

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make for peace, that's why Jesus weeps. And if we're his followers and we're people of nonviolence,

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we're weeping over the world today. Gaza, Israel, Ukraine, Russia, Yemen, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan,

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all the world's violence, all have 13,000 nuclear weapons, the war on children, the war on the poor,

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the war on Mother Earth. Now, what should the disciples have done? What should we do?

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It seems to me they should have tried to comfort the poor guy and say,

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hey, Jesus, we want to be the holy people who learn from you the things that make for peace.

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So remember that the Roman Empire marched in, we all know this, it's historically documented,

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in the year 70, and they totally destroyed Jerusalem. So Mark's Gospel is written just

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after that, Matthew and Luke, I'm sorry, Mark is written just before that, and Matthew and Luke

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are written just after that. And that's where they frame this moment. Well, today, friends,

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Jerusalem is the whole world. We're on the verge of destroying the whole planet in a culture,

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in a world of permanent warfare, nuclear weapons, corporate greed, and environmental destruction.

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And who's talking about or trying to learn the things that make for peace? So I invite us to

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really hear this moment, which is very important, I think, in the life of Jesus, and say, well,

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if they didn't do that, then you and I want to do that. We want to be the people, Jesus,

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who learn and teach the things that make for peace. And that means the Sermon on the Mount,

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where he outlined it all, the practices of nonviolence, and how we can dismantle empire

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and end war and injustice, and even imperialism and all of militarism, and create a more just,

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more nonviolent world. That's our agenda for the rest of our lives. Fifth, now, normally,

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if that were us, we'd give up. You know, you break down crying, there's nothing that can be done.

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No, that's not the nonviolent Jesus. Just at this moment, he takes action, and he marches into

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Jerusalem, into the temple, and engages in nonviolent civil disobedience at the place where

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the empire works with the religious authorities to bless and control the people, to make them

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pay all their life savings to worship God, but to have to pay all this money to the religious

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authorities, and therefore the temple is a total racket. And, you know, Jerusalem goes from 30,000

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people a year to 150,000 people a year. They're all marching in, and you have to pay to get,

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you know, have a lamb slaughtered for you to appease the God of war, or you unholy, unclean,

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poor people. Okay, you can buy a dove. And Jesus says, no, this is a house of prayer,

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no more injustice. And he nonviolently turns over the tables of the money changers and prevents

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people from coming and going. That's why I've been arrested 85 times throughout my life. He

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just does a sit-in. It lasts for about five minutes. He doesn't hit anybody, hurt anybody,

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kill anybody, or drop any bombs. But he's not passive. He disturbs the false peace of empire

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and injustice blessed by the religious structures and says, no more injustice.

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Basically, he gave his life calling for justice. And this is the person we claim to follow.

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You know, people are already arguing with me. I can hear you, what you're thinking. No, he made

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a whip. No, Matthew, Mark, Luke does not mention any whip. And it says, he spent the rest of the

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teaching. And there's massive crowds, thousands of people, and they all would have been struck

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silent. He would have done this act, and then he would have taught them the Sermon on the Mount

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about love and peace. No, it doesn't hurt people. And that's my experience in doing civil disobedience.

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It's John's gospel. Fifty years later, rewrites the whole story and begins his gospel. You

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remember, there's the wedding of Akhena, and the next thing you know, he's turning over tables in

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the temple. So, he rewrites the story, and he ends with the raisin of Lazarus. But there he has

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this line, he took cords and drove them all out. Actually, it's a very strange, long Greek word

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that basically means, he picked up a few strings of hemp. How do you get tens of thousands of

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animals up a five-story building? Well, if you're, you know, poor farmers, he took the hemp,

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and he opened the door, and he led the thousands of animals out. Instead of killing people or

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whipping people, he actually saved the animals. Don't get me started, he was also an animal rights

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activist, I think. He doesn't whip anybody. He's totally nonviolent. But if he's upset about the

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temple, what would he say about our plans to blow up the planet? The way we killed a hundred million

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people in the last century and vaporized people at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I mean, you know,

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if you really want to follow in all of this, in the last year and a half, as we funding Israel's

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genocide of Israel, the equivalent of two Hiroshima bombs have been dropped on that little 21-mile

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stretch of Gaza. You can research this yourself. What about climate change? What would he say

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about our plans to destroy the planet? What bold public nonviolent direct action have you been

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engaged at as a disciple of this most daring nonviolent person in history? That's the question.

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And what are we going to do now as things are getting worse? We grieve, and then we go forward

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and organize public nonviolent direct action. The plot thickens. Point six. It's Passover.

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They're in the upper room. He takes the bread, and what does he say? My body broken for you.

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He takes the cup, and what does he say? My blood shed for you. On bad days, dear friends,

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when I'm saying mass and recording these, you know, teaching these teachings,

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I think everybody in the world is confused and thinks Jesus is the Roman emperor or a Russian

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dictator or a good American general, as if Jesus says what? Go break their bodies for me.

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Go shed their blood for me. No, friends, listen to the methodology of nonviolence,

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which is communion, which is Eucharist. My body broken for you. My blood shed for you. Do this.

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Every time we participate in communion in Eucharist, we are entering into what the Gospel

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writers call the new covenant of nonviolence. Gandhi understood this. This is the methodology

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of Jesus, his preference to accept suffering and death rather than inflict suffering and death.

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We don't cooperate with the way of war and militarism and empire, whether it's the

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Roman Empire or the American Empire. We're done with that. You can't go to communion

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and have anything to do with war anymore, I think. Seventh, he's in Gethsemane. The soldiers arrive,

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and what does Peter think? He's going, oh my God, they're going to arrest our guy.

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We can't let this happen. We've got to protect the Holy One. And he's thinking,

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if there's ever a just war in all of human history, if violence is ever divinely sanctioned,

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this is the moment. I've got to do something. And he's right. So, just as he picks up the sword

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to go and kill to protect the Holy One, the commandment comes down. Put down the sword.

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Dear friends listening to this, these are the last words of Jesus to the church,

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to his community, to the 50 men and women around him before he died. It's the last thing they heard

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him say, and it's right there in the gospels, and no one's talking about it. And I think it's the

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very first time, let's say in three years, they understood how serious he is about this daring

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creative, active, demanding way of nonviolence. And they realized, oh my God, he's serious about

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that. Yeah, we can defend ourselves, but we can't use violence to defend ourselves. We have to use

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nonviolence to defend ourselves. So, what do they do? They all run away. Mark is very clear.

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Everyone, every single one of them, abandoned him. And Jesus, he's going to be the last one to

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come. And Jesus is arrested and tortured and taken away. That's why I consider Jesus the bravest,

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most courageous person who ever lived. So, let me ask you my questions.

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Who are you taking up the sword against? How is Jesus asking you to put down the sword today,

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whether the gun or supporting America's wars? How have you run away from the nonviolent Jesus,

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precisely because of his nonviolence? And you think you know a better way than he does.

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Or maybe a better question is, how can we not take up the sword and run away from Jesus? I always

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think about that. Jesus, how do I not betray you? How do I not deny you? How do I not run away like

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everybody else, instead stand with you, accompany you, and walk with you to the end and say,

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I trust you, I'm here at your side? So, then you end up going with Jesus into the only and ultimate

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prayer there is in Gethsemane. Not my will, your will be done. I invite us all to start saying that

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a hundred times a day. Eighth, so Jesus is hauled in and out of court. Something I know well, I've

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been in courtrooms probably 300 times in my life, nonstop since 1982 for all my arrests. And

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there's no justice anywhere. But imagine the nonviolent, unarmed, vulnerable, bruised,

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condemned Jesus standing in front of the representative of the Roman Empire, Pontius Pilate.

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And in John's gospel, I think it's chapter 19, he says three sentences, which I think we totally

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ignore and sum up the whole shebang. Here it goes. He says to Pilate,

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My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world,

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my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Judeans.

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But as it is, my kingdom is not here. Period. So according to John's gospel, and as he sums up

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the life of Jesus, the only difference between the world back then and today, a world of war

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and empire from Pilate to Trump on the one hand, and Jesus and the reign of God on the other hand

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is violence. The world is a world of violence, which uses violence to try to stop violence.

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But violence in response to violence only leads to further violence. Jesus' reign, his kingdom,

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his realm is one of total nonviolence. If it were of this world, my attendants would fight.

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They would take up the sword and the machine guns and be marching and trying to mow down the Roman

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troops and be leading wars for the Roman Empire and for Christians in America. Nope. My followers,

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my attendants are people of nonviolence. My attendants are not allowed to fight.

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They are totally nonviolent because I am totally nonviolent because God is totally nonviolent

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and God's reign is a whole new world of total nonviolence and therefore universal love. So let

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me ask you some questions. Do you want to be an attendant of the nonviolent Jesus? I actually

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find that a very beautiful image. You know, I think of a flight attendant. Is there anything

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I can do for you nonviolent Jesus? What can I get for you? You just wait to serve the nonviolent

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Jesus and you're like him. I think this is the best thing we can do with our lives. I think it's

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actually a relief. We're freed from the world's insanity and we're free from the world's

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vanity of global destructive violence and attend to the nonviolent Jesus for the rest of our lives.

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Here are the last two. Number nine, so they kill him. The Empire brutally, legally executes Jesus

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and Gandhi says he goes to his death in perfect nonviolence. I kid you not, Gandhi, the Hindu,

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wrote the best stuff I've ever read on the execution of Jesus. And Gandhi marvels at how

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Jesus forgives his killers and surrenders himself completely to God saying, in effect,

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the violence stops here in my body. You're all forgiven. But from now on, you're not allowed to

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kill. Into your hands, I surrender my spirit. So I think in some that the nonviolent Jesus teaches us

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not how to kill, not how to wage war, much less how to make money or be afraid or be in control

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or be a success in the empire of death and destruction, but very simply how to live.

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He teaches us how to love, how to make peace, how to be compassionate, how to forgive, how to pray,

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how to be nonviolent, how to suffer nonviolently and to die well in peace, prayer, love and nonviolence.

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So like Jesus, we want to give our lives to stop the killing and the forces of death,

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to prefer to undergo suffering and death rather than inflict suffering and death.

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That's why the way of the cross means actually practicing daring public nonviolence in a world

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of total violence, come what may. And we're going to get in trouble, maybe arrested,

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maybe some people will be killed, but you continue like Gandhi and King did and the saints and the

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peacemakers on the path of nonviolence. So what do you think of all this? And if you're confused

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or you don't know what to do, as my friend, Maread Maguire says, just go and meditate in front of

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an image of the nonviolent Jesus as he carries the cross or as he dies on the cross and notice

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his nonviolence and ask for the grace to be willing to be as nonviolent as him. And so lastly, lo and

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behold, we're told the nonviolent Jesus rises from the dead and he comes back as gentle and

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nonviolent as ever. You know, if it were any of us, we'd come back mad. Why'd you leave me?

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I'd be resentful for 5,000 years. He comes back and makes breakfast for these guys.

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And he says, here's my resurrection gift of peace. Now you carry on my campaign of nonviolence.

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Friends, I think the whole world has rejected the resurrection gift of peace.

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The resurrection gift of peace. And I invite us all as we mature and grow older in these bad times

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to accept it like never before and welcome it and take it to heart and say, okay, Jesus,

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I'm going to accept your gift of peace and live in your peace for the rest of my life,

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come what may. And yes, I will carry on and join your global grassroots people power movement of

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creative nonviolence like never before. Friends, I think resurrection means having nothing to do

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with death. That means having not a trace of violence in you. Resurrection is all about

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nonviolence, the victory of nonviolence, if you will. So we're saying with the, we're realizing

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with the resurrection of the nonviolent Jesus, that death does not get the last word. Actually,

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if you dare want to follow him to the end and into the new life of peace, our survival is

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already guaranteed. We have nothing to be afraid of. Total nonviolence is the way forward into the

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fullness of life. So why not just throw in all our chips with the nonviolent Jesus and

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really root out the violence within us, be as nonviolent as we can and do our part to

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work with him today as he continues his underground, illegal nonviolent movement

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organizing. And when you do that, when you're practicing active creative nonviolence,

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my take is we can take to heart because we're getting ready for resurrection.

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Thank you, dear friends, for listening to this episode of the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. You

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can hear many more at www.beattitudescenter.org and make a donation there to help support this

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free work. Join me next week when my guest will be the legendary prophet, author, and teacher,

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Sister Joan Chichester, and we'll dig deeper into the Beatitudes and the life of Jesus.

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May the God of peace bless us all. Keep on following the nonviolent Jesus. See you next time.