Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Father John Deere, and today I'm going
to reflect with you on carrying on Jesus's grassroots
movement of peace and nonviolence from Luke chapter
10. This podcast is a project of www .beatitudecenter
.org. where you can find many other podcasts
and regular Zoom programs on the nonviolence
of Jesus and practicing nonviolence and working
for a more just, more peaceful world. So let's
begin with a little prayer. So I invite you,
wherever you are, just to take a deep breath
and to relax and to recenter yourself and to
enter into the presence of the God of peace who
loves you infinitely and personally. and every
human being as well. And let's welcome the nonviolent
Jesus here with us and ask for the grace to follow
him more faithfully and to do God's will of peace.
God of peace, thank you for all the blessings
of life, love, and peace that you give us. Be
with us now as we reflect. on the nonviolent
Jesus and how he built a grassroots movement
of nonviolence from Galilee to Jerusalem when
he sent out 72 disciples to proclaim your reign
of peace. Bless us, inspire us, disarm us, strengthen
us, and send us out all over again into this
turbulent world as lambs into the midst of wolves
to proclaim. your reign of peace and love here
at hand, that we might be your holy peacemakers.
In Jesus' name, amen. So welcome, dear friends.
As I said, today I want to look at Jesus as a
movement organizer and how he organizes a bottom
-up, people -powered, grassroots movement of
nonviolence from Galilee to Jerusalem and how
we might carry on his grassroots movement of
nonviolence today. In the last few episodes of
this podcast, I've talked with my friends Brian
McLaren and Shane Claiborne about the rise of
authoritarianism, oligarchy, white supremacy,
corporate greed, and permanent war making, and
how Jesus responded to that during his own life.
Today, I want to look specifically at the story
of Luke chapter 10 and propose that text as a
framework for our response. So this is all from
Luke chapter 10, verses 1 to 22. If you want
to go deeper into this, you might check out my
recent commentary, The Gospel of Peace. So Luke
says Jesus sends 72 disciples in pairs ahead
of him to whatever town he was going to visit
to lay the groundwork and prepare people for
nonviolent resistance to the empire and God's
coming reign. In effect, he creates 36 teams
of nonviolent trainers. and sends them out into
the war -torn countryside to invite people out
of the culture of war and empire, out of the
poverty that they're suffering, and into the
new life of loving nonviolence. So I think he's
not just a community organizer or even a movement
builder. He's a nonviolent general who commands
a nonviolent army. But instead of waging war,
he wages peace. He sends them out to disarm everyone,
dismantle the empire, and lead humanity into
the peace of God's reign, to welcome Jesus and
his gifts. So he's mobilizing a real grassroots
campaign of active nonviolence, an authentic
holy peace movement that marches from Galilee
to Jerusalem, where he will undertake nonviolent
direct action. It's totally like Gandhi. on the
1930s salt march across India, and the same as
Dr. King on the Selma to Montgomery march for
civil rights. That's why I always joke, you know,
Jesus thinks he's Gandhi. He thinks he's Dr.
King. He's just like them, and we're supposed
to be like them too. So I propose that the best
way to respond to the crisis we're all dealing
with right now to oligarchy, corporate greed,
the culture of lies, white supremacy, permanent
warfare, nuclear weapons, environmental destruction,
to the Trump administration, Republican Party,
Fox News, and this rising authoritarianism and
global chaos, is to carry on Jesus' grassroots
people power movement of creative, organized
nonviolence today. We need to join these movements.
to join similar movements and campaigns today,
or to start one locally, nationally, and globally.
That's what I think it means to follow Jesus
in this world. To put it almost stupidly, Jesus
did not sit under a tree and pray throughout
his life. He got up and took public action and
organized and led a grassroots movement to confront
the empire, which is daring and dangerous. and
public, and ultimately a threat to the status
quo, to the rich, to the empire, which is why
they killed him. If we really are his followers,
I propose we too have to get up, get moving,
start marching, start organizing, and start speaking
out in similar campaigns of daring nonviolence
today. So let's look at the story. I'm just going
to walk through it, and I hope folks will return
to it later and study it. So the first thing
he says, according to Luke chapter 10, is go
on your way. So it's the imperative tense. Get
going. Go forth and make peace. That always sounds
to me like Jesus. He's always empowering people
and urging us to get up and get moving. He wants
the movement moving. In Matthew, he says, be
wise as serpents and innocent as doves, which
I always thought meant we get, at times, we get
to coo, and other times we get to hiss. That's
what people of nonviolence do. We coo and we
hiss, but we don't hurt anybody. But Luke says
something even more challenging. Behold, I'm
sending you like lambs among wolves. Wow. So
let's think about that. That's the teaching right
there. That's the way we're going to live for
the rest of this year as we go into the future.
Jesus is sending us into the world of permanent
war and empire and oligarchy and violence as
peaceful, gentle, unarmed people. We are to be
as vulnerable and harmless as lambs. Imagine
a little lamb surrounded by a pack of wolves.
That's Jesus' image of the life of his disciple.
That's us. That's the life of nonviolence in
a culture of total violence. That's the image
of a peacemaker in a world of permanent war.
What can we expect when we go forth to make peace?
To be eaten alive. Are there any questions? You
know, this is the job description, and this has
been my experience. If you speak out for peace
and justice and creation, you will get pushback.
or opposition, or full -on rejection, or much
worse. So get ready, and now we get to respond
with non -violent love, because Jesus has been
training us in the Sermon on the Mount to be
as gentle as lambs. So then he gets very specific
in the instructions to the 72. Take nothing for
the journey. Isn't that powerful? No money, no
sack, no sandals, and greet no one on the way.
So when we remember that Jesus is sending his
followers into the Galilean countryside where
the Roman death squads are roaming around on
alert to kill anyone who's stirring up the public
with talk of revolution, then his teaching makes
perfect sense. He's organizing an illegal underground
movement. So his advice is very practical. Be
on alert. Be ready to go. You know? There's nothing
really idealistic about this. This is very serious
and down to earth, this mission. And I'm sending
you to proclaim peace and bring peace and make
peace and welcome God's reign of peace. And that,
in this kind of environment, it means the movement,
you all are going to be a threat to the ruling
imperial war -making establishment. That's why
I always ask myself, And my friends, how urgently
are we taking this work of justice, disarmament,
and creation? And are we a threat to the ruling
oligarchy today? That's what I learned from the
Barragans, you know, and why I've been in and
out of jail for 40 years. Next, he says, Into
whatever house you enter, first say, Peace to
this household. If a peaceful person lives there,
your peace will rest on him. But if not, it will
return to you. Stay in the same house and eat
and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer
deserves his payment. Do not move about from
one house to another. Whatever town you enter
and they welcome you, eat what is said before
you. Cure all the sick and say to them, The reign
of God is at hand for you. And whatever town
you enter and they do not receive you, go out
into the streets and say, the dust of your town
that clings to our feet, even that we shake off
against you, but know this, the reign of God
is at hand for you. I tell you, it will be more
tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that
town. So this is very rich. If we're going to
be living out this mission today and be joining
the... bottom -up, people -power, grassroots
movements of nonviolence. As followers of the
nonviolent Jesus, that means we are from now
on only speaking the language of peace. We use
nonviolent communication. We use the words of
peace and invite people out of this insane culture.
Here and now to live in God's reign of peace.
And we try to make people feel at peace, to be
a peaceful presence in their midst, and to affirm
their peace, and to lead people deeper into God's
peace. I think, you know, by being calm and peaceful,
that's how we continue Jesus' gift of healing
one another. And this was at the heart of the
teachings of my friend and teacher Thich Nhat
Hanh. who once put it this way, if you are a
rock of peace, if you attend to that first and
foremost, you will always bring peace to everyone
around you. And you will be mindful of every
word you say so that you're always using nonviolent
language and so that your presence and your words
always serve and heal and disarm others. And
in that way, you become what St. Francis calls
us to be. instruments of God's peace. And that's
what the ideal of movement people is supposed
to be about. We're supposed to be like Gandhi
and Dr. King. So then next, Jesus issues, notice
these blessings to those who welcome people of
peace and warnings to those who reject peace.
To his disciples, he's advising them to shake
off the dust from the places that reject them.
But I... Having wrestled with that for 40 years,
it took me a long time to realize it's not about,
ah, that'll show you. No. It's now that we're
not tainted by the rejection, that the dust that
reminds us of being rejected doesn't cling to
us so that we won't waste our time holding on
to resentment and grudges and hurts. So he's
telling them to keep their focus on God's reign
and on proclaiming God's reign, not on being
rejected if that happened and your hurt feelings.
And notice that his warnings to those who reject
the peacemaking disciples are addressed not to
individuals, but to communities and cities. Now,
this is very instructive, too. The villages which
reject his peacemaking disciples will suffer
worse consequences than the mythically sinful
city of Sodom. So that's a serious warning. And
by the way, folks, what was the sin of Sodom?
The sin of Sodom was economic injustice. And
it's much easier to name it in other ways. They
were oppressing the poor and stealing all the
riches for them. That's what's going on. And
Jesus is condemning that behavior, which is what
he would do today to our culture. Whoever listens
to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects
me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who
sent me. I think these teachings promise that
if we are sincerely, honestly, prayerfully, and
non -violently going forth as his followers,
proclaiming the gospel message and God's reign
of peace, well, then we speak for him. Wow. And
if someone is speaking this gospel message, the
good news of the Sermon on the Mount, we should
listen and take that message to heart because
Jesus is speaking to us. So is the God of peace.
That makes me think, well, we should only be
listening to the voices that speak words of peace
and nonviolence, those who are calling for an
end to all the war and the greed and oligarchy
and nuclear weapons and environmental destruction,
and turn off the voices that serve the culture
of war and greed. But here's the thing that gets
me so excited about this text. What is so shocking
is that the 72 returned rejoicing. Apparently,
they fulfilled their mission. And the word joy
is used about five times. Lord, they say, even
the demons are subject to us because of your
name. They had gone out into the villages, met
the people, talked with the people, spoken about.
These Sermon on the Mount teachings on peace,
love, and nonviolence, they offered themselves
as peaceful people, would have told them about
the great teacher. They healed everyone by their
peaceful presence and message and announced the
coming of God's reign of peace and, hey, we can
all live nonviolently and we can resist this
empire and invited everyone into a new way of
life. And they were welcomed and their message
was taken to heart. Well, of course it was, because
people are sick and tired of empire, and they're
oppressed, and this is good news. This is true
nonviolent revolution. The disciples were amazed
to find that movements work just as we are. So
Luke is showing us here the positive spiritual
consequences of joining Jesus' grassroots campaign
of peace and justice. If we take up his mission
and go forth and proclaim peace in God's reign
and heal people, not only will we really help
others and maybe lead movements of resistance
and actually transform and even disarm this culture,
we ourselves will be greatly blessed and filled
with joy. This is a work of God. This is the
work of the Holy Spirit. we will receive spiritual
consolation. And that's not going to happen if
you're supporting the culture. But what's even
more interesting is Luke goes further and tells
us in one of the few times how Jesus reacts,
and in particular, how Jesus feels, which is
very important if you're trying to be an authentic
disciple. Like, how does Jesus feel going through
his life? And I want to support him. And I'm
going to feel like him. This is what I'm getting
at. And so Jesus says, I observe Satan fall like
lightning from the sky. Well, that's just the
code word for Roman Empire. You know, Satan means
empire. I saw eight empire fall because you all
were built at the beginning of a movement. By
organizing and launching his grassroots campaign
of peace and nonviolence, Jesus can see the beginning
of the end of the Roman Empire, falling like
lightning from the sky. This is what Gandhi experienced
in his famous 1930 salt march. Once he arrived
at the sea and made his illegal salt, breaking
the British law and monopoly, he set off a grassroots
movement. But Gandhi could see then, The end
of British rule over India. He said, OK, this
is inevitable now because nonviolence becomes
contagious. Grassroots movements of peace and
nonviolence, which announced the end of war and
justice, greed and oppression, always work. I
think if you have the eyes of Jesus, you could
see Rosa Parks, for example, refusing to give
up her seat December 1st, 1955. and segregated
Montgomery. And when she did that act of civil
disobedience, segregation fell like lightning
from the sky and launched a movement. That's
what we're getting at here. This kind of public
action of nonviolent resistance erodes the pillars
of the culture of empire and empowers people
to non -cooperate and then resist until eventually
the empire collapses and God's reign breaks through.
That's what we're talking about. And then he
says, behold, I have given you power. I cannot
tell you enough how seriously Martin Luther King
took that. Maybe he was one of the very few people
who did. Jesus goes on, power to tread upon serpents
and scorpions and upon the full force of the
enemy and nothing will harm you. Wow. This has
been a key instruction for my entire life. We
have been given power, the power of nonviolence,
power over all the forces of death. That's why
Gandhi says, Totally studied this text. Active,
creative, public nonviolence is a force more
powerful than all the weapons of the world combined.
He's just saying what Jesus said. We have a way,
a power to resist every form of violence and
transform it. Even this culture we're dealing
with today and the, let's say, nuclear weapons
and fossil fuels without, you know, using violence.
If we dare wield this power. So Dr. King defined
nonviolence as power. That's what he said. Nonviolence
is power. You are not powerless. I've studied
his speeches and you can read that in the fine
prints, which is the exact opposite of what the
Roman Empire said to what every... oligarch,
dictator, and authoritarian, as said throughout
history, up through today. It's what you hear
on Fox News and through the Trump administration.
That's what the empire, the war machine, the
media, the culture of violence wants. They want
us to feel powerless and helpless. That's the
strategy, and we go right along with it. Hey,
there's nothing I can do. Ah, that's a shame.
That's too bad. I wish if only somebody had done
something. Well, then, by the way, you end up
like the pastors by at the cross. Why didn't
he do something? Well, I go astray here. This
is especially the problem with church people.
We do what the culture tells us, not what the
nonviolent Jesus said. And to be really blunt,
none of that is God's will. That's not how Jesus
wants us to respond to this culture. He wants
us to get up and go forth in small grassroots
movements for positive social change. And he's
giving us a weapon, the power of active love
and truth through the grassroots methodology
of courageous, fearless. to organize nonviolence,
to bring down the structures of violence and
injustice. In Dr. King's case, to take on segregation,
racism, and war. I mean, what Dr. King was doing,
like what the abolitionists did, it's never been
done before. In Gandhi's case, to bring down
the British Empire. And there have been a hundred
other successful examples of nonviolent resistance
movements since Dr. King. So then Jesus says
this. spectacular teaching. I really invite you
to ponder and experiment with. That's what I've
done in my life. If you practice and teach nonviolence,
no harm will come to you. Nothing can truly hurt
you. Instead, you will wield the power of God
to disarm and transform the world. So here's
the theory as I understand it. God cannot protect
us from harm if you're armed and out there doing
harmful things, or you're supporting the culture
of harm and death and destruction through your
apathy and indifference, if you see my point.
If you use violence, if we use violence on others,
we are rejecting God's will, and we're going
to suffer the consequences of our violent actions
or our passivity and apathy in the face of war,
which is participating in violence. But you see,
what goes around comes around. However, if we
are unarmed and totally nonviolent like Jesus
and the Galilee 72, we will trust in God and
go forth. and do the mission, and God will protect
us because nonviolence is God's will and God's
way and requires our conscious reliance on God,
and God is there for us. That's just the spiritual
teaching. If we do harm, harm will come to us.
Violence in response to violence always leads
to further violence, period. If we do no harm,
no harm will come to us. Now, you're going, yeah,
good luck with that, John. I've experimented
that very consciously over 40 years. I can remember
in 1985 living in the refugee camp in the heart
of El Salvador. We were being bombed every hour
by the United States and the death squads were
around us. I was under the direction of the Jesuits
who were all later assassinated, my friends,
and pondering these texts. And I was like, OK,
God, I'm going to be nonviolent here and I'm
going to be very public about it and you're going
to protect me. And I've been like that ever since
in soup kitchens and shelters and all the hundred
jail cells I've been around the country and all
the times I've been arrested. And I watched my
friends, the Barragans and Tutu and so many friends
getting arrested, how they've been protected.
And it's almost like, you know. Even Gandhi and
Dr. King chose their hour just like Jesus did.
So what I'm trying to say is I think Jesus' words
are true. But here's the final point. It's so
amazing. Jesus starts talking about joy. What?
Who talks about joy? We're talking about... Trump
and oligarchy and war and the end of the world.
Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject
to you, he says. Rejoice because your names are
written in heaven. He wants us to rejoice. The
only suggestion he makes is critically important
and very subtle. Don't focus on yourselves, you
guys. Don't claim any credit for the good you
are doing. Give all the credit to God. Focus
on God and God's reign. Even your joy, let that
be a gift from God and focused on God. So rejoice
because your names are written in heaven. Well,
that's a nice thing to ponder. God knows what
we've done with our lives. And if we're working,
if we're doing God's will and joining God's grassroots
movement, God's peace movement to disarm and
transform this culture, God is working through
us. And we're going to feel the spiritual implications
of that and joy. And we can take heart that our
names are written in God's book. And I think
that's worth aspiring to, that we might have
our names in God's ledger, so to speak. I think
as we participate in all the grassroots movements
for justice, disarmament, and creation today,
we should be rejoicing. Even as we grieve, we
can also rejoice. And then Luke says at that
very moment, Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit.
Now, dear friends who are listening to this,
I say this with all the solemnity I can muster.
This is the only time in the four Gospels when
Jesus is happy. It's the only time when Jesus
is filled with joy. So this is very important
for us. Why does Jesus rejoice? What makes him
rejoice? Because his followers did what he said
and went forth. in a bottom -up people power
grassroots movement and proclaimed God's reign
of peace everywhere they went. So I invite us
to get on with the movement and help getting
our grassroots movements moving on all fronts,
justice, disarmament, and creation, to really
resist and help end war, end the corporate greed
and white supremacy and oligarchy and nuclear
weapons and poverty, environmental destruction.
maybe even to tithe our time to the movements
and to do our part to help disarm and heal the
world. Okay, why? Because it's good and right
and holy. Things are so bad. What we're going
to need now is a global grassroots movement of
bold, active, people -powered nonviolence, the
likes of which the world has never seen, way
beyond what Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. King could
have ever imagined. So it's really all hands
on deck. And I'm recalling as I'm sharing this,
the story of my dear friend Ken Butikin. When
he was starting out as a young activist, I think
around 1982, he went to New York to see my friend
and teacher Daniel Berrigan. And he said, okay,
Dan, what do I do? How do I do it? And Dan said
to him, all you have to do is find a group of
people you can pray with and march with. And
Ken said, right. And he's been doing it ever
since then. He's done amazing work. I think that's
kind of the way forward for all of us, according
to Luke 10, that this is going to be the new
normal for us. But the point of Luke 10, if you
really dig deep, if you're interested in discipleship,
is that on your worst days, as things get worse,
when you want to throw up your hands in despair
and anger and give up, If you have friends to
pray with and march with, even just two or three,
the little community that Jesus sends you out
with, you stand on the street corner with in
your public vigil, you can keep on going. You
keep going anyway, trusting God. Why? I propose
in the end just to make the poor guy happy. Just
to help Jesus rejoice all over again. We don't
want to make Jesus sadder or betray him or deny
him or abandon him or crucify him all over again.
but to make Jesus rejoice. And to do that, we
do that by carrying on his grassroots movements
for peace and justice as lambs sent into the
midst of wolves to our own Jerusalems, to Washington,
D .C., to all the places of power, oligarchy,
white supremacy, war, and empire, to speak out
for disarmament and justice and creation, to
proclaim the truth to the culture of war and
lies, to heal all victims of violence, and proclaim...
that God's reign of universal love and peace
is at hand. All the best. So thanks so much for
listening to the Nonviolent Jesus podcast. You
can hear more podcasts and find other upcoming
Zoom programs at www .beatitudescenter .org.
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and keep us all safe and sound as we go forth
following the nonviolent Jesus. See you next
time.