Reading: Matthew 24:36-44
`There will be two men in the field. One will be taken, the other left. Two women grinding at the mill. One will be taken, the other left.`

I wonder if you know what is the best selling series of books in the US. It is a series called `Left Behind` and it is about what is referred to as `the Rapture` – the time when God will come in judgment and one will be taken and one will be `Left Behind`. 65 million copies of the books have been sold. 65 million!

It would be easy to be cynical and dismissive in a sermon such as this. I will try not to be for there are important issues at stake. I must however admit that when I was in the States on one occasion I saw a bumper sticker that took my fancy. I tried everywhere to get one but was unsuccessful. The bumper sticker read `Caution. When the rapture comes this car will be driverless`.

The genre of this kind of writing is called `apocalyptic`, and it was very popular in Jewish theology. The Jews had a rough time in their national history and when it got extra rough the theologians would say `Take heart! The time will come when we will be vindicated, when the wicked will be punished and the righteous will receive their reward.` Apocalyptic writing was especially common in the days when the Jews were under the heel of the Roman Empire – as it was in the days of Jesus of Nazareth. Matthew here reminds the followers of Jesus of God’s new world order inaugurated in Jesus of Nazareth. He does so in the apocalyptic imagery of his day.

The problem with apocalyptic writing, of course, is that it necessitates and demands a violent and vindictive God, and if one thing is clear about Jesus is that he was non violent. If Jesus reveals God to us, as I believe he does, then we have a problem. How can you have a non violent Jesus and a violent and vengeful God? The answer is `You can’t!` One of them has to give and my vote goes every time for Jesus as over and against Jewish apocalypticism. Jewish apocalypticism of the nature we have here and elsewhere necessitates a violent God. The revelation and claim of Jesus is that God is non violent.

I see the recognition of this as absolutely crucial. Non violence is one of the unrecognised truths that lie at the heart of the Christian faith. Jesus lived a life of non violent love and calls us to do the same. His way out of endemic violence was that of active non violence, of loving one’s enemies instead of killing them – the recognition of a common humanity. Non violence is the undiscovered diamond at the heart of the Christian faith. It is what the cross is about. The cross isn’t about a vengeful God demanding the sacrifice of his son as atonement for the sins of the world. It is the way of non violence. It is about the radical nature of the Christian faith. If blood is to be shed it must be ours – not that of the enemy. This is the significance of the words of Jesus `If anyone would come after me, them him/her take up the cross and follow me`. Jesus calls us to active, non violent love in the name of our common humanity and in the name of God. As Thomas Merton put it. `The radical truth of reality is that we are all one`. When we kill another we kill ourselves.


Interestingly enough, the tension between violence and non violence in our understanding of God is actually played out in the gospel record. John the Baptist’s message was one of apocalyptic expectation – the imminent destruction of the unrepentant who would be incinerated like so much useless chaff. Jesus was baptised into John’s movement and began his ministry with precisely the same words as those of John `Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand`. It soon became clear however that Jesus’ idea of the Kingdom of God was very different to that of John; so much so that when he was in prison John sent a message to Jesus `Are you the one who is to come, or do we seek another?` Jesus gave no direct answer and said `Take a look at what I am doing`. Jesus had moved beyond the Jewish apocalypticism of a violent, vengeful God to the idea of a loving non violent God and that non violence lies at the heart of life and the world as God wants it to be.

Not, of course, that you would know it today. For the first two centuries it was as clear as a summer’s day. Christians would not serve in the armed forces and were persecuted because of it. When with Constantine, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire things changed dramatically. The persecuted became the persecutors and rode off to war with the cross emblazoned on their shields, forgetting that the God whom Jesus reveals is a non violent God. And from there it has been downhill all the way. When George Bush said at the beginning of the Iraq War, `And may God bless America` he was expressing , not only his own ignorance, but the ignorance of a world which projects a violent God into its belief system.

Let me say it as simply as I can. The God whom Jesus reveals does not endorse the waging of war. Jesus lived a life of active non violence. Non violence lies at the heart of the Christian faith. Followers of Jesus are committed to active non violence. This is the uncomfortable truth of the gospel.

What then has this passage of scripture to say to us today? Certainly not much about God’s new world order. It is too loaded with Jewish apocalypticism to do that and it is predicated on a violent God. Jesus was non violent and presented a non violent God. Our God is non violent.

For me this passage points up the importance and centrality of Jesus. Jesus is the pivot point of our faith and `the substance of Jesus life must inform the content of our faith, guide our approach to the Bible and shape our image of God` (1) As Ched Myers says: `At the core of the Christian faith is a story that invites people to follow a way of being and doing. It’s the discipleship tradition. And if you pull the thread of the discipleship tradition out of the New Testament the whole thing will unravel and you will have nothing left.`

And there is a real danger of this happening within what is referred to as modern or progressive theology. I am conscious more than most of the necessity of updating our theology, and `rethinking Christian belief in the light of insights and understanding not available to earlier generations` (2) but a warning bell rang loudly at the recent Progressive Movement Conference in Melbourne when the principal speaker wrote `There is nothing that Jesus said or did that we must take more seriously than anything said by anyone else`(3) She goes on to say `It is my hope that the cross will become obsolete, a silent reminder of the past` (4) Such statements really do throw out the baby with the bathwater! Such statements I would maintain are a denial of the Christian faith. It was interesting that `non violence` was not mentioned in her list of `life enhancing virtues`.

As far as non violence itself is concerned, a case for it can be made without reference to Jesus of Nazareth. Jonathan Schell does so in his book `The Unconquerable World`. He maintains that violence is dysfunctional as a political instrument, that is, it simply doesn’t work! It simply results in more violence. `Those who live by the sword , shall die by the sword` was true when the sword was the dominant weapon. It is even more so in the days of nuclear weapons with the present situation being farcical. The U.S. sees Iran as an evildoer trying to procure terrible weapons. Iran sees the US as a hypocritical power seeking to deny others what it possesses in abundance. We should not forget, moreover, that the US is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons and that it used them against civilian populations

Jonathan Schell and others make a good case for violence being ineffective. But that is not the reason for my commitment to non violence. For me it is far more than a tactical decision. It is a matter of faith, a matter of trying to follow Jesus as a revelation of ultimate reality, of a non violent God. There is no place for violence in the Kingdom of God –in God’s new world order, in the world as God wants it to be!
You may choose the violent God of Jewish apocalypticism if you like. My vote goes for the non violent God revealed and embodied in Jesus of Nazareth.

(1) Nelson Pallmeyer `Jesus Against Christianity` p x
(2) Keith Rowe
(3) Gretta Vosper `With or Without God` p 328
(4) op cit p 326