Stay Wary of the Platitudes of War Hungry Leaders
Published in The Universe
(January 12, 2003)
AS we begin the New Year, there are many challenges for the world community.
We must do all possible to prevent war. We tend to trust politicians and the rich and the powerful to lead us in the right paths, to protect us from enemies and disasters.
If so we are putting too much trust in these false leaders who say was and mayhem, killing and bombing is the only way to peace in Iraq. Making war and calling it peace is a contradiction all too common to the double-speak of today’s political leaders. We need to look to our real leader, the true light in times of spiritual and moral darkness, the one to give us strength and courage to speak out and confront the madness and greed that leads to war and give us an enduring example of love that can bring real peace on earth. That leader is Jesus of Nazareth, my hero.
I wrote the following about Jesus for the Just Right, human rights magazine, and I want to share it with you.
“On the basis of the bare historical record alone, Jesus of Nazareth, born under poor and humble circumstances, was a child of no consequence to most.
He did not come from an influential or powerful family. He had no wealth, position or privilege. He did not bring about a socio-political upheaval or lead a revolution, a movement of national liberation or even found a religion. Others who came after him did a lot those things in his name, but most have faded from the pages of history and none have been remembered as much as this simple carpenter from a small town in Palestine.
Yet he was hardly a week in the world that first Christmas night when the corrupt Herod made him a refugee and an asylum-seeker. He as threatened, driven into exile, barely escaping the massacre of the innocent children. Were he and his parents to come knocking on our doors or immigration offices today, would they be turned away or imprisoned?
He certainly had a mission: to change the world , to revolutionise the way people related to each other.
He was unique, indifferent and shocking to many because he challenged the practice of religious leaders to impose upon others what they failed to practice themselves. He confronted the hypocrisy of the proud and the privileged. They plotted his downfall, manufactured false evidence and bribed witnesses to lie.
He was a threat to the status quo, and a true champion of the poor, calling them God’s children, equal before God and emerged from God’s own image.
When we see the images of the starving of Africa or the chil prisoners of the Philippines today , we know his message has been ignored, his example spurned and we are challenged as never before.
He makes clear that retaliation and revenge must give way to unconditional forgiveness and reconciliation. Violence has to be replaced by non-violence and peace-making; pride and jealousy are to be abandoned in favour of humility and selflessness. For him, hatred and envy were to be exchanged for love and respect, selfishness and greed were to be discarded in favour of generosity and self-denial.
Today Jesus would be standing in the Temple of the United Nations exposing the hypocrisy of our leaders, exhorting them to abandon their false faith and double talk of making peace with war and calling on them to confess their sins.
We too must speak out because our silence could be mistaken for consent of their war-mongering ways.
