Violence and oppression are brothers. They are in the same category. They’re not the same thing, but they produce the same results: division and hatred.
Violence and oppression are the instruments that a broken world uses to secure itself. Broken rulers, governments, societies, and individuals use oppression and violence to stabilize their fear of losing their place within the system. Concerned about your future? Are you being threatened? Oppress and flex your muscle.
This means that responding to hatred, racism, violence, and oppression with more racism, violence, and oppression is to reaffirm the broken reality, and reinforce the vicious cycle that they create. Fight hatred with hatred, fight violence with violence, and the fallen-ness of the world continues to reign over humanity where we all live in fear of one another.
There are two moments in the ministry of Jesus that come to mind when I think of personal violence. The first is when Simon Peter sliced off Malcus’s ear when he tried to take Jesus by force. Simon Peter thought the time had come to usher in the Kingdom of God with Jesus as its ruler. He had been waiting three years for this moment. The tension between Jesus’s people and Rome’s people had come to a head, and Jesus as the new king would launch the great rebellion just like Moses did many years ago in Egypt to liberate Israel from Egyptian slavery.
We have to pay very close attention to how Jesus responds when Peter pulls his sword. Jesus said, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (Jn 18:11, ESV). Jesus is saying, “In my Kingdom, we don’t respond to violence that way. There is no place for violence in the Kingdom of God.”
After this, Jesus submitted to the powers of the world. He allowed them use their instrument of dealing with the world’s problem against him.
This leads me to the second moment of personal violence that comes to mind–the death of Jesus. When the soldiers took him to crucify him, he let them. Through his actions, Jesus says, “Go ahead. Use your instrument against me. Use your weapon of violence. Take me and have it your way.” And they did, and he conquered.
Both of these moments demonstrate that Jesus’s Kingdom is different than that of the world. Citizens of the Kingdom do not use oppression and violence, nor do they fear oppression and violence. Jesus says to Pilot, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” (Jn 18:36). He’s telling Pilot, “My Kingdom is not like your kingdom. My power is not like your power. I don’t have to force my will on my people. People do what I say out of love, not out of fear. They find their stability in my Kingdom grounded in love.”
We have to start a new model. We have to embrace a new pattern. We have to launch a new paradigm. This new paradigm must refuse to be intimated by violence and oppression, and have no tolerance for fighting violence and oppression with more violence and oppression. In the Kingdom, we must allow love, forgiveness, and reconciliation be the stabilizing force in our lives.
