Earlier this week, the Trump administration ordered the bombing of several sites in Iran related to their nuclear program. Since then there has been an ongoing debate in our nation about whether or not the bombing was necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon in the near future. One factor in that debate is that President Trump withdrew the United States from the previously negotiated nuclear deal with Iran. Would the rationale for the attack have been necessary if we had continued on the path of a negotiated settlement? Another factor in the debate is the lack of consultation with the Congress before taking this military action. A third factor is disagreement about the extent to which Iran’s capability to produce a nuclear weapon was set back. While the President claimed that these capabilities were “obliterated,” other sources in the intelligence community reported that the damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities was not nearly as extensive. The video posted below is a brief summary of the debate around the need for and effectiveness of this week’s attack on Iran.
Regardless of the outcome of the debate over the level of “success” of the bombings, I want us to reflect on this week’s events as followers of Jesus. The gospel lectionary passage for this Sunday seems especially necessary and appropriate. Here is a section of that passage from Luke 9: 51-56
51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for his arrival, 53 but they did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54 When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56 Then they went on to another village.
Jesus and his disciples were refused hospitality by the Samaritans who were the long standing bitter enemies of the Jewish people. James and John thought that they were doing Jesus a favor by offering to call down fire from heaven to consume these enemies in a way similar to what the prophet Elijah had done to his enemies centuries before. They thought they had a religious rationale and precedent for the proposed obliteration of their enemies. Instead of commending James and John for their zealous religious “commitment,” Jesus’ response was to immediately rebuke them. “Rebuke” is not a work that we use often these days, so here is the definition:
Rebuke – express sharp disapproval or criticism of (someone) because of their behavior or actions
Just to be clear, here are a few words or phrases for the word “rebuke” in the Thesaurus: reproach, scold, admonish, reprove, remonstrate with, chastise, chide, upbraid, berate, take to task, pull up, castigate, lambaste, read someone the Riot Act, give someone a piece of one’s mind, haul over the coals
Jesus strongly rebuked these disciples, because their way of trying to support him was fundamentally opposed to Jesus’ way of non-violent, self-sacrificial, redemptive love. This should be a warning to any of us who claim to follow Jesus and yet offer to call down fire from heaven (or B-52’s) to obliterate our enemies. Too often the majority of Christians in our nation have celebrated the destruction of our enemies rather than lamenting the dehumanization and cruelty of war while working for the peaceful settlement of international conflicts. This is not to denigrate the members of our nation’s military. Rather it is a call to honor their humanity and the humanity of all people by seeing military action as a last and tragic response rather than as a way of demonstrating national “superiority”or “strength.” In addition to the powerful words of Jesus cited above, I want to conclude with words of Dr. Martin Luther King from his message called “A Time to Break Silence.” He gave this address at Riverside Church in New York on April 4, 1967 articulating his opposition to the war in Vietnam. His prophetic words still ring true today:
A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death