October 11, 2024
Mercy Education Conference
In 1960, an 18-year old Black man stood over the Ohio River looking down from the Second Street Bridge two blocks east from here. He had just returned from Rome with an Olympic gold medal around his neck. Filled with pride, he wore the medal everywhere, expecting every door in his hometown to be open to him. And yet, he found that in Jim Crow Kentucky, the color of his skin mattered more than the color of his medal. It mattered more than his talent in the ring, more than the poetry than flowed from his lips, more than his good looks. “I’m prettier than a girl,” he boasted.
The young Muhammad Ali gazed down at the muddy water—a river that had been a symbol of freedom to his ancestors fleeing slavery to the north and a symbol of hell for slaves sold down river to the cotton fields of the Deep South. Ali took his medal and threw it into the Ohio River. With this action, he vowed that he would no longer fight just for glory in the ring, but he would fight for justice and dignity. Incredibly, this boxer—this master of violence in the squared circle—who has been called the greatest athlete of all time, would wage his ultimate fight nonviolently.
In the Gospel today, we see Jesus sitting the chair of judgment, which is a position of strength and power. Yet, Jesus’ power—his kingship—do not derive from violence. In this final sermon in the Gospel of Matthew, he shows that power comes from service and from Mercy, especially the works of Mercy.
Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He did not come to conquer with the strength of arms but with a different power—a power that does not have a good name. The word “nonviolence” is a negation. It sounds like the absence of something, rather than the positive, dynamic force that Christ means.
Mahatma Gandhi preferred the word satyagraha, which means truth force or soul force. But it doesn’t roll of the lips. Gandhi, though a Hindu, was deeply inspired by the Sermon of the Mount. He took seriously and literally those words that some many Christians turn into pretty metaphors:
You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on [your] right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.
If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
In our world, we tend to confuse violence for strength. Gandhi reversed this mindset, teaching that nonviolence is a tool of the strong. Violence is a weapon of the weak. It takes true strength to resist force without retaliating in kind. This is not cowardice and not pacifism, but a willingness to endure suffering, and to creatively challenge it. These actions undermine the injustice of the perpetrator and seek to overcome convert, dismantle unjust social structures. To figuratively float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
So many of us work in schools that are becoming like fortresses. There are now more guns in America than there are people. One of my proudest moments as a teacher was six years ago after the Parklands shooting. My Mercy Academy seniors were angry and scared. They wanted to do something. At first a group of leaders discussed staging a walkout. After some discussion, they realized the administrators and teachers were not fighting them, in fact, they were supporting them. In some ways, it would have been easier to fight school leaders, but the seniors realized that the problem was bigger than the Mercy community.
They shifted focus and planned an assembly that included adults. The final result was a silent demonstration in which 14 students and 3 faculty members sat with a lit candle in front of the student body, representing those that had died in Florida.
Social change can seem fruitless. At first nothing seems to happen—and perhaps like nothing can happen. This stage can last a long time. But the slow and patient work of justice continues until a tipping point is reached. Then changes comes quickly, seemingly out of nowhere. From the outside it is shocking. “Nobody saw that coming!” That is the power of nonviolence.
Seven years after he threw his medal into the river, Muhammad Ali had his gold heavy weight belt stripped from him. He had refused to fight in the Vietnam War, objecting on the grounds of his conscience and religion. He defiantly proclaimed that the Viet Cong had never called him a racial slur. That it was his own countrymen who had oppressed him and denied his dignity and rights.
Ali was barred from boxing for three of the prime years of his career. Yet he persisted in court and his public resistance to the war and he was eventually vindicated. He went on to regain his heavyweight title for an unprecedented third time. But it was his nonviolent battle against racism and violence that ultimately made him the Greatest, a figure that transcends sports.
The resurrection of Christ reminds us that the power of violence is empty. As empty as the tomb. That even a degrading and agonizing death on a crucifix cannot overcome the nonviolent power of the Gospel. This is the Good News. The Good news that shook up the world.
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