Creative Nonviolence

St. Agnes Catholic Church
7th Sunday of Ordinary Time
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022325.cfm

Good evening / morning, St. Agnes. Among the Native Americans of the Great Plains, warriors would demonstrate their bravery through a practice called “counting coup.” This test of courage involved riding or running up to an enemy and touching or striking him with a hand and then retreating from danger. This act won prestige for a warrior, which could be recorded on a coup stick decorated with notches and feathers. It could also persuade and enemy to admit defeat without inflicting lasting violence on him besides injuring his pride. This form of ritual warfare was a creative way to resolve conflict among communities without engaging in devastating battles that ended in death and disability.

I think about this practice when reading both our first reading and Jesus’ instruction in the Gospel to “love your enemies and do good to them.” In the first reading, David, the charismatic warrior, has attracted the hatred of King Saul due to his exploits in battle. He has led a war party to hunt down David and kill him.

Yet it is David, through his skill and courage, who has crept up on the sleeping king. He has him completely at his mercy. The king’s spear rests but inches from his slumbering frame. “Kill him. Impale him with his own spear,” urges David’s lieutenant. But David refuses and takes the king’s spear and water jug as war trophies.

David ‘counts coup’ and then demonstrates these prizes as proof of his skill and his mercy. Why didn’t he kill the man who is hunting him? The evil king who is bent on taking his life? Saul surely would not have shown the same restraint if their positions had been reversed!

David recognizes the dignity and value of Saul. He is a man who has been anointed by God to be king, even if he has profaned his position and is not living up to his own high calling. David says, “The LORD will reward each man for his justice and faithfulness.”

David’s mercy leads to a truce and to a conversion of Saul’s heart (at least temporarily). He blesses David and tells him, “You are more righteous than I, for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil… May the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me this day.”

Today we hear the familiar words of Jesus to love our enemies and to turn the other cheek. These commands can strike some listeners as weakness or passivity—rolling over and taking violence while meekly praying for our persecutors.

There may be times when pacifism is called for, but I think Jesus is calling us to something more like the “counting coup” of David and the Plains warriors. We might call it Creative Nonviolence—an active and dynamic response to violence that is directed towards converting the hearts of oppressors like King Saul and thereby ending injustice through a just and permanent peace. This is love in action. A love for those who hate us. A love that recognizes our enemies as beloved children of God, created in God’s image and possessing infinite value. Yet it is love that recognizes that injustice is hated by God.

Let me pivot to the personal. You may not know this about me, but I am a 4th degree black belt in Taekwondo. I started practicing twenty-five years ago when I was a Bellarmine student. For several years, I was a martial arts instructor. I’ve needed to take a break from my practice since the triplets’ birth five years ago, but I am looking forward to returning to it.

When I share this information, often people focus on a capacity for violence: “Look out, deadly weapon here! I bet you could take me down with your bare hands.”

Paradoxically, I think and I teach that the martial arts build a capacity for nonviolence. It provides of a toolbox of methods for avoiding conflict, deescalating conflict, raising awareness of my surroundings, using minimal force to defuse a confrontation, and knowledge of how my own body and other bodies move and function.

The psychologist Abraham Maslow once said, “if the only tool that you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” Nonviolence is about expanding the tools in our toolbox.

What conflicts in your own life are crying out for creative, nonviolent approaches? Are there tools that you have not tried?

Our country today is engulfed by crises and it is tempting to respond with rage, with hatred, and with violence. At times, these reactions can make us feel powerful. This is an illusion.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his 1963 sermon The Strength to Love that “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it…violence merely increases hate.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

It bears repeating, sisters and brothers, that even when things seem bleakest, that the light is stronger than the dark. That violence, hate, and evil and even death are but passing shadows in this world. The Lord our God is king. And the all-encompassing love of God, that compels us to work for justice and to love our enemies, remains and abides with us forever.