A couple years ago, about this time of year, I was riding my bike back home from the church I was serving at the time. We lived close enough to the church that I often biked. On this day I had to quick run home to take care of something, then jump in the car and pick up our kid.

I’m a couple blocks from our house, on a residential street that was fairly busy, with parked cars on both sides, when a guy in a car behind me lays on his horn. He passes me and glares through the window. 

I wasn’t exactly in the most gracious mood, so my immediate reaction was to throw up my hands, like, “What!? You gotta be kidding me.” 

The car screeches to a halt at an angle against the curb. I hop onto the sidewalk so I don’t run into him.

As I reflect on it now, a lot happened in that moment within me. My attitude was like, “Oh great, does this guy want to get into a fight? I don’t have time for a bunch of nonsense.” I also felt some fear about what he was going to do. But I had a kind of inner resolution: I’m not going to let this fool get into a fight with me. 

I pull alongside on the sidewalk. He rolls down the passenger-side window. And he yells at me for not giving him room to pass. 

It’s a bunch of nonsense, but I keep my cool. 

I say in a way that’s calm but firm, “Look, I gotta deal with parked cars and leaf piles, what do you expect? I can’t be hugging the curb all the time.” 

“Well, when I ride my bike, I go on the sidewalk.” 

“Yeah, but that’s illegal, because you can hit people walking – kids and dogs. I’m not going to do that.” 

He was still exasperated. 

So, I said, “Look, you’re the one in the car, not me. You’re the one who can kill me, not the other way around. I got my lights on, my yellow vest on – I’m doing what I can.” 

That’s when things shifted. Suddenly his whole demeaner changed. 

He said, “Oh man, I’m sorry.” 

And I said, “Thanks for your apology.” 

But he kept apologizing. He was shaking, in fact, through his arms and hands. It was like he had been possessed by anger and it was leaving his body. 

I said, “Hey, look, we’re cool. We’re actually talking with each other.”

He apologized again, 

And I said again, “Thanks, man. But we’re cool now. We’re talking. This is a whole lot better than just flipping each other off and tearing off angry. We both now know how to be a little safer, and we know we can deal with our anger differently next time.”

We parted ways. 

I thanked God I was safe. I thanked God that he was open to letting my perspective in. And I prayed that he may find some peace with whatever it was in his life that had put him into such a state of anger. 

In the grand scheme of things, this is a very modest story. It’s far removed from any of the wars or horrors of terrorism, or the retribution, or the vicious fights for survival, or random acts of violence that may be on some of our hearts this morning. But in talking about issues of violence and peace I want to be careful to not talk too far past my own experience. And I hope a little modest story of peacemaking in a not very dramatic daily life moment between two flawed people may at least offer a little word of hope for peace in the storm. This Jesus stuff works … but even if it doesn’t …

I want to make it clear that the Way of Jesus does provide us with tools for dealing with conflict peaceably, rather than with violence.

Jesus is our salvation, right, as Christians. Salvation, liberation from the soul-death of sin. This is a gift of grace – this is not because we earn it with our good works and efforts. It’s a gift. But Jesus does in fact free us from sin. He asks us to come and follow him. He models a way of human life that is free from sin. Violence is one of the symptoms of human sin. Jesus shows us a way of life that is free from violence. In the light of God’s grace, out of gratitude and hope, it is worth us learning Jesus’ ways and trying them – perfecting it is not the point.

Human beings have tremendous powers to resolve problems nonviolently, if only we honed them and promoted them as obsessively as our warlike society hones and promotes the tools of violence. Am I demanding everyone become absolute pacifists in this fallen world? No. But I have the duty to share the effective wisdom of courageous peace-workers, like Jesus.

The heart of it is keeping in our hearts that each and every one is a child of God, who is worthy of dignity and safety. Everyone has suffered in their own ways; everyone is beloved in God’s eyes in their own ways. This is true for each of us, and for those whom we call our enemies.

When we are in a state of anger or fear, we can get locked into a fight / flight / freeze response. We can also get locked into treating the other person as either a threat or a victim. 

The spiritual practice of nonviolence is about becoming free from being locked into those reactive postures. This can free us to respond to the situation and to the other person in a way that preserves our dignity and integrity as children of God, and call on the dignity and integrity of the other person, and that can shift the conflict. If we are able to respond to a situation or a person in a way that is outside of the logic of fight/flight/freeze & perpetrator/victim, that can lead the other people involved to also shake free of their reactive stance.

Now, it’s not at all guaranteed how the other person will respond.

All we can do is try to have some freedom with our own response to the situation.

Prayer and self-awareness and preparation can help us to be responsive rather than reactive. 

When that guy blared his horn and glared at me, it made me mad. 

Now, the truth is that underneath my anger was fear. 

I’ve worked in ERs and ICUs and I know what it looks like when the chart says “Trauma: Bike v. Car.”

There’s also grief in the mix for me, to be honest. A good friend of mine was killed on her bike by a truck in her early 20s.

So, there were big feelings behind my initial anger. That was probably true for him too, whatever it was he was going through. But initially we weren’t being honest about the fear and sadness.

He was angry, I was angry, we both were in fight mode.

Roll script – it would make good American television entertainment.

But Jesus messed it up. Prayer had prepared me to manage my anger enough that I didn’t react in a way that would feed into the logic of the conflict. And I thank God I was able to access that safety and expansiveness of the soul in that moment – I don’t always, that’s for sure, and I can act petty or cowardly.  

I didn’t flick him off or curse him out. But I also didn’t flee or freeze. I stood up for myself in a way that was firm but calm. This didn’t play into the script.

To his credit, he was willing to engage with me. Jesus was maybe helping him too.

When he rolled the window down and yelled at me, I was relieved. He was at least trying to justify himself to me. I knew I was dealing with a fellow Child of God who was angry about something else, and who had become blinded from correctly seeing the situation right in front of him. 

We had our back and forth.

And the whole encounter shifted when I said to him: “You’re the one in the car, not me. You’re the one who could kill me, not the other way around.”

This called on his better self, the self that wants to be responsible. It gave him a glimpse into my vulnerability in the situation, and helped him feel his responsibility. To his credit, he was able to see that I was a fellow human being worthy of safety and dignity. 

Thank God. 

It doesn’t always work out that way. He could have just shot me, like some people in our society believe is their right whenever they feel angry or scared. This would have been much more possible if I had responded aggressively, but also if I had a skin color that he was socialized into believing was inherently a threat.

The Way of peace is not about avoiding all risk – it is about insisting that a peaceable outcome is possible.  A peaceable outcome is possible because it is the fact of the matter that our opponents are children of God just as we are, whether they know it or not.

Jesus teaches us to bless those who curse us, and pray for those who persecute us, in order to keep our hearts open to the universal reality of God, and to the possibility born from that reality that people can become free enough from sin that there may be a peaceful and just resolution to conflict. 

It is a severe mistake to think that Jesus was teaching us to not stand up for our dignity, and for the dignity of others, as children of the living God. 

“You have heard that it was said – ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you that you must not react violently against one who is evil; but, if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to them also.”

Why is it the right cheek? 

Those to whom Jesus was speaking to would all likely know what it is like to feel the sting on their right cheek. A common act of violence that social superiors used to discipline social inferiors was a backhanded slap. This meant the back of the right hand of the perpetrator against the right cheek of the victim. This is how masters hit slaves, how Romans hit Jews, how men hit women, how adults hit children. 

If the person getting hit on the right cheek hit back, that could well mean the end of their life. Do nothing and, well, that’s what the perpetrator wants you to do. Instead, Jesus says, turn the other cheek, and demand to be hit like an equal. 

For the person doing the hitting, this would cause their brain to short circuit. They would be stupefied. 

This is asserting one’s own dignity while responding outside the logic of fight, flight, freeze, perpetrator, victim. And it can work.

To conclude, let me share what I think is a helpful summary of Jesus’ way of nonviolence, this is by the biblical scholar Walter Wink. He calls this “Jesus’ Third Way”: not the way of violence, not the way of passivity, a “third way”.  (from “Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way”)

Assert your own humanity and dignity as a person

Recognize your own power

Break the cycle of humiliation

Seize the moral initiative

Find a creative alternative to violence

Meet force with ridicule or humor

Refuse to submit or to accept the inferior position

Expose the injustice of the system

Take control of the power dynamic

Shame the oppressor into repentance

Force the powerful to make decisions for which they are not prepared. 

Be willing to suffer rather than to retaliate

Cause the oppressor to see you in a new light

Deprive the oppressor of a situation where a show of force is effective

Be willing to undergo the penalty of breaking unjust laws. 

Die to fear of the old order and its rules. 

This all takes work, and it doesn’t always work, this all takes grace, this all takes courage, it takes practice, it takes hope, it takes community, a school of love, like churches can be, guided by the spirit of God and the way of Jesus. Thank you all for being in this together. And thanks be to God