WHEN TWO LAWS DON’T MAKE A RIGHT 2

By James Wilson

            In the classic Peter Weir film, Witness, Harrison Ford’s John Book, a straight arrow Philadelphia cop, fights drug dealing officers in his own police department.  The corrupt cops need to kill a young Amish boy who witnessed their execution of a colleague.  Book intervenes, becoming a target forced to flee with the boy and hide among the Amish.  Book and the Amish are seemingly from different planets.  They see him as living by “whacking” bad guys and he finds their non-violent ways incomprehensible.  When the bad cops find him he takes out two of them by his own skill and violent daring; the third gets the drop on him with a loaded shotgun before the Amish swing in to their own peculiar style of action.

            The old patriarch sounds a primitive fire alarm, bringing a hundred farmers running across their fertile fields.  Before the villain can silence Book forever there are a hundred witnesses confronting him – silently.  Book shouts that there are too many witnesses; they cannot all be killed and the authority of their witness is overwhelming.  The shotgun wielding criminal with a badge crumples to the ground, a beaten and exhausted foe.  While I am not an opponent of violence in all circumstances, I am convicted that this is the way Christians can re-claim our God-given culture and society in this season of rampant government lawlessness.  This is the way of assertive and unrelenting witness that is fired by the unlimited love of God and neighbor.  It is the way of a Christ Who cleared the temple of corruption with a whip but fought His greatest battle on the Cross.

            When we repent our complicity with the escalating corruption of a government determined to make itself a god – behaving and choosing what it claims God would do if He were actually present in human affairs – we bear witness.  When we band together and refuse to cooperate with a government that seeks to re-define and re-organize our families, our health care, and even our faith – we bear witness.  And especially as we decline to play the hate game and the blame game, but rather seek alternatives both positive and creative – such as volunteering in the schools to protect our children’s right to safety in their bathrooms without attacking those children who might compromise it – we bear witness to a God Who is not just all powerful and just but all merciful and loving.  We facilitate the overall education of our children by our presence, instead of merely addressing an issue that energizes us.  And – while this is a long way, and a way that lacks the satisfaction of “whacking” those we judge evil – it is the way of blessing, forgiveness, and communion.

            This approach is nonsense to those who do not serve the Christian God, and to many who do.  Our God says our weapons of spiritual warfare – the most important kind of warfare – are first blessing.  He says – in Romans 12:14 – that we are to bless and curse not, and what He blesses – Romans 8:28 – He ultimately transforms.  He gives forgiveness for the second weapon.  He says – in John 20:19-23 – that we are to go as He goes and forgive as He forgives – not those who deserve forgiveness, but those who do not.  Reality is the enemy of all life cannot stand on forgiven sin, but only on the unforgiven.  And finally He gives His very own sacred supper – offered in whatever way we might so long as it is in humility and dignity.  He says – from Psalms 23 to Luke 24:13-35 – that in that supper He is recognized by friends and foes alike, the former in thoroughgoing joy and the latter in panic driven flight.  The supper is to be celebrated boldly, publicly, and faithfully.  As we do these things we bear witness and He bears us.

            In 1999 the Williams Brothers were on a NorCal rampage.  After shooting a Redding gay couple to death in their bed they bombed an abortion clinic and torched three regional synagogues.  Police who had yet to identify the duo warned Jewish leaders     to increase security by building fences and installing alarm systems.  Redding area churches offered to come together – in a very public way – to plant a peace garden at our local synagogue.  We stood with the temple leaders in prayer and blessing.  Neither threat nor damage was ever done to the synagogue.  When leaders invited the pastors who stood with them to return and celebrate it was my privilege to preach the Gospel in the synagogue.  There really is something to this Word-of-God stuff.  There’s a lot to it.