Death To Tyrants

We all have a bit of the tyrant about us – and I do mean all. And tyrants come in many forms. One need not be loud, obnoxious and aggressive to be a tyrant. I’ve seen whole rooms controlled by the mysterious, quiet types. One lift of the eyebrow and a room is cowed. I personally find these sorts the most intimidating. Verbal battles are useless because they rarely engage with something so common and ubiquitous as words. But why kick off this morning’s offering with an insult – by calling us all tyrants? Well, I won’t leave you hanging…

We’ve come up against the most difficult of Jesus’ teachings. He’s asked us to bless our enemies, to pray for them, to share our resources with them, to forego judgment and condemnation and to forgive them. It is disconcerting. And he goes on to tell us that our fidelity to these commands is the distinguishing marks of a child of God. It seems we are sent helpless into battle against a well-armed enemy. The opponent is charging at us on a mighty steed and we are standing naked on the field of battle making the peace sign.
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Jesus is driving us toward both the merciful and the merciless. The former is reserved for our pretty much everyone – including enemies. Where we are to be merciless, where all bets are off, where we are in fact instructed to go for the throat and to show no mercy, is that person we greet each morning in the mirror. We are called to die. The oft quoted WW II German martyr, Pastor Dietrich Bonheoffer, cannot be bested with his insight in this regard: ““The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death – we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” ~The Cost of Discipleship

Tyrants brook no conversations regarding their mortality. They wish to impose upon the world their every little whim and believe, quite foolishly, that endless tomorrows await them. I’ve just described the most ignoble angels of our being. Most would not be so asinine as to admit to those despotic impulses, but our inner tyrant is constantly manipulating things and people to bend things to its liking – always. It isn’t until we’re confronted with these teachings that tell us to bless our vilest offenders that we discover how powerful and full of life this tyrant really is. It feels like death to forgive, pray and bless an enemy. And that is exactly the point.