This week's Gospel lesson...and looming war drums

There are many reasons why I am against the war drumming that President Obama has been beating lately.


Sunday's Gospel lesson is ...interesting.

Read this:

"Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not  sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand. If he cannot then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace."
{Luke 14:31-32}

First, let me admit that I HATE prooftexting Scripture. More conservative Christian denominations use this technique to justify their hatred of people" not like us" , so I am very wary of anyone prooftexting Scripture.

Secondly, my EFM studies have taught me that this passage really is NOT about war, it is about the cost of  following Jesus.

But if I WERE clergy , and I am clearly not of the order of priests, I would struggle with the urge to preach an anti-war { and some would say an isolationist} message. Anyone who knows me at all knows how I feel about our great military's continual involvement in foreign conflicts. I have never believed that the place of a world superpower such as the United States is to " police" other nations and punish them for not accepting the Western worldview of life. call me a " dirty Libertarian" if you wish, but the verbs OFFENSE and DEFENSE are not synonymous.

Taking out bin Laden is defense. Bombing Syria is offense.

I do not see Jesus, if He were walking the Earth today, wielding machine guns and waging war against anyone who disagreed with Him. So at the risk of sounding terribly dated and cliche, I ask

What is it that Jesus would do?

Clearly I do not know the answer to this question. {If I did, I would for sure not be sitting in this po-dunk beach town, I'd be teaching graduate-level courses at a top-notch university.}

It is true that the cost of discipleship is great & that he requires much from those who follow Him.  yet I doubt that He would authorize a war against a rogue nation--a rouge nation located in a part of the world that has suffered conflict since before the time of Jesus Himself. Would Jesus want His disciples to wage war against those who do not accept His teachings? I doubt it. Perhaps he'd encourage more genuine diplomacy between two nations with opposing ideas regarding what is " right"?

The Syrian government is committing atrocities against her own people & that is morally wrong.  Yet will the bombing of Syria by Western superpowers really convince the regime in that nation that using chemical agents as war weapons is wrong? It will not.

Amen.