Jesus, Compassion And JusticeSample

Radically Pro-Life

We don’t know for sure who killed my father-in-law. Maybe it was those we would call “them.” Or maybe it was those we would call “us.” But living in Cambodia in the late 1960’s and 1970’s, one way or another, the fact is, he was killed. And he left behind two small children and a young widow in mourning. His absence, a gaping hole in my wife’s childhood.

I’m “pro-” his life. His was not an American life. But he was a human being, beloved by God.

When I look at the life and teachings of Jesus, I see a Prince of Peace who was “pro-” the lives of everyone, not just those in our own tribe or creed. I see a Jesus who refused to use or advocate violence, even when His own life was about to be taken. A Jesus who came to lead us to stand in radical contrast to what the rest of the world has embraced - to love our enemies, not to kill them. Even when everything within us rises up in retaliation and righteous violence (and believe me it does for me too!)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43-45)

I am compelled by Jesus to be “pro-” my enemy’s lives. Not to take their lives from them. Not even to kill them vicariously by remaining silent when other people or institutions do it on my behalf. Not to participate in any way in the machinations of war that would contribute to their deaths. Not to bomb them or shoot them or torture them or execute them with lethal injection.

When it comes to the question of whom He loves, Jesus doesn’t count ANY one life as worth more or less than another – whether American Christian or Pakistani Muslim - each is a precious gift from God and should never be snuffed out.

But in the polarized American landscape, to be pro-life has been reduced to mean being “pro-” one tiny subsection of life–that of a baby growing in a mother’s womb. Not Jesus. He was “pro-” all kinds of life.

It would seem that from that perspective, Jesus would have something to say in a world with both abortion AND the death penalty; with so-called “just war” AND weapons that are used in one mass-shooting after another.

It is time to come back to the most central teachings of Jesus. His Sermon on the Mount was radical and controversial is his own day, and if we’re honest, it challenges us just as much as we engage and live today in our modern times.

Can we commit to be consistent with Jesus’ approach in the Sermon on the Mount, upholding the lives of every human being, even our enemies?

Then, and only then, we will finally look radically different to the rest of the world that is committed to the ways of violence and retaliation. And that will be good news in a world that is hell-bent on destruction.