prayer and violence

Surely those who see all creatures in themselves
and themselves in all creatures
know no sorrow.
How can the wise, knowing the unity of life,
seeing all creatures in themselves,
be deluded or sorrowful?
Isha Upanishad

I was so troubled by the readings I had to preach on today (Ex 17; Lk 18:1-8). The first was that story of the people of Israel at war with the Amalekites. They had the better of the battle as long as Moses held his arms up, and so he did with the help of Aaron and Hur on each side holding him up. And so Joshua was able to “mow down Amalek and his people”! The Gospel is beautiful, but I think all of it could give us the wrong idea––that if we just pray hard enough God will help us wipe out our enemies, which is obviously contrary to the Gospel, and/or we will always get our way in court, which simply doesn’t happen, as a matter of fact St Paul tells us “why not let yourself be cheated!”

I decided that if I could have lunch with the Pope one of the things I would ask him would be to please take this Moses story out of the lectionary completely. But since “all Scripture is inspired,” and has something to teach us, what this combination of readings is really about, which the lectionary only clumsily conveys, is contained in the first line of the Gospel: “Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.” That’s what our readings are about today––the need to pray constantly.

There has been quite a lot of controversy over the use of the Hebrew Scriptures and especially the psalms at various times in the history of Christianity, even to this day, because they speak so often of condemning, cursing and destroying our enemies, and paint a picture of God destroying armies and peoples, and wiping out countries who did nothing more wrong than be in the way of the Chosen People, which, again, is obviously contrary to the Gospel and the teaching of Jesus who handed himself over to his enemies and then prayed for them on the cross. What writers did in the patristic era of the church is re-interpret the violence in the psalms in another way––and St Benedict, the father of western monasticism, also writes of it––that the enemies that we speak of now are the enemies are not outside of is, but inside of our own selves––the evil thoughts that lead to evil actions.

Here Christianity and Islam agree. If I understand it correctly, this is what the Islamic concept jihad is really about. There is a story told about Mohammad who had once dispatched a contingent of the army to the battlefront, and when they returned he said to them:

‘Blessed are those who have performed the minor jihad and have yet to perform the greater jihad.’ When asked, ‘What is the greater jihad?’ the Prophet replied: ‘The jihad of the self.’ (Al-Majilisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 19, p. 182, Hadith no. 31)

In Arabic this is known as jihad al-nafs, the “struggle against the self,” the struggle against evil ideas, desires and the powers of lust, anger, the struggle insatiable imagination, placing them all under the dictates of reason and faith in obedience to God's command, and finally, purging all evil ideas and influences from one’s soul. In the Christian tradition we call this “purity of heart,“ one of the main themes of the monastic tradition. And this struggle is considered to be much more difficult than fighting on the battlefield, the struggle to understand God’s will by removing kheb-pride, defeating haughtiness and arrogance so that we can submit to God’s will, because it is only by conquering pride and having purity of heart that we can understand God’s will!

It is only after conquering this battle of the self that the jihad rises to the level of social responsibility, jihad of the tongue, to be able to speak the truth even when it is against one's own interest––the level of the prophets. Then comes the third level, the jihad of the hand. This is where it definitely can become very political, because every person has a right, a duty and a social responsibility, even a divine responsibility, to protect self, property and religious values. But still remember, I do not think that it is possible for us to really understand the will of God unless we achieve this jihad al-nafs-conquering the self.

This theme is common in other religious traditions of the world as well. Jainism for instance teaches refer to their ascetics as warriors who are battling their “own belligerent instincts and warding off the bad effects of the aggression” because they think that violence is the characteristic of unenlightened people. They believe that ascetics win as much glory for themselves and their families by their life of ahimsa–non-violence as do soldiers on the battlefield. The Jain community is even referred to as a gana, meaning a “troop,” a troop of spiritual warriors. “To become a Jina required the valor, determination, and ruthlessness toward oneself that was the mark of the true hero.” (Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation, p. 287)

What does this have to do with prayer? Well, interesting enough these were the two main themes of the ancient monks: first, battling the self, that is demons, passions, inordinate attachments, what we might call today addictions and compulsions, the jihad al-nafs; and second to pray without ceasing. We cannot remove the addictions and compulsions that lurk in us without the spiritual help provided by prayer; we replace those inordinate passions with something else––prayer, which leads us to the font of life and healing within us. In the desert monastic tradition, these two things always went together, knowledge of self (sometimes called “battling the demons”) and unceasing prayer, so as to achieve the purity of heart that we all need in order to line ourselves up with the will of God.

Prayer does not increase our ability to mow down our enemies at all, nor does it guarantee that we will always succeed in getting our rights. Prayer teaches us to pray for our enemies, and it is very difficult to commit any violence of thought, word or deed against someone you are praying for. What prayer actually leads us to is discovering our unity with other beings. There is a beautiful quote from John of Kronstadt of the eastern orthodox tradition, that by cleaving to God in prayer, I become one spirit with God, and I unite with myself those for whom I pray, for the Holy Spirit acting in me, also acts at the same time in them. Prayer leads us to discover our unity with all other beings. As the Isa Upanishad teaches,

Surely those who see all creatures in themselves
and themselves in all creatures
know no sorrow.
How can the wise, knowing the unity of life,
seeing all creatures in themselves,
be deluded or sorrowful?

So instead of praying for our rights, or for victory over our enemies, let’s just pray––for purity of heart so that we would know God’s will; for our enemies as Jesus commanded, and for all those in need so that we would discover our spiritual unity with them; pray to have conscious contact with the Spirit who gives us the power to live upright and holy lives. And if we grow weary in our prayer, let’s hope that the prayers of those around us, our community, our church, would carry us for a while as Aaron and Hur held up Moses’ arms, and let’s pray that we could be that for each other as well.