PLOWSHARES INTO SWORDS

Confessions of a Modern Rebel

I am an avid reader. If it has words on paper (or on a computer screen;-) I want to absorb it. The pursuit of knowledge is a passion for me, so when I read a good book I pass it along to my ever-growing list of friends. I’ve been called a “pusher” because when I get excited about a book I let everyone know about it and “push” it on them.

I read one such book last year and find myself returning to it over and over: The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene.

I am a Christian, and for those of you who follow other faiths I think you too will find a good lesson here. I was reading the book this past weekend after attending the funeral of A.L Mitchell and ran across this quote from Matthew 10:34: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother . . .”

That’s Jesus speaking. Surprised? It’s a dramatic departure from the gentle, peaceful Jesus most Christians picture. Most see Him as leading lambs and surrounded by children as popular picture books portray Him. But, this Jesus is a rebel. He is saying He isn’t here to bring peace or be part of the status quo, but to upset the tables of the moneylenders in the Temple, and disagree publicly with the teachings of the Pharisees . . . He doesn’t bring a plowshare, but instead brings a sword. He says He is here to upset the status quo.

A sword in our modern lives is whatever we are doing to stand up against things that are just not right. Theodore Roosevelt might have called it our “righteousness.” The sword is our backbone—our resolve—our determination and the actions it breeds to combat a bad situation and make it better. After the military disaster at Gallipoli in 1915, for which he was Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill fell into the shadows, or as he called it, “the wilderness,” of British politics. He could have stayed there, or simply retired to life at his castle estate to paint and author books on history. Yet, when the rise of Bolshevism and Nazism scared others into silence, Churchill found his sword. He railed, almost daily, from 1933-1939 against placating Hitler and the Nazis. He was a thorn in the side of two Prime Ministers and even his own party. His long-winded and terse rhetoric against the Nazis and those who would bury their heads in the sand to them was summed up in his quote, "If a dog makes a dash for my trousers, I shoot him down before he can bite." Most people in Britain and Europe did not want to hear that. They were still rebuilding from the First World War, so they could not find the backbone to confront a new one—even though the Nazis and the fascists in Italy under Mussolini and the imperial Japanese made no efforts to hide their naked aggression. They saw it all, and simply closed their eyes hoping it would go away.

Churchill knew it would not go away on its own. He stood up and took a highly unpopular stance to goad the British people into finding their sword. Which they finally did in 1940 when he was chosen Prime Minster and the country finally took a stand against the Hitler regime and Nazi idealism. Churchill recognized the responsibility of his country drawing its sword, "But if we fail, then the whole world . . . will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand year, Men will still say: 'This was their finest hour'."

Have you drawn your sword or are you falling in with the crowd and going with the flow? Ever wonder where the flow takes one? Well, if water follows the path of least resistance, then the water is simple going where it is easiest to go.

Are you following the status quo? Taking the path of least resistance? In a comfortable place? Not wanting to rock the boat? Afraid to stand up against something/someone louder?

Being a rebel is not a bad thing when it’s doing the right thing.