The Nonviolent Jesus

On this week's episode I reflect on the Gospel of John, chapter 11, the story of the raising of Lazarus, based on my book, Lazarus Come Forth!
I propose that John rewrote the Gospel story to portray Jesus as the God of life who calls humanity in the person of Lazarus out of the tombs of death, out of empire, violence and war, and command us to unbind humanity from the trappings of death and let humanity go free in the fullness of life and resurrection peace.
The message is: have nothing to do with death, with violence, injustice, war or anything that inflicts death on others. Instead, live life to the full, and help others live life to the full.
Possibly you'll recognize yourself in these scriptures:
How the male disciples promise to walk with him but never show up;
How the professional mourners weep over Lazarus, even though they just tried to stone Jesus to death;
How Martha tries to stop Jesus’ nonviolent resistance;
How Jesus announces, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever is fully alive here and now in the present moment of resurrection peace, and believes in me as I walk the way of life and nonviolence and confront the forces of death, will never die.” “Do you believe this?” he asks us.

As Jesus approaches the tomb, he issues three new commandments:
“Take away the stone!”
“Lazarus/Humanity come forth!”
“Unbind humanity and let him go free.”
Listen for my conclusion of this climactic call of John’s Gospel, and what our mission is today.
See what you think. I hope you like it.
My book is available here
More writings from me: beatitudescenter.org
You can find me on Substack https://fatherjohndear.substack.com/
🌻, John

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with my friend Dr. Catherine Meeks, a nationally recognized leader in racial healing and founder of the Turquoise & Lavender Institute for Transformation and Healing.
Her latest book is .Bridging the Rivers of Difference: A Proclamation of Unity in Resistance
Her other books include The Night Is Long but Light Comes in the Morning: Meditations on Racial Healing, and The Quilted Life: Reflections of a Sharecropper’s Daughter. She spent 25 years as chair of the African American Studies program at Mercer University.
“I grew up poor and black in Arkansas, and my way in the world is to connect to the spiritual and God and the way people should be treated right,” she says. This country was founded on the notion that some humans were worth more than others, included black people and women. The Constitution wasn't talking about us. The Heritage Foundation has been working militantly with Project 2025, but we have to be willing to stop having a hierarchy of human value.
“Racism has injured us all,” she continues. “Everyone has been wounded by it. The culture in the US reinforces the notion that people of color are inferior to white people, but we're all made in God's image and we all deserve to be treated right. We have to create new narratives and trust each other enough to work for the general welfare that benefits everybody, not just one set of people."
“We need to recognize the nonviolent Jesus. To dehumanize another person is violent while Jesus was always respecting people. There is no Jesus for warmongers. War is never going to end other wars. We need to reimagine what nonviolence really is about. I see this moment as a time to come to grips with what kind of human we want to be.”
Listen in to hear the powerful words of Dr. Catherine Meeks!
www.turquoiseandlavender.com
beatitudescenter.org
https://fatherjohndear.substack.com/

“My mantra now is, ‘Let it go, let it go, let it go,’” theologian Ron Rolheiser tells John Dear
On today’s episode I speak with my friend writer and theologian, Fr. Ron Rolheiser, one of the most popular Catholic writers in the world, about his new book, Insane for the Light: A Spirituality for Our Wisdom Years, the conclusion of his trilogy of modern spiritual classics, following The Holy Longing and Sacred Fire.
Fr. Ron Rolheiser is the author of many other best-sellers including The Restless Heart, The Shattered Lantern, Forgotten Among the Lilies; Prayer; and The Passion and the Cross. Orbis published an anthology, Ron Rolheiser: Essential Spiritual Writings.
He recently retired from his position as President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas, but continues to write, teach and speak around the country.
You can learn more about him at his website: www.ronrolheiser.com
Speaking about a spirituality for our wisdom years, Ron invites us to address anger, and other forms of resentment and bitterness, and let it go into softness, forgiveness, and gratitude.
“I've spent most of the years of my life in leadership and now nobody's asking for my opinion,” he says. “Letting go of control is difficult. As my health deteriorates, I have to learn to let go. My mantra now is, ‘let it go, let it go, let it go.’ But as I move from full time activity into passivity, I’m asking myself, ‘Who am I when I stop doing? When you're God's beloved, how do we actually own that?’”
“In my lifetime I've never lived through darker days,” he adds. “We're trying to solve violence with violence, but violence begets violence. Politicians are openly saying that compassion is weakness. We've never needed the message of nonviolence more than now.
"The Sermon on the Mount is the greatest moral code ever written. We have to be the ones who stand up and live in hope! To do that, we have to keep a subversive sense of humor.”
Listen in to this great wisdom teacher and be inspired!
beatitudescenter.org
ronrolheiser.com
🌻, John

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with my friend scripture scholar Wes Howard-Brook, author of several great books, including his commentary on the Gospel of John, Becoming Children of God.
He also has a free YouTube channel “The Radical Bible,” his study of the Bible as a whole called, Come Out My People!: God’s Call out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond.
He also just published a smaller, more accessible version of it called: Creation or Empire: A Choice of Religions in the Bible and Beyond.
He tells us: "The Bible is not a bunch of rules or a bunch of pull quotes."
“Most Christians treat the Bible like someone who's been on a one-week tourist trip with a bad tour guide, which is to say, they've gotten a superficial overview and had it interpreted wrongly, and then concluded, ‘Why would I want to go there again?’ he says.
“The heart of my work is trying to re-establish a passion for biblical literacy, because as all indigenous cultures know, as a people, you are the stories that carry you forward.
“The Bible is a set of narratives, poems, proverbs, and other texts that were written by our Israelite and Judean ancestors to get their children to grapple with one central question: what kind of people does God intend us to be?
“The Bible proposes two choices: the religion of creation and the religion of empire. Jesus enters into that 2,000 year old argument among his people: are we to be a powerful empire in the name of God, centered in Jerusalem, to which all the nations will stream and bow down to us and our God? Or is creation the temple; do we find the Creator in the creation, and every created being is part of that?
Jesus plainly and explicitly sides with the religion of creation and resists empire.”
We were so inspired by this Bible scholar to find the Creator in creation and resist empire!
Find his book here
Sign up for more podcasts and interactive zooms here beatitudescenter.org
IG @thenonviolentjesus
Connect with me on Substack @FatherJohnDear
🌻, John

Today I speak with my friend Lisa Sharon Harper. Lisa is a theologian, speaker, author, activist and trainer who has worked in Ferguson and Charlottesville, as well as South Africa, Brazil, Australia, Ireland and across the U.S.
Her 2022 book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And The World--And How To Repair It All, was named “Book of the Year” by Word and Way.
Her 2016 book, The Very Good Gospel, was named “Book of the Year” by the Englewood Review of Books.
After her leadership at Sojourners magazine, she founded Freedom Road, where she is the host of its podcast and column on Substack. The Huffington Post named her one of 50 Women Religious Leaders to Celebrate on International Women’s Day. (See: )
When I asked her about these days of social injustice, white supremacy and permanent warmaking under Trump, she spoke of crying every die.
“I actually have hope but I'm grieving like the rest of the country,” she said.
“I cry because of the Church's silence during the Obama era and back to the 70s/80s during the rise of the religious right. People didn't know what was right, just and Jesus's way…Evil is embedded in the Constitution and in the 3/4 compromise.
I grieve for our inaction in the past. It didn't have to be this way, but in every generation, there is a remnant. There has always been a witness of the actual Jesus way of being in the world."
"Right now, that witness is alive and well.”
She told three stories:
Her time in Ferguson in August, 2014 after Michael Brown was killed by a white policeman;
Her time in Charlottesville, VA, when she was present in the protest against Trump’s neo-Nazis who killed Heather Heyer;
Our experience when we were arrested and in the D.C. Central Cell block jail after protesting at the Supreme Court on the 40th anniversary of the U.S. death penalty.
She shares about her organization, Freedom Road, which trains people of faith to take public action for justice, as well as her recent best-selling books and why she wrote them.
“Nonviolence is the only way for people who are not on the upside of empire to fight back,” she concludes.
"Nonviolence is the only way to not be at war with God.”
Listen in and be inspired by this peacemaker to carry on!
Lisa Sharon Harper
Follow Lisa on Substack
www.freedomroad.us
beatitudescenter.org
Follow me on Substack
🌻, John