A Gethsemane Awakening

There is a picture by Klee called "Angelus Novus." An angel is presented in it who looks as if he were about to move away from something at which he is staring. His eyes are wide open, his mouth agape, his wings are spread. The angel of history must look like that. His face is turned toward the past. Where a chain of events appears to us, he sees one single catastrophe which relentlessly piles wreckage upon wreckage, and hurls them before his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole that which has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has gotten caught in his wings, and it is so strong that the angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows toward the sky. That which we name progress is this storm. -- Walter Benjamin

"In those days if anyone says to you 'Look! Here is the great leader!' or 'See! There he is!' -- do not believe it. For false leaders and false prophets will appear and produce signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. But be on your guard; I have explained all this to you beforehand." -- Mark 13:21-23

THOSE OF US WHO had (admittedly naively) been hoping against hope that war would be averted will not soon forget the moment we heard the news of the launching of "Desert Storm." It landed in our gut hard and cold. The strained waiting and shrill deadlines over, the gale winds of war struck suddenly, driving us backward into a dark future. In that terrible moment, the aching sadness of Benjamin's "angel of history" seemed too difficult to bear.

The moment of war, recycled so persistently throughout the human story, is always apocalyptic. Apocalypse simply means "thrown open," or "laid bare." In war things are never clearer: The earth and its people shudder in vulnerability; our loyalties are unmasked.

Above all, the decision to sacrifice human life reveals the true character of those in power. As that master apocalypticist John of Patmos put it, the "four horsemen" represent different faces of the same scourge: conquest, the sword, profiteering, and death (Revelation 6:1-8). When the elite decide upon war, these are the real forces at work.

Yet in wartime this revelation is quickly suppressed, the conflicts dressed up in far nobler garb by both sides. Things are never more muddled. Hence Aeschylus' famous dictum, "In war, truth is the first casualty." Widely quoted these days, it is a metaphorical way of describing a complex social phenomenon. We know it well: The inertia of warmaking and its propaganda creates an almost irresistible and self-referential momentum to which all but the most prepared and discerning citizens succumb.

In our case, stepping in immediately to rescue us from the psychic vertigo of January 16 were the news media, with their predatory certainty that we would turn to it in desperation ("Please, say it ain't so, George"). Instantly the war was prime time, and it seemed as if the whole country sat transfixed as television loyally "mediated" the Pentagon's narrative of the unfolding high-tech blitzkrieg. Network ratings soared, and in less than 24 hours, the post-Vietnam "malaise" so lamented during the Reagan decade had utterly evaporated.

War fever had returned to the United States.

War brings unrelenting terror to those near the fire, but for those watching impotently from a distance it engenders disorientation, depression, spiritual siege. In this moment the church is notoriously caught between apocalyptic lucidity and the fog of the current party line. Today Christians are beginning to recognize that substantive moral discourse about modern war is all but obviated once hostilities begin.

But what then to do? The tendency historically has been to concede the descent into social madness and concentrate on the pastoral task of offering comfort to those who mourn the dead. Extraordinary clarity and courage is demanded from Christians who would do more, who would not bow to the strident, idolatrous claims of patriotic wartime leaders, who would resist the very enterprise.

As German Christians during the Third Reich discovered so painfully, how the church responds in wartime is crucial to the very future of faith. Perhaps then if we cannot trust the official "mediators" we ought to return to our own apocalyptic traditions. Perhaps, now that the moment of war assaults us, we ought to give as much effort to serious study of the gospel as we do to our frustrated scouring of the newspapers.

The Church in Wartime
The moment of war was well-known to the gospel writers. All three synoptic stories of Jesus were composed within a generation of the greatest historical apocalypse imaginable in their social world: the Roman-Jewish war of 66-70 C.E., which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and the razing of the second temple.

I believe Mark, the first evangelist, wrote during the darkest days of that war. The crisis fundamentally shaped his work, giving it a decidedly apocalyptic character. What does it reveal to us about the true character of war and our response to it?

Mark's story is structured around two fundamental "moments": the inbreaking of the kingdom of God (Mark 1:15) and the outbreak of war (Mark 13). Both represented historical crises that challenged the audience with their respective exigencies. The kingdom, pregnant with the possibility of human redemption and transformation, demanded costly discipleship. The war, with its manic militarism, demanded an equally costly choosing of sides. The two moments co-existed but must not be confused, for only one was the kairos, the other only pretended to be.

To understand the truth of each moment, Mark argued, required "eyes to see" and "ears to hear." Thus the overarching theme of his story is the struggle over these key senses (which represent the "faculties of critical perception" in ancient Jewish anthropology). The tragedy is that they fail us (Mark 4:12, 6:51-52, 8:17-21), the hope is that they can be healed by Jesus (7:31ff, 8:22ff, 9:14ff, 10:46ff). Accordingly, Mark's Jesus delivers two long parable-spinning "sermons" to his disciples. The first calls the reader to "Listen!" (4:3, 9, 23, 33), the second to "Watch!" (13:5, 9, 23, 33).

It is the latter discourse that gives us insight into the struggle of Mark's community in the historical moment of war. The Jewish rebellion was launched by a coalition of dissident groups in Jerusalem in June of 66, symbolically initiated by the cessation of temple sacrifices to the emperor. In reaction to a century of repression under Roman colonialism, the uprising quickly spread to the nearby provinces, including Galilee. In November of 66, Cestus Gallus, Roman legate of Syria, marched on Jerusalem to destroy the rebels, but in fierce fighting was repelled in his attack on the temple mount. Stunned, the Romans retreated in disarray, sustaining severe losses as Jewish guerrillas pursued them to the coast. There was euphoria in Judea: The homeland was liberated!

For some three years a provisional revolutionary government presided in Jerusalem, though constantly mired in internal power struggles. In 68, Vespasian, the greatest general of the time and soon to become emperor, began his campaign to pacify Palestine. He marched his heavily armed legions down through Galilee toward Judea, and, encountering only scattered resistance, northern Palestine was soon recaptured. Behind him Vespasian left a scorched-earth trail of mercilessly plundered villages -- and hillsides littered with crucified insurrectionists.

By June the Romans were set to lay siege to Jerusalem itself, but once again the unexpected occurred. The campaign was again aborted as Vespasian was urgently summoned back to the imperial capital, as Rome was locked in a fierce civil war. The rebels knew that sooner or later the siege would come, as indeed it did in the spring of 70, when after five months of "economic sanctions" and pitched battle the general Titus sacked Jerusalem and burned the temple to the ground. But during the reprieve of 69, the Jewish resistance had reason to believe that God had once again intervened on behalf of the holy city.

It does not take much historical imagination to appreciate the severe pressures this moment put upon Mark's community in reoccupied Galilee. On the one hand, Roman security forces were demanding proof of loyalty, rooting out those sympathetic to the subversives. Many "reasonable" Jews were in fact persuaded to abandon the revolt as a lost cause, notably a Jewish rebel officer named Josephus, whose later writings left us a detailed if biased account of the war. On the other hand, nationalist recruiters covertly roamed the countryside, invoking the Maccabean and Davidic glory traditions to draft faithful Jews for the irresistible holy war in defense of Zion.

As is always the case in the eye of the hurricane of wartime, there was no neutrality, and the stakes were high. Mark knew that only one voice could compete with the compelling but conflicting demands of collaborator and patriot -- the living Word of Jesus of Nazareth. So it is to Jesus that Mark has the disciples in his story turn in a desperate plea for guidance: "Tell us, when will these things take place, and what will be the sign of their accomplishment?" (Mark 13:4).

MARK KNEW THAT THE DISCURSIVE tradition most appropriate for the moment he was facing was to be found in the powerful resistance literature of apocalyptic. This late biblical and intertestamental tradition was forged during political/military upheaval. Daniel, for example, was written during the Maccabean revolt; the apocryphal 1 Enoch during the breakdown of the Herodian dynasty; and Revelation during imperial pogroms under Domitian.

Apocalyptic symbolics used dualism and myth to excavate under the surface meanings being huckstered by the protagonists of war in order to "lay bare" the true character of historical events. Unfortunately apocalyptic texts are difficult to interpret, and therefore are easily ignored or exploited. So let us take a careful look at Mark's apocalyptic interpretation of the moment of war.

The prolegomenon to the sermon is Jesus' call for the complete "overthrow" of the very temple-based system that his disciples hold in awe (13:1-2). Why? Because it oppresses the poor, which he has just finished pointing out in an object lesson (12:38-44).

This judgment issues in his disciples' anxious inquiry concerning the "end of the age." In apocalyptic discourse, we should be reminded, the "end" refers not to some absolute historical rupture, but to a fundamental transformation in the ordering of power in the world. Thus the sermon begins with surprising clarity; the issue is not war, but the system itself.

Mark carefully structures the first half of the sermon around repetition so we will not miss his warnings. "Watch that no one deceives you" (v. 5) and "Watch! I have told you all this beforehand" (v. 23). "Many will come in my name -- and will deceive many" (v. 6) and "False leaders/prophets will ?deceive the elect" (v. 22). "When you hear of wars and rumors of war" (v. 7) and "When you see the abominating desolation" (v. 14). "The one who endures will be liberated" (v. 13) and "Unless the days were shortened no one would be liberated" (v. 20).

Why all this concern about deception? Because, as we have already noted, that is the central issue of apocalyptic discernment during wartime.

War, says Jesus, despite its cataclysmic trappings, is manifestly not a sign of world transformation. He parodies the claims of those who would market the conflict as the great struggle for a "new world order," or "sovereignty of the people," or jihad.

War is not the end, but rather the beginning of suffering (13:5-8). It is the 'predictable consequence of the arrogance of the elite, here exposed as "false prophets and leaders" (13:6,21-22). War therefore should not come as a surprise, that Christians should be deceived -- we have been forewarned (13:23).

Mark, being a realist, does not fail to remind his listeners that resisting the demands of war leaders (13:6, 21) will result in systematic persecution (13:913). But Jesus guarantees the Holy Spirit's companionship before the powers (13:11); this is the "baptism" promised in the story (1:8,10:38-39), the way of the cross to which he invited disciples (8:34ff) and which he himself walked (15:21ff).

Now comes the hardest case of all, called in cryptic apocalyptic fashion the "abomination of desolation" (13:14). In every war there is at least one great transgression that is used to legitimize the use of force. The "abomination" increases the allure of war (which is why one is sometimes manufactured). For loyal Jews of Mark's time, it was the Roman siege of Jerusalem and the temple.

Here is the litmus test for those struggling to resist wartime deception. And what is Jesus' counsel? To flee Judea, which is to say to refuse the patriotic call to arms (13:14-20). But how can this be? Is it not running away from responsibility, leaving to others the task of "protecting freedom"? Under such pressure, canonized in the moral logic of just war casuistry, the church has historically withered. No wonder Jesus warned, "You will be despised by all sides because of my name" (13:13).

Mark's Jesus insists that disciples must not be driven into war's Faustian bargain, and must instead remain radically critical of both sides. He does this because it is his deepest conviction that all military solutions are by definition counterrevolutionary, serving in the long run only to strengthen the oppressive political system they claim to be reordering.

Powers in the Heavens
But to "see" this takes profound apocalyptic insight. The second half of the sermon therefore is composed around the repeated call to vigilance. We are to "watch" for the true signs of transformation (13:23, 33, 37).

If we stand against war, refusing to cooperate with its social and political mechanisms, what do we stand for? To answer this Mark turns to the high apocalyptic symbolics of the combat myth (13:24-25; Joel 2:10-11; Amos 8:9). In conservative Hellenistic thought, the "powers in the heavens" were a metaphor for the highest structures of law and order, upon which both the cosmos and society were built. Against this "establishment" ideology, Mark pitted the radical prophetic faith of the Isaian apocalypse:

The windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble. The earth is utterly broken ... On that day Yahweh will punish the host of heaven in heaven, and on earth the kings of the earth. They will be gathered together like prisoners in a pit ... Then the moon will be abashed, and the sun ashamed; for the Lord of hosts will reign (Isaiah 24:18-23).

Apocalyptic faith looks for the end of the powers and their politics of domination, not their recycling by another name. Daniel thus refused to take up arms alongside the Maccabean insurgents, believing that transformation could never be accomplished through partisan violence, but only through the revolutionary nonviolence of the Human One (see Daniel 7, 12).

Jesus invokes this tradition (13:26-27) here and again as he stands trial before the powers (14:62). Ultimately, he is revealed as the incarnation of the Human One as he hangs on their cross (15:33ff). It is in this way that Mark repeatedly calls his readers to follow at the beginning, middle, and end of his story (1:16ff, 8:31ff, 16:5ff).

It is again Isaiah's vision of judgment that brings Mark to the mysterious "lesson of the fig tree." "All powers of the heavens will melt, and the heavens will roll up like a scroll, and all the stars fall as leaves from a vine, and as leaves fall from a fig tree" (Isaiah 34:4). But Mark is also referring us back to Jesus' earlier symbolic action in the temple and cursing of the fig tree (11:12-25). Note the tight rhetorical link: "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!" (11:51) and "Look, teacher! What great stones and large buildings!" (13:1).

The parable suggests an answer to the original inquiry about signs of the end. They are not to be seen in war, which is merely symptomatic of the dominant system, but in nonviolent resistance that attacks the system at its roots -- in Mark's case the temple-state, the ideological and economic foundation of an oppressive social order.

Such praxis brings the kairos near (13:29), though exactly how and when the powers will be overthrown is not something we can control or predict (13:32). In this way Mark, like Gandhi, severs nonviolent action from the tyranny of visible results.

The sermon then concludes with the parable of the vigilant doorkeeper. The call to "Watch!" is now replaced with the imperative to "Shake off sleep!" In order to remain alert to the unpredictable kairos of the kingdom's inbreaking, we cannot be sedated by the predictable outbreak of war madness (13:33).

The struggle against succumbing to the coma engendered by the dominant culture -- particularly during wartime -- will be dramatically enacted in Jesus' last moments with his disciples in Gethsemane (14:32ff). There Jesus makes his choice to stay awake to the kingdom -- and takes the consequences. His friends sleep, no doubt dreaming of better times, only to bail out at the moment of truth before the security forces (14:43-52). Thus, in Jesus' final parable, the world has become Gethsemane, and we in it are called to "historical insomnia" (13:35-37).

Jesus' brief closing statement is directed at those who would dismiss this sermon as the apocalyptic ranting of primitive Christians. This word of the risen "master of the house" is addressed to the church in every age: "What I say to you I say to all: Stay awake!"

AS I WRITE THIS, ONE WEEK AFTER the beginning of "Desert Storm," the networks have returned to their regularly scheduled programming, responding to polls the third day of the war indicating that Americans were tiring of the coverage. (Considering what we don't hear, "coverage" seems a wholly appropriate euphemism -- just try to verify reports beginning to leak out of the war zone of a hundred or two hundred thousand civilian casualties.) War news has become a mere refrain -- "Allied forces continued today to pound Iraq ..." -- punctuated with videotaped missile strikes or bemasked reporters and the horrific wailing of air raid sirens.

Official statements assuring that the war is going well (but don't expect it to end too soon) have become background music to business as usual: record fourth-quarter profits for the major oil companies, signs of resuscitation in the aerospace industry. Orwellian normalcy, except for the ritual dance of protesters and counterprotesters, the harassment of Arab-Americans, the silent fears of military families, brave faces gone with the lights.

War stupor has settled in over the United States.

Will the church sleep through this Gethsemane? Will our witness consist merely of donning yellow ribbons and praying for a speedy end to bloodshed? Or will we repudiate the war fever no matter what the consequences, withholding all forms of consent while stubbornly advocating non-military resolutions to the substantive political conflicts?

Will we credulously accept the administration's paean of commitment to a "new world order," justifying "Desert Storm" as the winds of progress? Or will we look deeply enough into the pain of the angel of history to see that this is the cynical reassertion of the same old militaristic politics? Can we "see" the self-interest of the elite who declare war, and "hear" the cries of the socially marginal who must fight and be killed?

Above all, will we succumb to depression and impotence while the architects of war yet again "relentlessly pile wreckage upon wreckage at our feet"? Or will we have the courage and apocalyptic clarity to nonviolently challenge the system at its roots?

Clarity, courage, and resistance are, no doubt, a lot to expect. They are, however, the counsel of the gospel in the apocalypse of war. If we have eyes to see, and ears to hear, we know that "when we see these things taking place, he is near, at the very door" (Mark 13:29).

When this article appeared, Ched Myers was a writer and activist who worked against the war with the American Friends Service Committee and others in Los Angeles.