The Means of the End

It has long seemed to me that nonviolence is perhaps a worldly equivalent for "the way of the cross" -- a kind of political code name. But while the cross is inherently nonviolent, it does not necessarily follow that nonviolence is inherently the way of the cross. To flatly equate the two is temptation to substitute method, principle, tactic, technique, even ideology, for the spirit of faith.

Yet I still return to the essential nonviolent character of the gospel way. It is a nonviolence rooted not simply in the imitation of Christ but in a view of time and history: in the light (as theologians like to put it) of eschatology.

The classic formulation of nonviolence is predicated on the assumption that the means determine the ends. It's commonly said that the fruit is determined by the seed. You can't grow apples from bramble seeds. And you can't manipulate, coerce, and murder your way into a world free of manipulation, coercion, and murder. A healthy measure of patient endurance is always implied, since apples planted today may not be eaten for a generation hence.

The seed, of course, is also a metaphor common in the biblical testimony: wheat and tares, hard ground and fertile, a vision of all creation nesting in mustard tree branches, lest you fall to the ground and die. Hints and clues get planted in parable.

In Christian tradition, however, a curious reversal occurs. The end determines the means rather than vice versa. The end is not simply a narrow temporal objective. It is the kingdom, the new city, the living fulfillment of humanity and all things. In faith, the end is the means. It is future and reality made present. Christians are nonviolent because they live in the end. Or better, the end lives in them.

All of this should be more than abstract word games or theological gymnastics. It may be a way into the ethics and politics of our lives.

When asked about nonviolence, César Chávez once replied something like this: "I try to live so that at any moment I would be content to have that act be my last." Eschatology and nonviolence made simple! Here is a sense of time which measures and judges all our actions.

What if, in Second Coming images, we were suddenly all called home? Would we want to be occupied in our present employment? When our country prepares for nuclear war, would we want to be just then mailing in our income tax check? Would we want to be in that last day standing around silent in our complicity?

Much of our moral compromise, especially the accommodation to acceptable violence, is based on a worldly view of time which postpones the end indefinitely. We live in eternal delay. Stuck in this long in-between, we settle for interim ethics.

But the presence of the end changes that for us. In this present moment, as though it were our last before the judgment of God, we are freed to risk it all. That's the risk we take with nonviolence. Purity of heart and act.

None of this is intended to imply that we may usurp God's judgment against others or ourselves. Gandhi often spoke of nonviolence being inherent in truth itself: at the very heart of human being. He repeatedly staked his life on that. But he once wrote that it was "humility before the truth" which called forth his nonviolence. He was not so certain that he knew the truth as to be willing to kill or deceive in its name. Something of a backdoor approach. One which seems to me quite close in its practicality to Chávez's simple axiom.

Might not Christian nonviolence be said to come likewise from humility before the judgment? Violence is finally the great sign of self-justified idolatry. Violence claims to know the verdict of God's judgment (or makes that judgment in God's place) and executes a sentence against the "condemned" here and now. (Because I write these thoughts in jail, this point strikes me with particular force.)

We can and must proclaim to nations and people that all come under judgment. That is a good antidote to all idolatries, including our own which come close to home. But we cannot presume to know the content of the judgment, for that is left to the freedom of God. And there in humility and submission to God's radical freedom, our nonviolence may be found.

A nonviolent eschatology is no substitute for the Sermon on the Mount or the way of the cross. Nor is it really a supplement to them. They are one and the same thing. Inseparable. The Sermon, as charter of the kingdom, is nothing less than the spelling out of ethics in the end time. And the cross, being both consequence and fulfillment of the Sermon, is the very embodiment of eschatological nonviolence.

We could inquire with the scholars as to the consciousness of Jesus regarding time and history. The gospel writers record the "little apocalypse" (his commentary on the end time) as the final sermon in Jerusalem. Did Jesus think his own end was tied to the end of history? Did he think his death would bring on the last days?

The point, for believers, is that it does. The cross of Christ is quite simply the seed of the kingdom. It is the last word in humility and the freedom of God. Everything is risked. It is the pouring out of nonviolent forgiveness in the light of judgment and grace. It is the doorway to all things: it is the means of the end.

Bill Wylie-Kellerman was a contributing editor of Sojourners when this article appeared. He participated in a Good Friday prayer service at the Vought Corporation, a nuclear missile plant outside of Detroit, and was arrested after he and seven others placed crosses on the grounds of the corporation. He wrote this meditation during his 18 days in jail.