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Posted: September 28th, 2007 at 1:46am By: Kevin Considine
I live in Chicago. That's about 8,000 miles from Myanmar.
Myanmar, formally known as Burma, is the Southeast Asian nation that has been in the news recently. That's because Buddhist monks have begun marching to protest the military junta that rules the nation with an iron fist. Ordinary people have been emboldened by the monks and have joined in their march. They have become a symbol and a rallying point for the oppressed people of Myanmar.
Not to be publicly opposed, however, the Myanmar military has begun to fight back. On Wednesday they began using tear gas and police batons. And by Thursday morning they had escalated their tactics to include firing bullets into the crowds of marchers and raiding monasteries.
So it's not hard to speculate that more violence and repression are on the way. And it's not hard to see that the people of Myanmar will be forced to continue suffering. After all, this is the same government that violently cracked down on protesters in the late 1980s and killed 3,000 people. And it's the same government that has imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi since 2003.
Like I said, I'm 8,000 miles away. Which means that my neck is not on the line. I can write about this from the relative comfort of the United States. And as an American Catholic rather than a Burmese Buddhist, I recognize that there are enormous material, geographical, religious and cultural gaps between us that are difficult to bridge.
Yet, in my own way, I can try to make sense of what's going on in Myanmar. And to figure out where God is among the power struggle between the military junta and the people who are being symbolized by the monks' marching. And one way to go about this is looking in Scripture.
In particular, I turn to the Gospel of Mark. This is the earliest of the gospels to be written (around 70 C.E.), the shortest and the most concerned with the question of power. After all, it was written during the time of political turmoil: the Roman siege of Jerusalem on account of the Jewish rebellion. And if we put Jesus to the side for a moment and try to look at the God to whom Jesus is bearing witness, we find a God who is "powerful" but in a way that's far beyond what humans understand by such a term.
In Mark's gospel, God heals (5:1-20), forgives sins (2:7), commands human beings (7:6-15) and will triumph over death and evil in the end times (Mark 13). This God is the one who alone wields power justly and in ways that humans don't understand (9:33-37; 10:13-16). This God's kingdom displays a completely different understanding of power and wealth (10:17-31; 10:35-45; 12:38-44). This God of Jesus Christ challenges human understandings of what it means to be powerful. The cross, not the throne, is the destination of God's Messiah. And God's subsequent triumph is an unexpected triumph over death itself.
This God is powerful, but in a strange, surprising way. Kind of like the protesters in Myanmar. So maybe God is among them.
Now this is speculation. It is worthwhile to do, but it only goes so far. As Flemish-Catholic theologian Edward Schillebeeckx has argued, in the face of unjust suffering and evil, such academic theology falls silent. That's because evil is not rational and there can be no rational response to the horrors that it creates. Thus, the only acceptable responses are protest against such evil and concrete action to resist it.
And that's exactly what the monks and others are doing. And it is my hope that they will prevail. Even if my hope is a bit naïve. After all, mine is the hope of the privileged, the hope of the comfortable. And the depths of suffering in this situation are abysmal. They are depths that I will never be forced to fathom.
But this is a true hope nonetheless. A resurrection hope, perhaps. A hope that our powerful God will work the unthinkable in this situation. A hope that the powerless will prevail.
But if that's too naïve, then just their resistance to evil embodies hope. And let news of it be let loose like a biblical flood. Let it spread to places such as Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe and Kim Jong Il's North Korea. Let them all take notice that their power is already slipping away. Let them remember that they are not gods, but men who have set themselves up to be powerful. And let them see that their rule, which is set against the rule of the Living God, is already crumbling.
Maybe then these dictators would sleep a little less soundly tonight. From a world away, this is my prayer. And let us all pray to the Living God for the people of Myanmar.
— — —
Kevin Considine is a graduate student at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, the largest Roman Catholic school of theology and ministry in North America. He is married to a most wonderful woman who keeps him in line and reads his columns to see if they make sense. He and his wife live on the South Side of Chicago. He welcomes comments, feedback or fits of anger and can be reached at {email considkp@yahoo.com}considkp@yahoo.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Kevin Considine.
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I live in Chicago. That's about 8,000 miles from Myanmar.
Myanmar, formally known as Burma, is the Southeast Asian nation that has been in the news recently. That's because Buddhist monks have begun marching to protest the military junta that rules the nation with an iron fist. Ordinary people have been emboldened by the monks and have joined in their march. They have become a symbol and a rallying point for the oppressed people of Myanmar.
Not to be publicly opposed, however, the Myanmar military has begun to fight back. On Wednesday they began using tear gas and police batons. And by Thursday morning they had escalated their tactics to include firing bullets into the crowds of marchers and raiding monasteries.
So it's not hard to speculate that more violence and repression are on the way. And it's not hard to see that the people of Myanmar will be forced to continue suffering. After all, this is the same government that violently cracked down on protesters in the late 1980s and killed 3,000 people. And it's the same government that has imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi since 2003.
Like I said, I'm 8,000 miles away. Which means that my neck is not on the line. I can write about this from the relative comfort of the United States. And as an American Catholic rather than a Burmese Buddhist, I recognize that there are enormous material, geographical, religious and cultural gaps between us that are difficult to bridge.
Yet, in my own way, I can try to make sense of what's going on in Myanmar. And to figure out where God is among the power struggle between the military junta and the people who are being symbolized by the monks' marching. And one way to go about this is looking in Scripture.
In particular, I turn to the Gospel of Mark. This is the earliest of the gospels to be written (around 70 C.E.), the shortest and the most concerned with the question of power. After all, it was written during the time of political turmoil: the Roman siege of Jerusalem on account of the Jewish rebellion. And if we put Jesus to the side for a moment and try to look at the God to whom Jesus is bearing witness, we find a God who is "powerful" but in a way that's far beyond what humans understand by such a term.
In Mark's gospel, God heals (5:1-20), forgives sins (2:7), commands human beings (7:6-15) and will triumph over death and evil in the end times (Mark 13). This God is the one who alone wields power justly and in ways that humans don't understand (9:33-37; 10:13-16). This God's kingdom displays a completely different understanding of power and wealth (10:17-31; 10:35-45; 12:38-44). This God of Jesus Christ challenges human understandings of what it means to be powerful. The cross, not the throne, is the destination of God's Messiah. And God's subsequent triumph is an unexpected triumph over death itself.
This God is powerful, but in a strange, surprising way. Kind of like the protesters in Myanmar. So maybe God is among them.
Now this is speculation. It is worthwhile to do, but it only goes so far. As Flemish-Catholic theologian Edward Schillebeeckx has argued, in the face of unjust suffering and evil, such academic theology falls silent. That's because evil is not rational and there can be no rational response to the horrors that it creates. Thus, the only acceptable responses are protest against such evil and concrete action to resist it.
And that's exactly what the monks and others are doing. And it is my hope that they will prevail. Even if my hope is a bit naïve. After all, mine is the hope of the privileged, the hope of the comfortable. And the depths of suffering in this situation are abysmal. They are depths that I will never be forced to fathom.
But this is a true hope nonetheless. A resurrection hope, perhaps. A hope that our powerful God will work the unthinkable in this situation. A hope that the powerless will prevail.
But if that's too naïve, then just their resistance to evil embodies hope. And let news of it be let loose like a biblical flood. Let it spread to places such as Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe and Kim Jong Il's North Korea. Let them all take notice that their power is already slipping away. Let them remember that they are not gods, but men who have set themselves up to be powerful. And let them see that their rule, which is set against the rule of the Living God, is already crumbling.
Maybe then these dictators would sleep a little less soundly tonight. From a world away, this is my prayer. And let us all pray to the Living God for the people of Myanmar.
— — —
Kevin Considine is a graduate student at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, the largest Roman Catholic school of theology and ministry in North America. He is married to a most wonderful woman who keeps him in line and reads his columns to see if they make sense. He and his wife live on the South Side of Chicago. He welcomes comments, feedback or fits of anger and can be reached at {email considkp@yahoo.com}considkp@yahoo.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Kevin Considine.
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