The Sacred Heart of Jesus is depicted in a stained-glass window at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church in the Forest Hills section of the Queens borough of New York. (OSV News/Gregory A. Shemitz)
by John Dear
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Jesus wasn't just a teacher — he was a movement builder, a grassroots organizer and a radical leader of nonviolent resistance to injustice and empire.
On this week's episode of "The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast," John Dear takes a deep dive into Luke 10, where Jesus sends out 72 disciples in pairs — not to conquer, oppress or kill, but to disarm, heal and dismantle the empire through radical peacemaking.
What if following Jesus today means joining a similar real, organized, strategic movement of active nonviolence?
What does it mean for us to be "lambs among wolves" in a world of rising fascism, white supremacy and permanent war?
How do we mobilize like Jesus, Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to create real disarmament and social change today?
How do we proclaim the coming of God's reign of peace, justice and love today?
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Luke suggests that Jesus isn't just a guru or a community organizer, but a nonviolent general leading a peaceful revolution. Instead of war, Jesus wages peace. Like Gandhi's Salt March and King's Selma to Montgomery march, Jesus calls us to get moving, start organizing and take action.
Like the Galilee 72, we're being sent out as "lambs among wolves" to proclaim God's reign, and in the process share in the joy — yes, the joy — of Jesus' grassroots nonviolence.
