February 3, 2025 • 41 mins
🔥 Spiritual seekers, this is an episode you won’t want to miss! 🔥
This week on The Nonviolent Jesus, we welcome Fr. Richard Rohr, one of the most influential spiritual voices of our time. A beloved Franciscan priest, best-selling author, and prophetic teacher, Fr. Richard has guided millions—including Oprah, Bono, and even Pope Francis—toward a deeper, more transformative faith.
As the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, his teachings on mysticism, contemplation, and social justice have shaped the way we see faith in the modern world. His books, including The Universal Christ, Falling Upward, and The Divine Dance, have become essential reading for spiritual seekers worldwide. His daily reflections reach over half a million subscribers hungry for wisdom in a divided world.
Now, Fr. Richard returns with his most urgent book yet: "The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage." In a time of chaos and division, what can the prophets teach us about courage, hope, and speaking truth to power?
Join Fr. John as he sits down with Fr. Richard for a powerful conversation on faith, justice, and the prophetic voices we need now more than ever.
🎧 Listen in, be inspired, and discover why Richard Rohr remains one of the most beloved spiritual teachers of our time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm John, Father John Deere, and today I'm speaking
(00:22):
with my friend, author, teacher, and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation,
Richard Rohr. This podcast is a project of BeatitudesCenter.org, where you can find many
other podcasts and regular Zoom programs on the nonviolence of Jesus and practicing nonviolence
and working for a more just, more nonviolent world. So, I like to begin with a little prayer. So,
(00:49):
for all those listening, I invite us just to take a deep breath and to relax, and together,
let's enter into the presence of the God of peace who loves you personally and infinitely.
Let's welcome the nonviolent Jesus here with us and ask for whatever graces we need to follow
(01:10):
the nonviolent Jesus more faithfully and to do God's will. God of peace, thank you for all the
blessings of life, love, and peace that you give us. Be with us as we reflect together on the life
and teachings of the nonviolent Jesus that we might follow Him more faithfully and join His
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prophetic campaign to do our part to help end war, poverty, violence, racism, nuclear weapons,
environmental destruction, to welcome your reign of universal love, universal compassion,
and universal peace in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.
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Father Richard Rohr is a beloved Franciscan priest, bestselling author,
speaker, and founder of the New Jerusalem community in Cincinnati back in 1971,
and in 1987, he founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
His books include The Universal Christ, Everything Belongs, Falling Upward,
(02:17):
Radical Grace, Immortal Diamond, Eager to Love, The Divine Dance, Jesus' Plan for a New World on
the Sermon on the Mount, and my favorite, Breathing Underwater. Father Richard's daily email
messages go out to a half a million people, and his fans include, sorry, I'm name-dropping here,
Richard, Oprah, Bono, and Pope Francis. So, Richard, thank you so much for all the great
(02:43):
work you do and for joining me today on this new podcast. You're very welcome.
I'm honored, and it's easy to talk with you. Thank you.
Thank you, Richard. Well, you've just published a brand new book, and that's what I want to talk
with you today about on the prophets called The Tears of Things, Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of
(03:04):
Outrage, which is such a powerful title. And on the material, I haven't seen it or read it,
but on the materials I saw online, it said, your questions were, how do we live compassionately in
a time of violence and despair? What can we do with our private disappointments and the anger we feel
in such an unjust world? There's so much to talk about. Tell me about the book, Richard.
(03:30):
Well, it was a lifetime in coming. Here at the center, I would teach a major
piece to our interns and our students on the prophets, and doing it year after year,
it just became so apparent how absolutely central they are for a Christian to understand Jesus.
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They set the tangents that he brings to fullness. And I think they're central to the integrity,
let's use that word, of any religion. Any religion, I'm going to make an absolute statement,
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forgive me, but that doesn't have prophetic teachers, and I know you'll make me define that,
but becomes idolatrous. It worships itself and its formulations and rituals instead of God.
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And this was given us by the Jewish religion and incorporated in the Jewish scriptures
against all odds. You know, most institutions don't incorporate self-critical thinking in their
(05:03):
official and foundational texts, but the Old Testament, as we call it, did. Really, it has no
parallel. We had Jesus, but then we didn't interpret him as a prophet, because we didn't
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know what prophets did. We thought they foretold the future, which is a very, very limited
understanding of their role.
Well, let's talk about defining that since you mentioned it. Maybe I could share
my interpretation, but the question would be then, well, what is a prophet and what is a
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prophetic teacher? And as I've thought about it over the years, especially from Isaiah 2,
which I'm going to ask you about later, a prophet does not predict the future. A prophet is a
contemplative who sits there and is quiet and listens to God, and God has something to say.
And then you go into the world and you say what God says. How do you define a prophet?
(06:14):
That's excellent, what you just said. And what God says always includes an element of revelation of the shadow.
Let me call it that. In a time where the movie Wicked has become popular, we recognize that
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we've never been good. And nation states have never been good, institutions in general, and sadly
enough, religions have not been good at revealing the shadow side of things, especially their own shadow.
(06:56):
In the promotional material about your book, it says you talk about the journey to human maturity.
That's so beautiful. I'm going to sum it up and then I'll read what it says and ask you to reflect
(07:16):
on it because it's like your theme and so beautiful. Like the journey that the prophets show us
is from rage and accusation to pathos and lamentation to the critique of culture and institutions
to compassion, which then leads to sacred criticism. So it says your book is about the full
(07:37):
spectrum of human maturity. Wow. And in almost every case, the prophets, their initial rage and
their accusatory words evolve into profound pathos and lamentation about our shared human condition
and the world's suffering. And through critiques of culture and institutions, their journey from
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anger and sadness moves into compassion and what you call sacred criticism. Tell me about that.
You know how to center in on the important stuff. You know, one thing that convinced me to write
this book was back in the early nineties, I did all these studies on male initiation rights
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and gave them for many years, 10, 12 years up here at Ghost Ranch. And there was one line
that I made sure to repeat because of the impact it seemed to have on what we call the day of grief.
And on the day of grief, I said, many men think they are angry,
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especially many older men are, if we'd be honest. And those were the fathers of many of the men in
the room I eventually discovered. But I said, let me tell you a secret. And I'd say it as clearly
as I could, I'm convinced that most men, even those who think they are angry are really sad.
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And the room would come to a hushed recognition that was so consistent over those many years.
It was almost like the turning point in the initiation right. Maybe I'm not as angry as I
think I am. But the trouble is we dualistically then thought all anger was inherently wrong.
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And that wasn't what I was trying to say. I think like the prophets, it's pretty appropriate
to begin with anger. If you aren't angry today at Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, the state of
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mental health and family relationships, you're not looking. But the trouble is it can't stay there.
It's like I always probably say obsessively, it's both and you have to begin with anger
that has to morph into a deeper realization, which is pathos or pity or sadness or what Jeremiah calls
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lamentation. You just can't wake up every day being angry. Like after the last election,
there might be plenty you want to be angry at, but it's going to destroy you instead of enlighten you.
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It needs to morph and develop. And you know, any novel that you or I like or movie that you
or I like, what it always is characterized by is character development, where you see a person grow
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and change. And I don't think we allowed the biblical characters to have that. We just take
any quote from the prophet is a mature quote. Actually, a lot of the early chapters in most
prophets, I'm going to say it are very immature. They're just raging and yelling. And most people
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close the book at that point, especially if their father or mother was a rage, a holic.
They just can't hear angry language anymore.
And that's actually an invitation to let your own anger morph into what it's really feeling.
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And what it's really feeling, I'm convinced is deep sadness, which explains, of course,
the title of the book from Virgil's Aeneid, The Tears of Things.
Tell me about that title, I wanted to ask you, because you know, I don't know anybody who talks
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about tears these days. And it's precisely what we need, the gift of tears and gift of grief as a
new spiritual practice.
Oh, I'm so glad you can understand that.
Yeah, I mean, to me, having teaching the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount,
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I hear Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount saying, as you've heard me say, avoid anger, fear, worry,
anxiety. They don't work in the long run. But it's right there in the Beatitudes,
blessed are those who mourn in grief. And then you're going to be persecuted, rejoice and be glad.
You know, so there's grief and joy. But The Tears of Things, tell me.
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It's from the first chapter of perhaps the
greatest piece of Latin literature. I was the last generation that had to, in my community,
that had to study all this stuff. And the phrase in Latin was lacrimae rarum, the tears of things.
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I mentioned toward the beginning of the book that we had an old professor,
Latin professor, who was a bit of a showman. And he'd come walking in to the classroom,
moaning, lacrimae rarum.
Well, no wonder you remember it. Wow!
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That's pretty effective teaching, actually.
Well, it was. It was. That all things have tears,
and all things deserve tears. There's no preposition in the phrase, in the Aeneid.
It's simply the two words, which allow both to be true, that things have inherent sadness to them,
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almost as if they know they're going to die, or they know their partiality.
And yet all things deserve tears, not hatred, not attack,
not anxiety, but just an immense sadness. And I think that is so true today. I really do.
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One of the things we don't talk about
with the nonviolent Jesus as the greatest prophet, let's say, is he leads this kind of campaign of
nonviolence to Jerusalem. He sees Jerusalem, and he breaks down sobbing. I think that's
17. And why? Because you did not understand the things that make for peace. And so,
(15:32):
number one, I thought that was a teaching.
It's an important line, John.
Yes. That's our way is to weep. But then, you know, I or others might say,
well, that's it, I give up. He then takes action and goes in and does something. I think the grief
leads to direct nonviolent action. But tell me about your image there of the tears of things
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with Jesus approaching Jerusalem.
Yeah, there's only two direct statements that Jesus wept. You spotted one of them,
where he weeps over the collective, which is a whole chapter in the book. The prophets attack
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the prophets attack culture, the collective, they don't waste a lot of time, they really don't
on individuals. John the Baptist is quite the exception in critiquing one man's marriage
situation. That isn't typical of the prophets at all. The other time that it happens is when he
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weeps over the death of his friend Lazarus, which just reveals humanity at its best,
and shows how human he was. So we have the collective weeping over the tragic sense of life.
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Life is inherently tragic. The prophets are always lamenting the collective stupidity.
Amos, I think I counted, it's been some months since I wrote that chapter now, but I think I
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counted 36 mentions of cities, or regions, or towns. You Moab, you in Jesus Bethsaida,
you Corazon, you Jerusalem. Once you hear this, you're going to see its consume.
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They don't waste their time revealing that Joe Blow is imperfect, that Joe Blow is a sinner.
So how would you translate that today? So you're saying it would be,
you Washington DC people, you Los Angeles people, you New Yorkers.
The culture makes evil look good. Let me pick on my neighboring state here, forgive me Texans,
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but the Texas gun culture that is so bred and admired and developed and protected
is what really needs to be exposed as evil. Not John Doe, who happens to fire a gun.
The reason he has to have his gun and so easily fires his gun is because he lives in a culture
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that says evil is good. Does that make sense?
That's very powerful. So give me some examples of the prophets in the book, the prophets,
the great ones, Jeremiah, Daniel, I don't know who you want, one or two or three that
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stick with you, that you write about that could help us in our predicament today to continue
the work of sacred critique. Well, let me go back to Amos.
Here he is a dresser of sycamore trees, an uneducated Jewish man, but has this marvelous
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ability to critique culture. As I mentioned 36 times, he names towns as the problem.
The way you think up there in Bashan, it's amazing that we didn't see it, but you know
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it wasn't until the 1960s that we began to develop what John Paul too called structural
sin or institutional evil. Evil was because of Western individualism, we made our whole
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focus the conversion of individual sinners while leaving the superficiality of the Renaissance
completely in charge, let's say. Just pick out an example. It's only Savonarola who could
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have the bonfire of the vanities. God, if we tried to do that in Hollywood today, we
would be burned at the stake too. But that's where the exposure lies. The sin must be exposed,
I should say. The collective nature of evil that lies in group adulation, admiration, validation,
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and lets the individual off scot-free.
That's powerful. You know, some people consider the greatest book on the prophets,
the famous book, The Prophets by Rabbi Abraham Heschel. He says there, I haven't looked at it
in a long time, but it's a masterpiece. He says, the prophets pretty much all agree that
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indifference in the face of evil is worse than the evil itself. Now, that's his word. What do you think?
Wow. That's what I'm trying to say. That we're all numb, I think he uses that word. We're all
numb to the ubiquity of stupidity and illusion.
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Yeah. And then he goes on in that quote, which I've always remembered, that,
some of us are guilty, but all of us are responsible. Isn't that great?
Great line.
What does that mean for you, for us now? I know that's a basic question, but I want to hear you unpack it.
Well, you know, I think Jesus came to represent solidarity with human
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suffering and even solidarity with human stupidity. Not the illusion that we
privately could overcome it. That created a religion of purity codes and an obsession with
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being pure and not evil, denial of the shadow. And soon we became so practiced at denying the shadow
that we literally can't see it. It's good. It's admirable.
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You know, that's where Bonhoeffer was going toward the end of his life. In the end, he's right.
There's nothing worse than organized, institutionalized, nationalized stupidity.
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Exactly.
That's what he said. He wrote a treatise on stupidity when he was referring to the Nazis.
I'm sorry. Forgive me for being seemingly partisan, but I don't have time to be upset at the
new president we have elected, but I have time to lament the stupidity of 40%, whatever it is,
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of America that has no spiritual insight, that could elect such limitedness. Let's just call it
that. And you know, you have to be, first of all, speaking with dualistic clarity about good and
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evil, or otherwise we live with moral anarchy. And then God leads you to the non-dual,
where you can still be compassionate. You don't stir up anger, you don't stir up rage,
but boy, you're tempted to in your first recognition. Does that make sense?
(25:13):
Well, yeah, then maybe you can tell me and us, therefore, more about what you mean by this
interesting phrase you've come up with, sacred criticism. So, for example, my older brother has
said that, you know, when I was young, I was going around the country telling everybody to be
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nonviolent or I'll beat you up. Don't agree with him. So, it's been a long journey. How do you be
critical of the culture without being violent? And I'm trying to teach nonviolence and I get mad,
but I don't want to do that anymore. And I see Gandhi, Dr. King, you know, our friend Daniel
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Berrigan did it. Tutu was so much fun. He's critiquing South Africa, but he's got everybody
laughing too. What do you mean by sacred criticism and what tips do you have to practice it? In other
words, how do you speak truth to power, but with love and nonviolence?
Yes, and not superiority or rage or an absolutism that brooks no conversation.
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You have to be both and both able to see evil, but willing to recognize that my rage is not
its reform or its solution. Those are two different movements. I know when people hear me being
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critical of things that are happening in politics or history, they say, oh Richard, you're being
dualistic. You have to first of all achieve dualistic clarity about good and evil, but then,
and this is the work of the Holy Spirit who teaches you how not to stand righteously apart from it,
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or righteously above it, and then merely fall down in tears.
I think you've done that. You've shown that in your whole lifespan.
Thank you, Richard.
You're not the firebrand you worked for. I hope I'm not either.
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Richard Long ago, I was a friend of mine who spent his life building nuclear weapons,
and he quit and became an active leader for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and later used to
meet regularly with Pope John Paul about that. He had this phrase that when we go to the Pentagon,
and I'm going to hear asking you how to reflect with me on my own work, we had that regular
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campaign at Los Alamos where they build all the nuclear weapons in New Mexico.
This friend used to say, having spent his life doing it, go there with the, I hope,
the non-dualistic vision that the people are good, but the work is evil. I found that helpful as
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opposed to everything is evil. We would go up to Los Alamos and there's no, I've learned,
there's no judgment. I love to love these people. In fact, I did, but also they're the only ones who
know how to dismantle the darn things. We need them. We're all in the same boat.
Well said.
So does that make sense? Because I'm sure there's people who are vigilantly listening to this
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about how do we live in that place now, here in the United States, to stand up publicly in that
space of both and that all people are good, but we are doing evil work. And we can name that without
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judging people. Is that possible?
To have the mind of Christ, I think you have to undergo two movements. First, the one to see
the stupidity and evil that humanity is capable of. But the second one, somewhat
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coterminous with what I call and Carl Jung calls the two halves of life. The second movement,
the second half of life is to recognize that my rage better not be moral superiority. It doesn't
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come from moral superiority. It's the work of the spirit. And if you let that spirit continue to
work in you, it softens your heart to tears. Sometimes literal tears. That has to be what Jesus
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recognized when he said, how blessed, how happy are those who weep. What was it? Back in the
charismatic days, we all spoke of the gift of tears. It's, I think, a loss that we don't
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recognize it as a gift. The second movement from anger to sadness.
So, let me ask you about that. Because as you know, I've been doing this project,
the Beatitude Center for the Nonviolent Jesus, and been talking about the Beatitudes and teaching
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them and the Sermon on the Mount in my new book, The Gospel of Peace. So, you have the Beatitudes
journey, the poor in spirit and blessed are those who mourn grieving for the world. And then the meek,
the gentle, the nonviolent, and hungering thirst for justice. And then the merciful and the clean
of heart. And then your peacemakers, well, then you're going to be persecuted for justice.
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And then you're insulted. And the climax is, rejoice and be glad now you're like the prophets.
You get to be like Jeremiah and Isaiah and Daniel, which I always say, now we get to be Dr. King
and Dorothy Day and Gandhi, and we get to see how nonviolent we are. Tell me about that, because
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I never heard anybody in my life, Richard, talk about Jesus saying the goal is to carry on the
prophetic tradition. That's what the Beatitudes are about. What do you think?
Well, as long as you aren't identified with the fame or infamy of these
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prophetic figures. What do you mean? Richard Lipsetter
Well, you want to look like a rebel or you want to look like a prophet. Now, I know, I like to
think I know what Jesus means like, then you'll be like the prophets, which means you will be
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roundly mistrusted, judged, and hated. Yeah, the word is you'll be treated
like the prophets of old. Actually, that's not admired. No, you're not going to be admired.
Yeah, you won't be admired. Okay, that's why even the majority of mainline church people,
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you know this. Richard, let me tell you a story and ask what you think about this. You know about
my journey and I lived in El Salvador in 1985 in the war zone. But I was a young Jesuit and I was
being mentored by the Jesuits at the university who were later assassinated and got to know them
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all in all. And one day, we were out at one of the parishes and the very poor, and John Sabrino and
Ignacio Acreya, who was assassinated, the president were there. And oddly enough, the Daily Sunday
reading was Jesus talking about the prophets. I don't remember what it was, but I never forgot,
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I think it was Acreya, what he said. He's up there giving a homily to 500 very poor people.
And he said, well, we've had one of the greatest prophets in history here in our own country,
Archbishop Oscar Romero. We don't have to be a prophet like Oscar Romero. And very few are
called like that. And you can't go around saying, I'm a prophet. But he said, we are called to be a
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prophetic people. It's the flip side of your thing about the collective evil. He's saying,
we collectively, the Church of El Salvador is now a prophetic church. We stand up and say no.
What do you think about that? Did you write about that in your book? I never heard anybody say that
before. That's the key to keep from ego inflation and keeping from thinking of yourself as morally
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superior or I'm on moral high ground. That's allowed us to confuse liberal thinking with prophecy.
The liberal one wants to be morally superior by his liberal position. The prophet just wants
to speak the word of God, let the cards fall where they may.
(35:00):
That's great. Richard, let me ask you about nonviolence. So on the one, you know, my friend,
our friend Daniel Berrigan, in the last 20 years of his life, he wrote a dozen books on the prophets
and they just had their names, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, and they're all still in print. So he was
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saying, and I saw him talk about the journey of the Hebrew prophets. Okay, just bear with me.
From the perspective of nonviolence, he was arguing that they are, you know, there's first,
there's the false prophets, who are the outspoken people for the empire and the religion of empire
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or the cultural religion that serves and profits from institutional injustice and so forth.
And then there's the real prophets who are raging and are really calling for, well, he said,
as the time goes on, you move from the just wars of the right, even in the prophets,
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to just wars of the left, like you could see violent revolutionaries. And then comes Jesus,
who we never see, only you get hints of him, of course, in Daniel and Isaiah,
who is a total prophet, but totally nonviolent. So it's a whole, he's the climax of it all.
What do you think of that?
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Yeah, I think Jesus does the same journey from anger to sadness, but he does it much quicker.
He still excoriates the scribes and the Pharisees rather fiercely, I think we have to admit. But
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the majority of his teaching is compassion, is forgiveness, is mercy, has said steadfast love.
And thank God, that's what we know him for. But we got to be honest, there's a lot of passages like
Matthew 23, where Jesus is pretty angry. That's what gave me courage to say, you have to start with
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dualistic thinking, dualistic clarity about what good is and what evil is, but don't let it capture
you. Don't let it envelop you. And Jesus didn't. He moved to the heart, he moved to the soul,
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he moved to a better analysis than totally good and totally bad.
Well, we've come to the end of our time, and I'd like to talk with you all day.
But let me end with a general question of, I urge all the listeners to get your new book,
The Tears of Things. And this will be aired around early February, so just as the book comes out.
(38:17):
So, any suggestions for people as we wrap up here, as we go forth in terms of,
in these difficult times, following the nonviolent Jesus and maybe together being a prophetic people
who speak out for justice and discernment and creation, but with love and compassion? Any last
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tips? Well, yeah, be careful not to confuse, I said it already, liberalism with prophecy itself.
It might be one of the Achilles heels of post-Vatican to liberal Catholicism.
We rather broadly confused being progressive with being a prophet. The one is motivated by
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the need to be right, just in a new way. The other is motivated by the Holy Spirit within you,
that holds to a deeper truth, a deeper love. So, do not equate liberal political thinking
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with biblical prophetic thinking, even though I admit they often overlap.
But overlapping is sometimes with rather conservative thinking, too.
Well, thank you so much, Richard. So great.
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I hope that makes sense.
Yeah, it's all very helpful and inspiring. I can't wait to read your book. And I thank you for
spending time with me.
Well, thank you for calling me. I'm honored to be on your podcast.
Thank you.
Let's hope it does a lot of good.
Let's hope and pray. And everybody listening, I thank you for listening today to this
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new Nonviolent Jesus podcast. You can hear many more podcasts and find other upcoming Zoom programs
at BeatitudesCenter.org. And there you can leave any comments or feedback or make a donation.
And join us in the weeks ahead when I'll welcome other friends like Sister Joan Chiddester,
Reverend Barber, and Joan Baez. So, may the God of peace bless us all.
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Keep on following the Nonviolent Jesus and see you next time. Thanks so much.
Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm John, Father John Deere, and today I'm speaking
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with my friend, author, teacher, and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation,
Richard Rohr. This podcast is a project of BeatitudesCenter.org, where you can find many
other podcasts and regular Zoom programs on the nonviolence of Jesus and practicing nonviolence
and working for a more just, more nonviolent world. So, I like to begin with a little prayer. So,
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for all those listening, I invite us just to take a deep breath and to relax, and together,
let's enter into the presence of the God of peace who loves you personally and infinitely.
Let's welcome the nonviolent Jesus here with us and ask for whatever graces we need to follow
(01:10):
the nonviolent Jesus more faithfully and to do God's will. God of peace, thank you for all the
blessings of life, love, and peace that you give us. Be with us as we reflect together on the life
and teachings of the nonviolent Jesus that we might follow Him more faithfully and join His
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prophetic campaign to do our part to help end war, poverty, violence, racism, nuclear weapons,
environmental destruction, to welcome your reign of universal love, universal compassion,
and universal peace in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.
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Father Richard Rohr is a beloved Franciscan priest, bestselling author,
speaker, and founder of the New Jerusalem community in Cincinnati back in 1971,
and in 1987, he founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
His books include The Universal Christ, Everything Belongs, Falling Upward,
(02:17):
Radical Grace, Immortal Diamond, Eager to Love, The Divine Dance, Jesus' Plan for a New World on
the Sermon on the Mount, and my favorite, Breathing Underwater. Father Richard's daily email
messages go out to a half a million people, and his fans include, sorry, I'm name-dropping here,
Richard, Oprah, Bono, and Pope Francis. So, Richard, thank you so much for all the great
(02:43):
work you do and for joining me today on this new podcast. You're very welcome.
I'm honored, and it's easy to talk with you. Thank you.
Thank you, Richard. Well, you've just published a brand new book, and that's what I want to talk
with you today about on the prophets called The Tears of Things, Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of
(03:04):
Outrage, which is such a powerful title. And on the material, I haven't seen it or read it,
but on the materials I saw online, it said, your questions were, how do we live compassionately in
a time of violence and despair? What can we do with our private disappointments and the anger we feel
in such an unjust world? There's so much to talk about. Tell me about the book, Richard.
(03:30):
Well, it was a lifetime in coming. Here at the center, I would teach a major
piece to our interns and our students on the prophets, and doing it year after year,
it just became so apparent how absolutely central they are for a Christian to understand Jesus.
(03:59):
They set the tangents that he brings to fullness. And I think they're central to the integrity,
let's use that word, of any religion. Any religion, I'm going to make an absolute statement,
(04:20):
forgive me, but that doesn't have prophetic teachers, and I know you'll make me define that,
but becomes idolatrous. It worships itself and its formulations and rituals instead of God.
(04:41):
And this was given us by the Jewish religion and incorporated in the Jewish scriptures
against all odds. You know, most institutions don't incorporate self-critical thinking in their
(05:03):
official and foundational texts, but the Old Testament, as we call it, did. Really, it has no
parallel. We had Jesus, but then we didn't interpret him as a prophet, because we didn't
(05:25):
know what prophets did. We thought they foretold the future, which is a very, very limited
understanding of their role.
Well, let's talk about defining that since you mentioned it. Maybe I could share
my interpretation, but the question would be then, well, what is a prophet and what is a
(05:50):
prophetic teacher? And as I've thought about it over the years, especially from Isaiah 2,
which I'm going to ask you about later, a prophet does not predict the future. A prophet is a
contemplative who sits there and is quiet and listens to God, and God has something to say.
And then you go into the world and you say what God says. How do you define a prophet?
(06:14):
That's excellent, what you just said. And what God says always includes an element of revelation of the shadow.
Let me call it that. In a time where the movie Wicked has become popular, we recognize that
(06:36):
we've never been good. And nation states have never been good, institutions in general, and sadly
enough, religions have not been good at revealing the shadow side of things, especially their own shadow.
(06:56):
In the promotional material about your book, it says you talk about the journey to human maturity.
That's so beautiful. I'm going to sum it up and then I'll read what it says and ask you to reflect
(07:16):
on it because it's like your theme and so beautiful. Like the journey that the prophets show us
is from rage and accusation to pathos and lamentation to the critique of culture and institutions
to compassion, which then leads to sacred criticism. So it says your book is about the full
(07:37):
spectrum of human maturity. Wow. And in almost every case, the prophets, their initial rage and
their accusatory words evolve into profound pathos and lamentation about our shared human condition
and the world's suffering. And through critiques of culture and institutions, their journey from
(07:58):
anger and sadness moves into compassion and what you call sacred criticism. Tell me about that.
You know how to center in on the important stuff. You know, one thing that convinced me to write
this book was back in the early nineties, I did all these studies on male initiation rights
(08:24):
and gave them for many years, 10, 12 years up here at Ghost Ranch. And there was one line
that I made sure to repeat because of the impact it seemed to have on what we call the day of grief.
And on the day of grief, I said, many men think they are angry,
(08:48):
especially many older men are, if we'd be honest. And those were the fathers of many of the men in
the room I eventually discovered. But I said, let me tell you a secret. And I'd say it as clearly
as I could, I'm convinced that most men, even those who think they are angry are really sad.
(09:19):
And the room would come to a hushed recognition that was so consistent over those many years.
It was almost like the turning point in the initiation right. Maybe I'm not as angry as I
think I am. But the trouble is we dualistically then thought all anger was inherently wrong.
(09:47):
And that wasn't what I was trying to say. I think like the prophets, it's pretty appropriate
to begin with anger. If you aren't angry today at Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, the state of
(10:11):
mental health and family relationships, you're not looking. But the trouble is it can't stay there.
It's like I always probably say obsessively, it's both and you have to begin with anger
that has to morph into a deeper realization, which is pathos or pity or sadness or what Jeremiah calls
(10:42):
lamentation. You just can't wake up every day being angry. Like after the last election,
there might be plenty you want to be angry at, but it's going to destroy you instead of enlighten you.
(11:03):
It needs to morph and develop. And you know, any novel that you or I like or movie that you
or I like, what it always is characterized by is character development, where you see a person grow
(11:24):
and change. And I don't think we allowed the biblical characters to have that. We just take
any quote from the prophet is a mature quote. Actually, a lot of the early chapters in most
prophets, I'm going to say it are very immature. They're just raging and yelling. And most people
(11:53):
close the book at that point, especially if their father or mother was a rage, a holic.
They just can't hear angry language anymore.
And that's actually an invitation to let your own anger morph into what it's really feeling.
(12:17):
And what it's really feeling, I'm convinced is deep sadness, which explains, of course,
the title of the book from Virgil's Aeneid, The Tears of Things.
Tell me about that title, I wanted to ask you, because you know, I don't know anybody who talks
(12:38):
about tears these days. And it's precisely what we need, the gift of tears and gift of grief as a
new spiritual practice.
Oh, I'm so glad you can understand that.
Yeah, I mean, to me, having teaching the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount,
(13:02):
I hear Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount saying, as you've heard me say, avoid anger, fear, worry,
anxiety. They don't work in the long run. But it's right there in the Beatitudes,
blessed are those who mourn in grief. And then you're going to be persecuted, rejoice and be glad.
You know, so there's grief and joy. But The Tears of Things, tell me.
(13:28):
It's from the first chapter of perhaps the
greatest piece of Latin literature. I was the last generation that had to, in my community,
that had to study all this stuff. And the phrase in Latin was lacrimae rarum, the tears of things.
(13:51):
I mentioned toward the beginning of the book that we had an old professor,
Latin professor, who was a bit of a showman. And he'd come walking in to the classroom,
moaning, lacrimae rarum.
Well, no wonder you remember it. Wow!
(14:12):
That's pretty effective teaching, actually.
Well, it was. It was. That all things have tears,
and all things deserve tears. There's no preposition in the phrase, in the Aeneid.
It's simply the two words, which allow both to be true, that things have inherent sadness to them,
(14:42):
almost as if they know they're going to die, or they know their partiality.
And yet all things deserve tears, not hatred, not attack,
not anxiety, but just an immense sadness. And I think that is so true today. I really do.
(15:07):
One of the things we don't talk about
with the nonviolent Jesus as the greatest prophet, let's say, is he leads this kind of campaign of
nonviolence to Jerusalem. He sees Jerusalem, and he breaks down sobbing. I think that's
17. And why? Because you did not understand the things that make for peace. And so,
(15:32):
number one, I thought that was a teaching.
It's an important line, John.
Yes. That's our way is to weep. But then, you know, I or others might say,
well, that's it, I give up. He then takes action and goes in and does something. I think the grief
leads to direct nonviolent action. But tell me about your image there of the tears of things
(15:58):
with Jesus approaching Jerusalem.
Yeah, there's only two direct statements that Jesus wept. You spotted one of them,
where he weeps over the collective, which is a whole chapter in the book. The prophets attack
(16:18):
the prophets attack culture, the collective, they don't waste a lot of time, they really don't
on individuals. John the Baptist is quite the exception in critiquing one man's marriage
situation. That isn't typical of the prophets at all. The other time that it happens is when he
(16:50):
weeps over the death of his friend Lazarus, which just reveals humanity at its best,
and shows how human he was. So we have the collective weeping over the tragic sense of life.
(17:12):
Life is inherently tragic. The prophets are always lamenting the collective stupidity.
Amos, I think I counted, it's been some months since I wrote that chapter now, but I think I
(17:33):
counted 36 mentions of cities, or regions, or towns. You Moab, you in Jesus Bethsaida,
you Corazon, you Jerusalem. Once you hear this, you're going to see its consume.
(17:56):
They don't waste their time revealing that Joe Blow is imperfect, that Joe Blow is a sinner.
So how would you translate that today? So you're saying it would be,
you Washington DC people, you Los Angeles people, you New Yorkers.
The culture makes evil look good. Let me pick on my neighboring state here, forgive me Texans,
(18:28):
but the Texas gun culture that is so bred and admired and developed and protected
is what really needs to be exposed as evil. Not John Doe, who happens to fire a gun.
The reason he has to have his gun and so easily fires his gun is because he lives in a culture
(18:58):
that says evil is good. Does that make sense?
That's very powerful. So give me some examples of the prophets in the book, the prophets,
the great ones, Jeremiah, Daniel, I don't know who you want, one or two or three that
(19:23):
stick with you, that you write about that could help us in our predicament today to continue
the work of sacred critique. Well, let me go back to Amos.
Here he is a dresser of sycamore trees, an uneducated Jewish man, but has this marvelous
(19:46):
ability to critique culture. As I mentioned 36 times, he names towns as the problem.
The way you think up there in Bashan, it's amazing that we didn't see it, but you know
(20:07):
it wasn't until the 1960s that we began to develop what John Paul too called structural
sin or institutional evil. Evil was because of Western individualism, we made our whole
(20:31):
focus the conversion of individual sinners while leaving the superficiality of the Renaissance
completely in charge, let's say. Just pick out an example. It's only Savonarola who could
(20:52):
have the bonfire of the vanities. God, if we tried to do that in Hollywood today, we
would be burned at the stake too. But that's where the exposure lies. The sin must be exposed,
I should say. The collective nature of evil that lies in group adulation, admiration, validation,
(21:26):
and lets the individual off scot-free.
That's powerful. You know, some people consider the greatest book on the prophets,
the famous book, The Prophets by Rabbi Abraham Heschel. He says there, I haven't looked at it
in a long time, but it's a masterpiece. He says, the prophets pretty much all agree that
(21:55):
indifference in the face of evil is worse than the evil itself. Now, that's his word. What do you think?
Wow. That's what I'm trying to say. That we're all numb, I think he uses that word. We're all
numb to the ubiquity of stupidity and illusion.
(22:18):
Yeah. And then he goes on in that quote, which I've always remembered, that,
some of us are guilty, but all of us are responsible. Isn't that great?
Great line.
What does that mean for you, for us now? I know that's a basic question, but I want to hear you unpack it.
Well, you know, I think Jesus came to represent solidarity with human
(22:47):
suffering and even solidarity with human stupidity. Not the illusion that we
privately could overcome it. That created a religion of purity codes and an obsession with
(23:12):
being pure and not evil, denial of the shadow. And soon we became so practiced at denying the shadow
that we literally can't see it. It's good. It's admirable.
(23:32):
You know, that's where Bonhoeffer was going toward the end of his life. In the end, he's right.
There's nothing worse than organized, institutionalized, nationalized stupidity.
(23:53):
Exactly.
That's what he said. He wrote a treatise on stupidity when he was referring to the Nazis.
I'm sorry. Forgive me for being seemingly partisan, but I don't have time to be upset at the
new president we have elected, but I have time to lament the stupidity of 40%, whatever it is,
(24:21):
of America that has no spiritual insight, that could elect such limitedness. Let's just call it
that. And you know, you have to be, first of all, speaking with dualistic clarity about good and
(24:47):
evil, or otherwise we live with moral anarchy. And then God leads you to the non-dual,
where you can still be compassionate. You don't stir up anger, you don't stir up rage,
but boy, you're tempted to in your first recognition. Does that make sense?
(25:13):
Well, yeah, then maybe you can tell me and us, therefore, more about what you mean by this
interesting phrase you've come up with, sacred criticism. So, for example, my older brother has
said that, you know, when I was young, I was going around the country telling everybody to be
(25:33):
nonviolent or I'll beat you up. Don't agree with him. So, it's been a long journey. How do you be
critical of the culture without being violent? And I'm trying to teach nonviolence and I get mad,
but I don't want to do that anymore. And I see Gandhi, Dr. King, you know, our friend Daniel
(25:56):
Berrigan did it. Tutu was so much fun. He's critiquing South Africa, but he's got everybody
laughing too. What do you mean by sacred criticism and what tips do you have to practice it? In other
words, how do you speak truth to power, but with love and nonviolence?
Yes, and not superiority or rage or an absolutism that brooks no conversation.
(26:26):
You have to be both and both able to see evil, but willing to recognize that my rage is not
its reform or its solution. Those are two different movements. I know when people hear me being
(26:54):
critical of things that are happening in politics or history, they say, oh Richard, you're being
dualistic. You have to first of all achieve dualistic clarity about good and evil, but then,
and this is the work of the Holy Spirit who teaches you how not to stand righteously apart from it,
(27:21):
or righteously above it, and then merely fall down in tears.
I think you've done that. You've shown that in your whole lifespan.
Thank you, Richard.
You're not the firebrand you worked for. I hope I'm not either.
(27:44):
Richard Long ago, I was a friend of mine who spent his life building nuclear weapons,
and he quit and became an active leader for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and later used to
meet regularly with Pope John Paul about that. He had this phrase that when we go to the Pentagon,
and I'm going to hear asking you how to reflect with me on my own work, we had that regular
(28:12):
campaign at Los Alamos where they build all the nuclear weapons in New Mexico.
This friend used to say, having spent his life doing it, go there with the, I hope,
the non-dualistic vision that the people are good, but the work is evil. I found that helpful as
(28:32):
opposed to everything is evil. We would go up to Los Alamos and there's no, I've learned,
there's no judgment. I love to love these people. In fact, I did, but also they're the only ones who
know how to dismantle the darn things. We need them. We're all in the same boat.
Well said.
So does that make sense? Because I'm sure there's people who are vigilantly listening to this
(28:55):
about how do we live in that place now, here in the United States, to stand up publicly in that
space of both and that all people are good, but we are doing evil work. And we can name that without
(29:17):
judging people. Is that possible?
To have the mind of Christ, I think you have to undergo two movements. First, the one to see
the stupidity and evil that humanity is capable of. But the second one, somewhat
(29:38):
coterminous with what I call and Carl Jung calls the two halves of life. The second movement,
the second half of life is to recognize that my rage better not be moral superiority. It doesn't
(29:59):
come from moral superiority. It's the work of the spirit. And if you let that spirit continue to
work in you, it softens your heart to tears. Sometimes literal tears. That has to be what Jesus
(30:21):
recognized when he said, how blessed, how happy are those who weep. What was it? Back in the
charismatic days, we all spoke of the gift of tears. It's, I think, a loss that we don't
(30:42):
recognize it as a gift. The second movement from anger to sadness.
So, let me ask you about that. Because as you know, I've been doing this project,
the Beatitude Center for the Nonviolent Jesus, and been talking about the Beatitudes and teaching
(31:07):
them and the Sermon on the Mount in my new book, The Gospel of Peace. So, you have the Beatitudes
journey, the poor in spirit and blessed are those who mourn grieving for the world. And then the meek,
the gentle, the nonviolent, and hungering thirst for justice. And then the merciful and the clean
of heart. And then your peacemakers, well, then you're going to be persecuted for justice.
(31:29):
And then you're insulted. And the climax is, rejoice and be glad now you're like the prophets.
You get to be like Jeremiah and Isaiah and Daniel, which I always say, now we get to be Dr. King
and Dorothy Day and Gandhi, and we get to see how nonviolent we are. Tell me about that, because
(31:50):
I never heard anybody in my life, Richard, talk about Jesus saying the goal is to carry on the
prophetic tradition. That's what the Beatitudes are about. What do you think?
Well, as long as you aren't identified with the fame or infamy of these
(32:11):
prophetic figures. What do you mean? Richard Lipsetter
Well, you want to look like a rebel or you want to look like a prophet. Now, I know, I like to
think I know what Jesus means like, then you'll be like the prophets, which means you will be
(32:34):
roundly mistrusted, judged, and hated. Yeah, the word is you'll be treated
like the prophets of old. Actually, that's not admired. No, you're not going to be admired.
Yeah, you won't be admired. Okay, that's why even the majority of mainline church people,
(32:57):
you know this. Richard, let me tell you a story and ask what you think about this. You know about
my journey and I lived in El Salvador in 1985 in the war zone. But I was a young Jesuit and I was
being mentored by the Jesuits at the university who were later assassinated and got to know them
(33:17):
all in all. And one day, we were out at one of the parishes and the very poor, and John Sabrino and
Ignacio Acreya, who was assassinated, the president were there. And oddly enough, the Daily Sunday
reading was Jesus talking about the prophets. I don't remember what it was, but I never forgot,
(33:39):
I think it was Acreya, what he said. He's up there giving a homily to 500 very poor people.
And he said, well, we've had one of the greatest prophets in history here in our own country,
Archbishop Oscar Romero. We don't have to be a prophet like Oscar Romero. And very few are
called like that. And you can't go around saying, I'm a prophet. But he said, we are called to be a
(34:05):
prophetic people. It's the flip side of your thing about the collective evil. He's saying,
we collectively, the Church of El Salvador is now a prophetic church. We stand up and say no.
What do you think about that? Did you write about that in your book? I never heard anybody say that
before. That's the key to keep from ego inflation and keeping from thinking of yourself as morally
(34:35):
superior or I'm on moral high ground. That's allowed us to confuse liberal thinking with prophecy.
The liberal one wants to be morally superior by his liberal position. The prophet just wants
to speak the word of God, let the cards fall where they may.
(35:00):
That's great. Richard, let me ask you about nonviolence. So on the one, you know, my friend,
our friend Daniel Berrigan, in the last 20 years of his life, he wrote a dozen books on the prophets
and they just had their names, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, and they're all still in print. So he was
(35:22):
saying, and I saw him talk about the journey of the Hebrew prophets. Okay, just bear with me.
From the perspective of nonviolence, he was arguing that they are, you know, there's first,
there's the false prophets, who are the outspoken people for the empire and the religion of empire
(35:45):
or the cultural religion that serves and profits from institutional injustice and so forth.
And then there's the real prophets who are raging and are really calling for, well, he said,
as the time goes on, you move from the just wars of the right, even in the prophets,
(36:07):
to just wars of the left, like you could see violent revolutionaries. And then comes Jesus,
who we never see, only you get hints of him, of course, in Daniel and Isaiah,
who is a total prophet, but totally nonviolent. So it's a whole, he's the climax of it all.
What do you think of that?
(36:28):
Yeah, I think Jesus does the same journey from anger to sadness, but he does it much quicker.
He still excoriates the scribes and the Pharisees rather fiercely, I think we have to admit. But
(36:50):
the majority of his teaching is compassion, is forgiveness, is mercy, has said steadfast love.
And thank God, that's what we know him for. But we got to be honest, there's a lot of passages like
Matthew 23, where Jesus is pretty angry. That's what gave me courage to say, you have to start with
(37:22):
dualistic thinking, dualistic clarity about what good is and what evil is, but don't let it capture
you. Don't let it envelop you. And Jesus didn't. He moved to the heart, he moved to the soul,
(37:47):
he moved to a better analysis than totally good and totally bad.
Well, we've come to the end of our time, and I'd like to talk with you all day.
But let me end with a general question of, I urge all the listeners to get your new book,
The Tears of Things. And this will be aired around early February, so just as the book comes out.
(38:17):
So, any suggestions for people as we wrap up here, as we go forth in terms of,
in these difficult times, following the nonviolent Jesus and maybe together being a prophetic people
who speak out for justice and discernment and creation, but with love and compassion? Any last
(38:38):
tips? Well, yeah, be careful not to confuse, I said it already, liberalism with prophecy itself.
It might be one of the Achilles heels of post-Vatican to liberal Catholicism.
We rather broadly confused being progressive with being a prophet. The one is motivated by
(39:09):
the need to be right, just in a new way. The other is motivated by the Holy Spirit within you,
that holds to a deeper truth, a deeper love. So, do not equate liberal political thinking
(39:32):
with biblical prophetic thinking, even though I admit they often overlap.
But overlapping is sometimes with rather conservative thinking, too.
Well, thank you so much, Richard. So great.
(39:53):
I hope that makes sense.
Yeah, it's all very helpful and inspiring. I can't wait to read your book. And I thank you for
spending time with me.
Well, thank you for calling me. I'm honored to be on your podcast.
Thank you.
Let's hope it does a lot of good.
Let's hope and pray. And everybody listening, I thank you for listening today to this
(40:15):
new Nonviolent Jesus podcast. You can hear many more podcasts and find other upcoming Zoom programs
at BeatitudesCenter.org. And there you can leave any comments or feedback or make a donation.
And join us in the weeks ahead when I'll welcome other friends like Sister Joan Chiddester,
Reverend Barber, and Joan Baez. So, may the God of peace bless us all.
(40:40):
Keep on following the Nonviolent Jesus and see you next time. Thanks so much.
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