Nai Talim
1
SLD07.20.08 16th Ordinary
Emory Presbyterian Church
Romans 8:5-6, 12-17
Jill Oglesby Evans
“Mahatma Gandhi: My Life Is My Message”
Have you ever seen the bumper sticker or t-shirt slogan, “Peace, like war, must be waged?”
Whatever else might be said about this morning’s saint, Mahatma Gandhi, who could argue but that the man dedicated his entire life to waging peace, in his heart, in his home, in his country, and in the world.
And if you think that waging peace is somehow more passive than waging war, you may want to know that, for all his abhorrence of violence as a means to an end, yet
Gandhi insisted that the non-violent activist, like any soldier, has to be ready to die for the cause. Indeed, during India’s decades long struggle for independence, thousands of Indians were killed by the British. The difference was that the non-violent activist, while willing to die, was never willing to kill.1 [Sound like anybody else we know?]
In Gandhi’s view, there are three possible responses to oppression and injustice.
One he viewed as the coward’s way – to accept the wrong or run from it. The second was to stand and fight by force of arms, which, in his view, is better than accepting or running from the wrong. But the third way - to stand and fight solely by non-violent means – required the most courage and was best of all.
Born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 1869, to a well-placed family in presentday
Gujarat, Western India, Mahatma Gandhi grew up with a devout mother and the
Jain traditions of the region, absorbing influences that would eventually play an
1 www.mkgandhi.org/faq/q14.htm. S ource: M ahatma Gandhiand His M yths, by M ark S hephard.
2
important role in his adult life, including compassion to all sentient, or feeling, beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance between individuals of different creeds.2
When he was only 13, Mohandas was married 14-year old Kasturbai in an arranged child marriage,
SLD07.20.08 16th Ordinary
Emory Presbyterian Church
Romans 8:5-6, 12-17
Jill Oglesby Evans
“Mahatma Gandhi: My Life Is My Message”
Have you ever seen the bumper sticker or t-shirt slogan, “Peace, like war, must be waged?”
Whatever else might be said about this morning’s saint, Mahatma Gandhi, who could argue but that the man dedicated his entire life to waging peace, in his heart, in his home, in his country, and in the world.
And if you think that waging peace is somehow more passive than waging war, you may want to know that, for all his abhorrence of violence as a means to an end, yet
Gandhi insisted that the non-violent activist, like any soldier, has to be ready to die for the cause. Indeed, during India’s decades long struggle for independence, thousands of Indians were killed by the British. The difference was that the non-violent activist, while willing to die, was never willing to kill.1 [Sound like anybody else we know?]
In Gandhi’s view, there are three possible responses to oppression and injustice.
One he viewed as the coward’s way – to accept the wrong or run from it. The second was to stand and fight by force of arms, which, in his view, is better than accepting or running from the wrong. But the third way - to stand and fight solely by non-violent means – required the most courage and was best of all.
Born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 1869, to a well-placed family in presentday
Gujarat, Western India, Mahatma Gandhi grew up with a devout mother and the
Jain traditions of the region, absorbing influences that would eventually play an
1 www.mkgandhi.org/faq/q14.htm. S ource: M ahatma Gandhiand His M yths, by M ark S hephard.
2
important role in his adult life, including compassion to all sentient, or feeling, beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance between individuals of different creeds.2
When he was only 13, Mohandas was married 14-year old Kasturbai in an arranged child marriage,