Serving the Servant King

Had a very muddy bike ride today (25 miles by the Aire & Leeds-Liverpool canal), dodging the new-years-resolution keep-fit-new bike or jogging-gear people.

Floyd on the MP3 player (A Momentary Lapse of Reason) - the title that is (you could be forgiven for misinterpreting that).

These words:

The dogs of war don't negotiate
The dogs of war won't capitulate,
They will take and you will give,
And you must die so that they may live
You can knock at any door,
But wherever you go, you know they've been there before
Well winners can lose and things can get strained
But whatever you change, you know the dogs remain.

One world, it's a battleground
One world, are we going to smash it down
One world ... One world

After lunch and the obligatory falling asleep and drooling for a while I read two fascinating articles.

This one on Alleon by Tom Wright on Jesus as Servant King. Insightful as always.

This one on God's Politics by Jim Wallis on "How many deaths will it take"

Tom Wright was making the point that Jesus Servant King option is neither to follow the dogs of war, nor to take the opposite passive non-involvement option.

To my shame I have tended to do the latter. I'm happy to say my wife is a good example to me (and I know I dont listen to her enough!) - she was marching to say "Not in my name" in London before the Iraq war.

This Iraq situation is getting worse not better. And OK so maybe the Neocons have realised the error of their ways (some of them anyway - the chillingly evil "Project for the new American Century" seems to have packed up shop or gone bust).

I know WWJD was naff - but the idea was right on. What would Jesus the servant king do?

Certainly not nothing.