Retribution
from God?
By Craig
Anderson
Brookside
Community Church
Micah
5:10-15; Micah 4:1-4
September 16, 2001
Osama Bin Laden has of course,
denied responsibility for this week’s terrorist attacks. I would too if the united military forces of
the United States, NATO, Russia, and India were being aimed my way. Be that as it may, however, Bin Laden was
not reluctant to render his theological assessment that terror though it was,
it was holy terror: “retribution from
God,” in his words.
Of all the things which are
incomprehensible this week, perhaps this judgement of retribution is the most
mystifying of all. Who yet has been
able to comprehend that those enormous towers, visible from our hilltops and
backyards, have been reduced to rubble?
We have seen the video-taped clouds of smoke, dust, and ashes enveloping
the collapsing towers over and over again, but we remain uncomprehending. Who yet has been able to fathom the depth of
human suffering which reaches right into this room: some of you having witnessed things, horrible things you will
never forget, even as you struggle not to remember.
Individual stories are
heart-rending. Multiplied by 5000, they
are mind-numbing. Where is there anyone
who can understand how 18 human beings, could methodically plan for years to
throw away their lives in acts cruelly calculated to destroy thousands upon
thousands of other innocent lives? Is
there anyone among us here or anywhere who can explain how such evil can
co-exist with the selfless compassion of volunteers digging through the
pile? It is all incomprehensible. Unfathomable. Too much for thought or words; even emotion is overwhelmed. We are drawn and spent, afraid and angry,
and in the end, dumbfounded, clueless, baffled, perplexed, utterly mystified.
But in the dark recesses of Osama
Bin Laden’s mind, there is no mystery or wonderment: this is “retribution from God.”
Try if you will, to get your head and heart around that statement. How could something so evil be an act of
God? How could children goaded on by
adults dance in the streets of Nablus on Tuesday? How could acts which we regard as so wrong, be morally justified
by human beings willing to sacrifice their lives to kill and maim
thousands? Retribution from God.
But don’t think that Bin Laden is
alone in such theological analysis. We
share our God in common with Osama Bin Laden, and Ariel Sharon, and Jerry
Falwell: the God of Sarah and Abraham,
Rebekah and Isaac, the God of Rachel and Jacob. And it would seem, Jerry Falwell shares more in common with
Osama Bin Laden on this topic than he might with us. Offering commentary on the 700 Club, Rev. Falwell asserted that
those “who have tried to secularize America... helped this to happen.” The ACLU, abortion providers, gay rights
proponents, and opponents of school prayer, have so offended God, in Falwell’s
view, that God (quote), “has lifted the curtain of protection, and if America
does not repent and return to a genuine faith and dependence on him, we may
expect more tragedies, unfortunately.”
Yes... unfortunately!
The events of this week, I believe,
are ultimately inexplicable. In Eli
Wiesel’s words, “some things cannot be explained.” And it is with reluctance that I stand here filling the air with
more words. Nevertheless, statements
such as these about God deserve scrutiny.
Taking offense, supposedly God has lifted the curtain of
protection. Taking offense, supposedly
God has engaged in retribution. Must
we not ask about the character of such a God?
And if these two men are right, then why are we here worshiping such a
God?
What is the character of God? Could Falwell and Bin Laden possibly be
right? Or is there an alternative? According to Dominic Crossan the question
is, “Is God a God of vengeance or of justice, and if of both, is that
possible?” “You can go through the
Bible”, Crossan writes, “all the way from one end to the other, and draw
up a long list of texts about God as vengeance. You can also go through it, all the way from one end to
the other, and draw up a long list of texts about God as justice.” (Crossan, A Long Way from Tipperary – A
Memoir, see esp. pages 185-194 for the source of any substance this sermon
may have.)
Take for example the prophet
Micah. The God of vengeance is there in
chapter 5, hard on the heels of the God of justice in chapter 4. Beginning where Bin Laden and Falwell might,
hear these words from Micah chapter 5:
10 In that
day, says the LORD,
I will cut
off your horses from among you
and will
destroy your chariots;
11 and I
will cut off the cities of your land
and throw
down all your strongholds;
12 and I
will cut off sorceries from your hand,
and you
shall have no more soothsayers;
13 and I
will cut off your images
and your
pillars from among you,
and you
shall bow down no more
to the
work of your hands;
14 and I
will uproot your sacred poles from
among you
and
destroy your towns.
15 And in
anger and wrath I will execute vengeance
on the
nations that did not obey.
To cut off, to destroy, to execute
vengeance in anger and wrath: the god of Falwell and bin Laden is vividly alive
for Micah, a prophet who lived 700 years before the time of Jesus. Do not assume however, that such texts are
found only in the Hebrew Bible. I could
have as easily read a passage from the book of Revelation about blood flowing
in the streets for 200 miles “as high as a horse’s bridle.” Jews, Christians and Muslims, can each if
they choose, find holy texts to link themselves together as blood brothers,
waiting for God to exercise vengeance on a world which has gone so terribly wrong,
that God’s “final solution... (in Crossan’s
words), is the extermination of all those who are considered evil or unjust.”
So here are representatives of
different sides in the present conflict holding a world view and theology in
common. The Muslim and the Christian
appear to be different, but they see the world in similar, direly negative
terms. They would deny it, but they
are blood brothers, and their god turns the same face of vengeance toward an
evil world seeking a final solution. Of
course, these reasonable men disagree about who the evil or the unjust
are: bin Laden is indiscriminate in
choosing the Americans he targets, while Falwell is somewhat more
selective. But make no mistake, they
agree that God has begun to act, and divine vengeance looks like ground zero in
lower Manhattan; or like Afghanistan will after our Air Force bombs them from
their present stone age back to what, the paleolithic period?
The god of bin Laden and Falwell,
however is not the only God on the pages of scripture or even in the book of
Micah. Another God, the God of justice,
concerned for peace, for equitable distribution of life’s essentials, and for
social structures which are impartial is also present in scripture. Let me turn back one page, and read from Micah
chapter 4:
In days to
come
the
mountain of the LORD’s house
shall be
established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall
be raised up above the hills.
Peoples
shall stream to it,
2 and many
nations shall come and say:
“Come, let
us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the
house of the God of Jacob;
that he
may teach us his ways
and that
we may walk in his paths.”
For out of
Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the
word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
3 He shall
judge between many peoples,
and shall
arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall
beat their swords into plowshares,
and their
spears into pruning hooks;
nation
shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither
shall they learn war any more;
4 but they
shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one
shall make them afraid;
for the
mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken.
How different the tone of this
message. How different the tenor of
this God.
Our young people are experiencing
their first catastrophic national crisis this week, and they are afraid: afraid
that the world is about to go to war; afraid of planes in the sky, afraid of
strangers on the street. While we
adults find no justification for this week’s terror, we would like to understand
how conditions in other nations have bred such hatred of our own. We can bomb Afghanistan back to the
paleolithic era, but won’t every bomb breed another zealot, and won’t every
life taken, be a life someone will vow to avenge, no matter what the cost?
We are angry now and largely
uninterested in the root causes for terror, but in weeks and months to come, we
can only hope that we will ask questions not only about evil, but also about
the equitable distribution of life’s essentials, and whether the governments we fund, support, and call our
allies are creating social structures respectful of and conducive to human
dignity. The god of vengeance says
eliminate the evil doers: reduce their
cities and enclaves to rubble, and fill their streets with blood. But the God of justice sees another way
forward, a day for beating spears into pruning hooks, a day when children will
no longer live in fear; a day when everyone will have a fig tree and vine, the
vine to produce chablis, the figs to trade for brie!
Two kinds of God on succeeding pages
in scripture, one for Falwell and bin Laden, and a second I pray we would
choose. But how confusing this
schizophrenia in the mind and heart of the holy is! How can God be both for vengeance and justice? How can the two ever be reconciled? Doesn’t this have to a case of
either/or? Maybe these conflicting
pictures of God are interwoven on the pages of scripture, not so much because
God cannot decide what kind of God to be, but because vengeance and justice are
so interwoven in human hearts and minds, that we have projected them onto God
in scripture.
Who among us this week has not
experienced intense anger and a desire to rid the world of the vermin who
perpetrated these acts? Our nation has
been struck, struck hard; we are deeply hurt and cultivating a cold fury. Our nation has protracted warfare on its
mind. With anger growing toward wrath
we are prepared to exact vengeance on the individuals, groups and nations
responsible for this profound evil.
And yet who among us this week has
not experienced warm compassion for the firefighters and police officers who
gave their lives racing to aid the public they vow to serve? Who hasn’t felt pride in individual and
countless heroes? Who among us has not
shed a tear for the grief and pain of friends, and neighbors, co-workers and
total strangers? Whoever knew Rudy
Giuliani [mayor
of New York City] had a warm and tender side? This week’s Giuliani for mayor of the
Township I say.
So here they are, vengeance and
compassion wrapped tightly together in our own hearts. But can we project that same contradictory
mix upon the character of our God? We
are both/and; but can we imagine that God would choose vengeance over justice
and mercy? If it is in god’s character
to tramp out grapes of wrath, then count me out. But Judaism, Islam and Christianity also bear common witness to a
God of justice and mercy, whose heart, says the prophet Hosea, "recoils
from anger" and "grows warm with compassion."
While they are intertwined on the
pages of scripture, these opposing views of God cannot be reconciled. And if we have learned anything this week,
it is that the character of one’s God matters.
Where is God to be found this week?
Raising the curtain of protection?
Gloating over a monstrous job well-done? Or is God to be found on the pile and in the pile at ground zero,
and close beside every child, every brother, wife or parent or neighbor, or
co-worker or cousin bent low with sorrow and grief? And isn’t God here too, beside us in this haven, offering to
comfort us and heal us, as well? Which
God do you believe in? The one you give
your heart to matters -- which has never been more clear than this week.