Jeremiah
11.18-20; Psalm 54; James 3.13-4,7-8a;
+ Every
morning for at least the last 15 years, I have, in my daily celebration of the
liturgy of Morning Prayer, at the time of intercessions, prayed this petition.
“I pray for those who I view as my
enemies, and for those who view me as their enemy.”
Behind this petition, I put an ellipses,
three simple dots, at which point I pray for them by name. Now, I really don’t
know who views me as their enemy, but over the years, I’ve had a few names of
people I viewed as my enemies that I have included at that ellipses. A few
names. Not many. And it takes a lot for me to view someone as my enemy. Just because
someone doesn’t like me, or says unkind things about me behind my back or
whatever, doesn’t make someone my enemy.
I have had people that I do view as enemies—people who wanted to do me
some kind of harm in whatever form. One
thing I have been unable to do is pray for bad things to happen to those people
who I view as my enemy. Do I kind of secretly wish that bad things would happen
to them? Maybe.
But more than anything, I just wish
they would see the error of their ways, as I perceive it. Which may be
wrong. But, yes, for one or two, maybe I
did kind of wish bad things for them. You know, like a canker sore or a stubbed
toe or something.
Enemies in the Bible were dealt with
differently, as we no doubt have discovered. And often times, some harsh language was
directed at those people who were considered enemies. On those occasions, we do sometimes come across language in the Bible that we
might find a bit—how shall we say—uncomfortable. The language is often violent.
It is not the language good Christian people normally use.
We get a
peek at this language in our scriptures readings for today. Our reading from
the Prophet Jeremiah is a bit harsh, shall we say?
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,
let us cut him off from the land of
the living,
so that his name will no longer be remembered.”
For many us, as we hear it, it might
give us pause. This is not the kind of behavior we have been taught as
followers of Jesus. After all, as
followers of Jesus, we’re taught to love and love fully and completely. We certainly weren’t taught to pray for God to
destroy our enemies. And not just
destroy our enemies, but our enemy’s children (that whole reference to the
fruit of the tree). We have been taught
to pray for our enemies, not pray against them. None of us would ever even think of praying to
God to destroy anyone.
But the fact
is, although we find it hard to admit at times, we do actually think and feel
this way. Even if we might not actually
say it, we sometimes secretly wish the worse for those people who have wronged
us in whatever way. I like to think that, rather than this being completely negative
or wrong, that we should, in fact, be honest about it.
We sometimes get angry at people. We
sometimes don’t like people. And let’s truly be honest, there are sometimes when
we might actually just hate people. It’s
a fact of life—not one we want to readily admit to, but it is there.
Sometimes it is very, very hard to
love our enemies. Sometimes it is
probably the hardest thing in the world to pray for people who have hurt us or
wronged us.
So, what do
we do in those moments when we can’t pray for our enemies—when we can’t
forgive? Well, most of us just simply close up. We turn that anger inward. We put up a wall
and we swallow that anger and we let it fester inside us. Especially those of us who come from good
Scandinavian stock. We simply aren’t the kind of people who wail and complain
about our anger or our losses. We aren’t
ones usually who say, like Jeremiah, “let us cut [that person] off from the
land of the living!”
I think we may tend to deny it. And
I think we even avoid and deny where the cause of that anger comes from.
Certainly, St. James, in his letter
this morning, tries to touch on this when talks about these violent “cravings”
which are “at war within us.” It’s not pleasant to think that there is warfare
within us. For me, as a somewhat reluctant pacifist sometimes, I do not like admitting
that there is often warfare raging within me. But it is sometimes.
But what about that anger in our
relationship to God? What about that
anger when it comes to following Jesus?
Well, again, we probably don’t
recognize our anger before God nor do we bring it before God. We, I think, look at our anger as something
outside our following of Jesus. And that is where scriptures of this sort come
in. It is in those moments when we don’t
bring our anger and our frustration before God, that we need those verses like
the ones we encounter in today’s readings.
When we look at those poets and
writers who wrote these scriptures—when we recognize her or him as a Jew in a
time of war or famine—we realize that for them, it was natural to bring everything before God. Everything. Not just the good stuff. Not just the nice
stuff. But that bad stuff too. And I think this is the best lesson we can learn
from these readings than anything else.
We all have a “shadow side,” shall
we say. We all have a dark side. We have
a war raging within us at times. And we
need to remember that we cannot hide that “shadow side” of ourselves from God.
Let me tell you, if you have war
raging inside you, you definitely cannot hide that from God. Sometimes this dark self, this war, is
something no else has ever seen—not even our spouse or partner. Maybe it is a side of ourselves we might have
not even acknowledged to ourselves. It
is this part of ourselves that fosters anger and pride and lust. It is this side of ourselves that may be
secretly violent or mean or unduly confrontational and gossipy.
Sometimes it will never make an
appearance. It stays in the shadows and
lingers there. But sometimes it actually
does make itself known. Sometimes it
comes plowing into our lives when we neither expect it nor want it.
As much we try to deny it or ignore
it or hide it, the fact is; we can’t hide this dark side from God. It’s
incredible really when you think about it: that God, who knows even that shadow
side of us—that side of us we might not even fully know ourselves—God who knows
us even that completely still loves us and is with us. Few of us lay that shadow self before the
Light of God.
But the authors and poets of our
scriptures this morning do, in fact bring it out before God. These poets wail and complain to God and lay
bare that shadow side of him or herself. The poet is blatantly honest before God. Or as
St. James advises,
“submit yourselves therefore to God.
Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and [God] will
draw near to you.”
When these ugly things crop up in our
lives, bring them before God. Let us deal with them in humility before God.
The fact is: sometimes we do
secretly wish bad things on our enemies. Sometimes we do wish God would render evil on
those who are evil to us. Sometimes we
do hope that God will completely wipe away those people who hurt us from our
lives. It is in those moments, that it is all right to pray to God in such a
way.
Because the fact is—as I hope we’ve
all learned by now—just because we pray for it doesn’t mean God is going to
grant it. God knows what to grant in
prayer. And why. The important thing here is not what we are praying for. It is not important that in this Psalm we are
praying for God to destroy our enemies. It is important that, even in our
anger, even in our frustration and our pain, we have submitted to God.
We have come before God as this
imperfect person. We have come to God
with a long dark shadow trailing us.
I have heard
people say that we shouldn’t read these difficult on Sunday morning because
they are “bad theology” or “bad psychology.” They are neither. They are actually very good and
honest theology and very good and honest psychology. Take what it is hurting you and bothering you
and release it. Let it out before God.
Be honest with God about these bad things. Even if your anger is directed at
God for whatever reason, be honest with God. Rail and rant and rave at God in
your anger if you have to. Trust me, God can take it.
But, these
scriptures teach us as well that once we have done that—once we have opened
ourselves completely to God—once we have revealed our shadows to the Light of God—then
we must turn to God and turn away from that shadow self. We must, as St. James
says, “resist the Devil.”
Hatred and anger and pain are things
that, in the long run, hurt us and destroy us. At some point, as we all know, we must grow
beyond whatever anger we might have. We
must not get caught in that self-destructive cycle anger can cause. We must not allow those negative feelings to
make us bitter.
So, when we are
faced with these difficult scriptures and we come across those verses that
might take by alarm, let us recognize in them what they truly are—honest
prayers before God Let these scriptures—these lamenting and angry, as well as
the joyful, exultant—be our voice expressing itself before God. And in the echo of those words, let us hear
God speaking to us in turn. When we do,
we will find ourselves in conversation with God. And, in that conversation, we will find that,
even despite that shadow side of ourselves, God accepts us fully and completely
for who we are.
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