Very simply, one human killing another human is murder. As the authoritative definition specifies, law qualifies whether the murder is considered legal, illegal, justified, unjustified, etc. Again, human hubris enables legalism to trump morality with murderous results spanning from the dawn of our species until the present. Since it is, after all, Sunday, I'm going to invite you to read Genesis 4:1-16 and then spend a little while thinking about it. The easiest way out of this assignment is to dismiss scripture as irrelevant and be done with it. But for you who believe that humans are called to something more than murder, it is time for us to begin the conversation about how we go about achieving that. This passage is recognized by all three of the Abrahamic traditions and, taken seriously, should serve as a challenge to any attempt to justify murder for any reason. One of the greatest achievements of the reformation was opening up the Bible to Everyman, empowering each and every one of us to read and understand for ourselves. I seek your comments, especially if you believe that there is any rational argument for murder.
Veoma and Gus Stallings were friends of my parents when I was a teenager. One evening, two men broke into the living room shooting Veoma in the chest, and then proceeded down the hall toward the bedrooms. Gus kept a 38 in the nightstand, and was able to retrieve it as he heard the shots. He shot and killed, one of the men as they were coming down the hal, the other escaped.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, Veoma recovered. Had Gus not been able to protect himself and his wife, there is little doubt that they both would have been murdered. Now, did Gus kill or did he murder, and is there a difference?
You have asked the core question. I will press you for an answer. How do you interpret Jesus' condemnation of an 'eye for an eye' mentality? Would Gus have employed a different strategy if he hadn't had a .38 in his nightstand? When Jesus 'commanded' us to love our enemies, do you believe it was in the context of conditional exceptions? My opinion is that our species has so fully embraced the acceptability--even the necessity--of murder that we don't even consider the immorality of it.
ReplyDeleteI don't doubt that had Gus not had access to a 38, he would have been killed, and the question of his loving his enemy would have been moot.
ReplyDeleteIf the admonition to love your enemy is taken literally, then we would have no need for battered women shelters. The allies would not have been justified in invading Europe, and the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto should have quietly gone to the gas chambers.
I am not a biblical scholar, but I believe that we are urged to confront evil and to protect the week and innocent.
Would you leave you car or home unlocked in case someone who thinks he needs it more than you would have free access. If you were in a car accident and totally paralyzed, would you refuse to cooperate with the police who wanted to prosecute the offender? or refuse compensation?
A society not subject to laws and consequences would allow the bullies of the world to rule.
In Rwanda, over 800,000 people died as the world watched and agonized over whether it qualified as genocide or simply acts of genocide.
If those bullies on the playground had been confronted earlier, and receive punishment commensurate with their actions, they may have been saved from a life of bullying.
When you were reprimanded or punished as a youth, was it an act or revenge, or an act of love?
While I have been privileged to study under biblical scholars, that does not qualify me as one. Biblical scholarship is to be celebrated for it's milestone discoveries in the last century, including the work of the Jesus Seminar. This being said, scripture is most truly put to the test by the common people for whom it is intended. In spite of what institutionalized religion says to the contrary, the Word is available to each and every person for whatever guidance and counsel they may derive from it. After reading again the passage from Genesis, what conclusion do you personally draw to the question of whether or not killing/murder is pleasing in the eye of God?
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