Introduction
The Story: Turn the Other Cheek
The mother of four young boys often had difficulty curbing their energy, especially in church. But when her minister preached on "turning the other cheek," the boys gave him their undivided attention. “No matter what others do to us,” he said, “we should never try to ‘get even.’”
That afternoon the youngest boy came into the house crying. Between sobs he said he’d kicked one of his brothers, who then kicked him in return.
"I’m sorry you’re hurt," his mother said. "But you shouldn’t go around kicking people."
Still choking back tears, he replied, "But the preacher said he isn’t supposed to kick me back." [Jane Vajnar, Tampa, Kansas. "Lite Fare," Christian Reader.]
12 days after this unimaginable act of violence, our reactions have begun to change a bit
Last week, there was shock, and grief; anger and fear
Much of the activities in life ground to a halt:
From Airline Service to the Stock Market to Professional Sports
Now, things are returning to some level of normalcy
As President Bush said Thursday night, “Our grief has turned to anger and anger to resolution.”
The resolutions that are being made are resolutions of war.
As Christians we’re familiar with the words of Jesus:
"You have heard that it was said, ’Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. ’But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. [NIV Matthew 5:38-40 39]
Many Christians are wondering, “Does Jesus’ teaching mean we retaliate against the perpetrators of this terrible massacre? Are we as a nation required to simply “turn the other cheek?” How do we apply Biblical principles in this situation?”
This morning, I hope to answer some of those questions.
Even if you can’t rattle off all 10 Commandments, you probably all know that one of them is “Thou shalt not kill.”
Well, that seems pretty cut and dried. If we are to obey God’s law, we cannot take the life of another.
But what about this:
The same law that says, “Thou shalt not kill,” also required that a person be put to death for committing certain offenses. These included: Adultery, Homosexual behavior, Kidnapping, Working on the Sabbath, Cursing one’s parents, and of course: murder.
But if the Bible says “Thou shalt not kill,” how can it also say, “Use the death penalty for these sins (some of which we would barely bat an eye over today.)
I think the answer is buried in the Hebrew language. Hebrew uses a different word to refer to “murder” and another for “death” or “execution.” That seems to be splitting hairs, but let’s think about it for a bit.
Murder is when an individual or even a group of individuals take it upon themselves to end someone’s life – regardless of their motive. Sometimes they argue they are seeking justice (vigilantism), but that is wrong. Individuals don’t have the right to do that. Governments do have the right – and even the responsibility – to provide justice.
Is there a difference between an individual killing another individual and the government putting someone to death for crimes committed? Some say there isn’t, but I disagree.
What are those differences?
We already talked about one: the difference between individuals acting on their own and appointed or elected rulers taking such action
Individuals don’t have the authority before God to take another’s life. The government does.
Another difference between murder and the death penalty is what we call “due process” That is, you have to provide indisputable evidence that the accused is actually guilty. You can’t just say, “I know he’s guilty, just kill him!” In our country, a person won’t be pronounced guilty if there is even a “reasonable doubt” he’s innocent.
Vigilantes are rarely as generous. Nor do they seek any evidence beyond their own opinions. No one should be put to death on the basis of someone’s opinion, but only on the basis of proven facts.
Due process is an effort to guarantee that only the truly guilty will be punished. Which is another difference between vigilantes and what God intended as a justice system within the government.
Let’s look at a specific case:
On April 19th 1995, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. 168 people died in that blast, including 19 children. Not long ago, McVeigh was put to death for an act which, until 12 days ago, was the worst terrorist act ever committed in this country.
McVeigh murdered 168 people. He believed he was fighting for justice. He thought the U.S. government had taken the lives of innocent people in Waco, TX.
And whether or not he was right about that, he didn’t have the right to take vengeance. Not only did he not have the right as an individual, but there was no due process. No one went on trial. No evidence was brought forth. And it was not the guilty who were punished, but the innocent.
Whatever our government did right or wrong in Waco or anywhere else, 19 children in daycare shouldn’t be killed for it. Not to mention others who had nothing to do with what happened there.
Timothy McVeigh murdered the people in the Murrah Federal Building. But he himself was not murdered. He was brought to justice by the government, who had a right to do so. Massive evidence was presented. Due process was observed. He was punished as the actual perpetrator of the act, not just someone who had the same skin color or was associated in some other equally insignificant way.
Do you see the difference between murder and the death penalty? You may be for or against the death penalty, but please recognize that there is a difference between it and murder.
For someone to be put to death, there needs to be:
The involvement of a legitimate government
Due process – the presenting of evidence
A commitment to punish only the guilty, not the innocent.
But how does all this square with Jesus’ teaching to “turn the other cheek”?
First, Jesus was not speaking these words as government policy. In fact, he was talking to people who were under the power of the government of Rome, and who would have no involvement in the affairs of their governent
He was speaking to individuals about how to react when someone treats us badly. We are not to retaliate. We are not to take revenge. That does not mean, necessarily that the government should collectively turn its cheek in the face of this disaster.
Consider this statement in Proverbs 17:15:
Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent-- the LORD detests them both. [NIV Proverbs 17:15[
It is equally unjust to acquit the guilty as it is to condemn the innocent. It is just as wrong to let the guilty get off scot-free as it is to lock innocent people in jail – or worse yet, to kill them.
Or, as President Bush said Thursday night, “Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.”
And if God is not neutral, neither can we be neutral.
Whoever perpetrated these acts are murderers – and they have every intention to murder again.
They have proven their intentions in by embassy bombings in Africa, in the bombing of the USS Cole, and most recently in the attacks in NY and Washington. We must not only bring justice for these acts in the past, but protect those who would be victims in the future.
So now we come back to the issue at hand. How would God have us respond to the cowards who committed this violent act?”
I think the same principles can guide us.
First: it is the government’s responsibility, not individual’s.
And that the goal is justice, not retaliation or revenge.
Going back to McVeigh, Revenge or Retaliation would say, “He should suffer like he made others suffer.” But that’s not what happened.
Unlike his victims, he was put to death in a humane, probably painless way. That’s because the goal was justice, not vengeance. He lost his life for his crimes, but it was not with anger and cruelty, but rather with justice.
The second principle is due process
It is not enough to be pretty sure of who did it. It is not enough to take an educated guess. We need evidence. We need due process. Justice is not justice without due process. That means we cannot rush a response.
Already, some are impatient that we haven’t bombed anybody yet. While resolving to take action, we cannot rush to take action. We cannot simply last out in anger at whoever gets between the crosshairs. We must allow the time for due process.
Without that, we cannot achieve the third principle:
Punish the guilty, not the innocent
There is a sign along 119 between here and DuBois that says, “Nuke ‘em. No warning.” Others have urged just going over and leveling all of Afghanistan. Some are even more extreme and would broaden our bombing raids even further. That’s pure vengeance, the sense that because innocent Americans were killed, we have the right to kill innocent people in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East. But let us not, because we have been terrorized, become terrorists ourselves!
Already there has been some evidence of backlash against Arabs and Arab-Americans in our country. What we fail to understand is that those folks are probably as thankful as you and I for the freedoms they enjoy in this country – maybe even more so, for they know what it is like to live under an oppressive government; to be denied freedom.
I would like to read you something I came across this week. It was written by a man named Tamim Ansary– who is an Afghani-American writer [ taken from Salon.com ]. I don’t generally like to read something of this length, but I think it is important for us to hear.
[start quote] I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we’re at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." And I thought especially hard about the issues being raised because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I’ve lived here for 35 years I’ve never lost track of what’s going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I’m standing.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters. But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They’re not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps."
It’s not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. Some say, why don’t the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they’re starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering.
A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines. The farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that’s been done. The Soviets took care of it already.
Make the Afghans suffer? They’re already suffering.
Level their houses? Done.
Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done.
Eradicate their hospitals? Done.
Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that. New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs.
Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today’s Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They’d slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans; they don’t move too fast, they don’t even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn’t really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they’ve been raping all this time [end quote]
Are these really the people we want to go in and bomb? Of course not! They’ve been governed by terrorists for years. For the suffering, innocent people of Afghanistan, who only want, as we do, to live in peace and provide for their families, we should offer our compassion and our aid in any way possible. We must be careful that we punish the guilty and not the innocent.
We must be careful to remember that just because we were wronged does not mean anything we do in response is right.
This is a time when emotions – especially anger – are running very high in our country. We’ve got to be careful we don’t allow our anger to cloud our reason.
Thursday night, President Bush said, “Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.” As a nation, I believe we have the right and the responsibility to do just that.
But let us bring justice, not vengeance or retaliation, lest we become as evil as the perpetrators of this horrific crime.
Proverbs 28:5 says, “Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand it fully.” [NIV]
That doesn’t mean that evil men scratch their heads and say, “Hmm, wonder what this justice thing is? I just don’t understand. Somebody tried to explain it to me, but I just don’t get it.”
Evil people are sure they understand justice. Timothy McVeigh saw himself as bringing justice by murdering innocent people. The terrorists who carried out this latest massacre see themselves as participating in a “jihad” – a holy war. They think they are doing the will of God. We cannot allow ourselves to be like them
It is only as we seek truth, justice, righteousness… It is only as we seek the Lord Himself, that we will understand – and be able to achieve our goal of “Bringing our enemies to justice or bringing justice to our enemies”
Conclusion
Dale Hays tells of a Haitian pastor who told his congregation this gruesome parable:
A certain man wanted to sell his house for $2,000. Another man wanted very badly to buy it, but because he was poor, he couldn’t afford the full price. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half the original price with just one stipulation: he would retain ownership of one small nail protruding from just over the door.
After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell. So first the owner went out found the carcass of a dead animal, and hung it from the nail he still owned. Soon the house became unlivable and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail.
The Haitian pastor’s conclusion: "If we leave the Devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ’s habitation." [Dale A. Hays, Leadership, Vol. 4, no. 2]
The same is true of us. This is not the time to allow ourselves a little hatred, a little bitterness, a little desire for revenge.
The Old Testament prophet Amos, who preached a great deal about the need for justice, said this,
Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. [NIV Amos 5:14]
May we as individuals and as a nation, see good and not evil, that the Lord would truly be with us, just as we
