Resisting Retribution

The old is forever repeated… “my violence is okay because your violence was wrong”.  Don’t we see that there has to be a way out of this stupidity?  When both are blind we both fall into the pit.  Vengeance seems so logical, but it doesn’t really work.  It doesn’t advance human history.

 

The wonder of the resurrection stories in the Gospels is that Jesus has no punitive attitude toward the authorities or his cowardly followers, and that the followers themselves never call for any kind of holy war against those who killed their leader.  Something new has clearly transpired in history.  This is not the common and expected story line.  All Jesus does is breathe forgiveness.

                               Richard Rohr, the wisdom pattern

 

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.  Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:

 

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

 

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.  (Romans 12)

                               Paul of Tarsus

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I remember the old joke, which in other days, I deemed so funny

“Vengeance is mine saith the Lord”, but I enjoy being God’s tool

 

It is no so funny anymore

 

Vengeance does seem so logical

Get even

Make the one who hurt you “pay”

 

There is a certain satisfaction in retribution

But a certain emptiness too

 

It is interesting to think about Paul’s statement

Leave room for God’s wrath

(or would we call it karma)

 

Leave room for God’s wrath

 

what a potentially unsatisfying thing to do

from a human perspective

 

if God is not a God of wrath

 

perhaps we are asked to leave room for God’s wrath

and not exact our own vengeance

specifically because God will NOT respond the way we would

the way we desire

 

but because the response of the crucified one

the betrayed one

was to bless not curse

forgive not hate

restore not punish

 

Peter, feed my sheep

Stephen, feed my sheep

Whomever you are, feed my little sheep

 

we know vengeance and retribution do not work

we need no more history to teach us this lesson

hate begets hate and violence begets violence

 

it is a never ending circle

a cycle of destruction and devastation

 

we will never move forward

without forgiveness

 

there is a time to rattle the bar

there is a time for disorder

that much is clear

 

the structures of power and privilege

will never change without confrontation

 

but that confrontation must look like the cross

not the sword

 

even as I write this my logic is violated

my mind protests

and my heart too

 

we must destroy order

and create disorder

to find a new order

 

but what does a holy rebellion look like

how do we really move toward change?

 

How do we walk the line between raw, gross vengeance and retribution

and apathy and inaction?

 

I have no other model than that of Jesus

who challenged

who left the world shaken and stirred

but did so through forgiveness and not vengeance

 

who waded into the cycle of retribution

and said “this stops here”