A Thought For The Week Of October 27

"If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!" (Psalm 139:19) Those words are jarring - and they should be. I can't read them without thinking of the recent events in Ottawa and Quebec when two Canadian soldiers were killed by individuals who seem to have been motivated by an extremist understanding of Islam. That isn't a slam at Islam. Most of Islam is not extremist. And extremism is found in all religions unfortunately. Religious extremism in my religion is rooted much more in ideology than in faith. But religion plays a part. As much as we Christians believe in a God of love, and as much as the Koran speaks of a God who is merciful and compassionate, it's still far too easy for followers of either faith to fall into hatred for those who oppose us or who have different ideas or customs. That's when there's a shift from faith to ideology. Faith seeks primarily an inner transformation that's lived outwardly but doesn't seek to impose itself on others. Ideology by its very nature seeks to impose its beliefs on others. When the two mix, you have a dangerous combination of people who try to impose their beliefs on others AND who believe they're doing it for God. Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu - whatever the faith is, it doesn't matter. It stops being faith and becomes ideology when it becomes something to impose on others rather than something to attract others. I see the danger of religion mixing with ideology in this Psalm. "If only you, God, would slay the wicked." It's too easy to take those words and turn them into God wanting to "slay the wicked" and then deciding that "I" will be the instrument of God to slay the wicked. But the psalm is expressing a human yearning. It's expressing the wish that God would slay the wicked - which shows that God doesn't. If I choose to slay those whom I consider wicked then what I get from this Psalm is that I'm NOT doing God's will - I'm choosing to do that which God will not do. Which makes me not God's instrument, but God's adversary. Living in hate for those we disagree with, or living in hate for those who hate us and choose to hurt us, and then trying to hurt them in return, won't accomplish anything. We need to learn to live in love, and to understand that a desire to hate or to do violence is not of God and does not honour God.