bin Laden

I wish it could have had a different ending. Maybe one where he realized what a (presumably) crappy human being he was and decided to change. Then he would have come out with a white flag and committed to doing good the rest of his life. And we would all win-- because he would have repented for his wrongs but would decide to change his life others could benefit from his change. But that didn't happen. And he's dead. And people are happy. That feels a little weird to me.

Oh, I remember the terror and how I couldn't sleep for weeks and how I heard every plane overhead (once flights resumed) for months and had the same panicky feeling. And how I held Scout--who was 2 months old--and just told her how sorry I was for bringing her into such a fallen world. And the images from that day? They stuck with me for a long, long time. I wanted vengeance, too. Jason lost a precious teammate, Mark Hindy, who was a big teddy bear working at the World Trade Center. It must feel like justice for all the families affected by 9/11.

It just still feels weird to be rejoicing over someone's death, no matter what kind of person he was.

And I have to think, are all these people who are rejoicing against capital punishment? Because if they are that seems a little contradictory.

The passage below is from a blog called Dating God (datinggod.org). [Thanks to Donna Kidd for posting on Facebook.]

Like so many things, Scripture does not offer us clear responses to contemporary events for the Canon of Scripture is not an answer book, but the historical and religious medium of Divine Revelation. I am grateful to those who have brought these two quotes, one from the Hebrew Wisdom Tradition and the other from the New Testament, both passages considered Holy Scripture for Christians.

Proverbs 24:17-20

Do not rejoice when your enemies fall,
and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble,
or else the LORD will see it and be displeased,
and turn away his anger from them.

Do not fret because of evildoers.
Do not envy the wicked;
for the evil have no future;
the lamp of the wicked will go out.

Matthew 5:43-48

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

As I have already said elsewhere, this is not a moment for “triumph” or “celebration,” contrary to what so many television pundits and so-called patriots will suggest. It is indeed an important moment in our national and global history, something to take seriously and reflect upon, but the celebration of the death of a human being is not what Christians are called to do as Jesus makes quite clear above.

God does not desire vengeance and this is not God’s form of justice.

It is a sad day, the most recent in many sad days over the course of the last decade. May we take this moment to recommit ourselves to peace and raise up to respond to Jesus’s invitation for us to follow in his footprints, living the life of the Gospel. The Gospel of forgiveness and peace, the Gospel of life and humility, the Gospel that calls for the end of all violence.