They have said, "Come, let us wipe them out from among the nations’
I have never understood the trait of retribution, or at least of thinking that God’s on your side in your retribution. Here’s a classic illustration.
The psalmist is crying out to God, how horrible it is that his enemies are rising against him, plan to take secret counsel against his people. He believes they’re planning to wipe out this man’s people. All of these are perfectly good reasons to cry out to God. I would be too, and I have. Although not for these specific reasons. Dear God, protect me and those I love. God, give me strength and patience to address what’s before me.
But from there, the psalmist takes two steps I don’t understand. First, the psalmist cries out to God that the man’s enemies are actually enemies of God, are have conspired against God. For what? For rising against God’s protected people, and have made alliances against God, by virtue of making alliances against the psalmist’s people. The logic, as I see it, is something like, me and my people are God’s chosen and protected. Anyone against us is against God, clearly.
And since any enemy of mine is an enemy of God’s, God should cut down my enemies, not because they’re enemies of mine, but because by extension, they’re enemies of God’s. So after the anguished petitions, the psalmist goes on about how God should make their leaders like swirling dust, terrify them with God’s storm, and ultimately be confused and perish.
I believe this is a human reaction, to get even – and even to call in one’s allies to assist. But I don’t believe God is on anyone’s side. And here’s the reason. We’re all human and fallible and subject to human reactions, like retribution. This includes people with whom I agree, with whom I disagree, and those who seem to be the personification of evil. I believe in a God of love to all. If that’s the case, what’s to stop my archenemy from appealing to God for my destruction?
Wouldn’t it be plausible that those with whom I vehemently disagree are petitioning God to confound and terrify me, because in opposing them, I’m opposing God? Same goes for people who claim to love and follow God, but I see as evil incarnate.
Through the teachings of Christ, and my sense of God’s radical inclusive Love, I do not believe God has favorites. I don’t believe I’ve got God on my side, more than my enemy. Or maybe more appropriately, God is on my side. And on theirs. God wants us all to succeed.
I’ve heard folks from opposite camps of religious fervor claim that they’re on the side with God. God agrees with their interpretation, and clearly the other side has it wrong, is against God, and therefore God is against them. It’s inherently internally inconsistent, to believe God is an all-loving God, as long as you believe what I believe. Stops being all, doesn’t it?
Today, let me always remember that retribution and anger are normal and predictible emotions held by humans. God has no favorites, and while my enemies can express a desire for retribution or anger, and while they can invoke God’s wrath because God’s on their side, that does not make it so. More importantly, let me remember that when I express retribution, or anger, or think that God’s on my side, that does not make it so.
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