I read this article a few days ago in the bathroom while I was waiting for the water to get hot and I ended up taking an angry shower. At first it seemed funny – someone stole baby Jesus. No doubt a car of guys riding around and someone had a dare to pay back, or maybe Dr. Williams's "dumb David" was in the car, but whatever the case some idiot got out, ran up to the nativity scene, and jumped into the back seat with Jesus. Haha, ok take it back the next day. But then I read the prayer from the church prayer list. Did you read it? This was printed, size 18 font, on the top of the Daily Break section: "PLEASE PRAY FOR WHOEVER STOLE BABY JESUS FROM THE MANGER AT THE BRITT HOUSE. They've had that baby Jesus for 25 years. Pray that whoever has it experiences such guilt and dis-ease that they have to take it back to get relief." Kristin Davis obviously saw the irony: she highlighted that the request sat alongside soldiers and cancer patients on the prayer list. Is it right for them to pray for the "guilt and dis-ease" of the perpetrator? Or, larger, is it right, ever, for any reason, to pray for the guilt and dis-ease of anyone?
The irony of the Jesus figurine: Jesus had his life for 33 years and prayed, "forgive them, they don't know what they are doing" for the people who took it. The Britts had a piece-of-plastic baby Jesus figurine for 25 years and prayed, "bring them guilt and dis-ease" for the people who took it.
As an aside, it does smack a little of the birth of a relic doesn't it? That some object loosely connected to something holy grows in sanctity year by year, until after 1000 years it is nearly God itself, worthy of worship, pilgrimage, and awe. Today a cheap figurine, 25 years out something to be prayed about for return, 1000 years out… what?
Clearly the Britts were wronged, but what should we say about their reaction? Or how should they react if the boys were caught and they had the chance to press charges? And how should we react in similar circumstances?
A few propositions:
We should always love seeing Justice itself demonstrated, and never love seeing someone punished.
I heard someone a while ago say, "I really like seeing people brought to justice." I wonder if he would include himself? Or his son? Justice is immutable – it is giving what is due. Reward for righteousness is justice; punishment for wrong is also justice. So if we take delight in seeing justice bring pain down on someone's head, we must delight only in the first half: seeing justice. We must not delight seeing pain being brought down on someone's head. The only way Hell can bring God glory is if Justice is demonstrated in it, or some other virtues. The ultimate destruction of any of God's creation, especially that only piece made in his image, cannot bring him glory in itself because it does not represent any essential part of him. Justice does. This might seem a little hair-splitting but I think it's the difference between smug satisfaction in seeing someone "get their due" (a horrible and callusing attitude), and a distraught and weeping exaltation in God's commitment to himself, shown in someone "getting their due."
We should pray for Justice on a criminal only for a demonstration of justice and for the criminal's good.
We should delight in seeing Justice because we are seeing God in it. We should delight in seeing Justice because Justice can reform a person, and we should pray for God to use it to reform. We must not delight in seeing Justice because it returns our beloved baby Jesus figurine to our beloved and ancient (25 years!) nativity scene. We must not delight in seeing Justice because it brings pain down on the head of that guy who, for whatever reason, we feel satisfied to see in pain.
We should never pray imprecatory prayers, or pray them very carefully for Justice's sake alone.
We should not follow the Psalmist in praying, "Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!" (Ps. 137.9). Or with Isaiah: "Prepare a place to slaughter his children for the sins of their ancestors" (14.21). Or: "O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord! Let them vanish like water that runs away; when he aims his arrows, let them be blunted. Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun" (Ps. 58.6-8). The only possible way these prayers cannot be poison from the darkest corners of human depravity is if they are, somehow, aimed not at the destruction of the subjects described, but at the vindication of God's justice and goodness over his creatures' depravity. That is, if depravity has gotten so bad in the world (that, by the way, God made and sustains) that the only way to vindicate God's goodness is to destroy the depraved people, then only then can I see how such prayers could at all be construed as right. If we pray anything at all like these biblical prayers, we should stop and repent. The only way (that I can see) that we could rightly pray any prayer one-tenth as brutal as these is if we had an ultimate, eschatological, abstract love for the vindication and display of God's Justice and Goodness.
If the only real consequence of your being wronged is your own pain, absorb it and use it to imagine the pain Jesus wrongly felt. If some other consequence is at stake (the dignity of your daughter, the safety of the public), bring pain on the head of the criminal only as far as necessary and take no delight in his pain. And above all, love Justice because it is of God.
7 comments:
This is a good observation David. If we pray for the destruction of others (that they would get their just reward), then we ought also to pray for our own destruction because we deserve the same. It's the most devastating kind of arrogance. The heart attitude of this kind of prayer is extremely self-righteous. It's essentially thinking that I had the wisdom to make all the right choices and I had the power to not be enslaved and I opened my own eyes to what is right...and so on. It steels all glory away from God.
It's definitely not thinking that glorifies God. We ought to rejoice at the forgiveness of the worst kinds of people especially because we know that's us apart from God's saving grace and empowering Spirit.
Yea, funny how our moral idealism fades when the scalpel turns on us.
What do you think about the imprecatory prayers though? Or Ps 18.20-21 "Accoring to the cleanness of my hands..."?
Those were appropriate in their context as cries for God to exercise as worshipers of God were supposed to let Him be the avenger of injustice. But for the NT believer Jesus changes all this. The sermon on the mount redefines what is appropriate. Now we should long for forgiveness and reconciliation for all. Delighting in justice in general is not wrong in my opinion but if we delight in the death of our specific enemies we most definitely err.
I like the tenor of your post, David; it is, from my perspective, well-balanced.
I do not see in Jesus' ministry a redefinition of appropriateness, though (perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean by that, D.J.). A case might be made for a temporary suspension of imprecatory petitions. We could only say that it is temporary, though, for in The Revelation--the final, eschatological scene--the saints plead to God for justice on account of their unjustly-spilled blood (Rev. 6:10).
I would note, however, that the basis for the comfort extended to Christians under duress/persecuted is that God will judge the belligerent party (i.e. 1 Peter 4:5).
I think your right DJ, that impr. prayers are 'the most devastating kind of arrogance' if the prayers have as their aim the vindication of our glory rather than God's.
The distinction I a was making lies in practice. We are specifically commanded to love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us and forgive(else we will not be forgiven)etc. Praying for the reconciliating power residing in the experience of God's forgiveness and forgiveness towards each other eclipses the glory in the exercise of justice. The glory in the death that comes through the sin of the first adam is astounding but it is nothing compared to the glory of the grace that flows through the wrath swallowing death of the second adam. Restoration is more glorious than vindication. Jesus' death vindicates all wrongdoing against us.
I wasn't saying it is wrong to pray for vengeance when we have been genuinely wronged. Just that it is better to pray for reconciliation.
When we are martyrs standing before God then we can pray crush our enemies without sinful motives. But so long as we are in these sinful bodies we need to pray for forgiveness so that God can receive the greater glory and to purify our motives.
I do rest in the reality that God will justly repay those who wrong me but I also should not long for their demise.
I just read these verses in Isaiah (read: OT). It is the Lord speaking about the deliverance of Israel and his willingness to either destroy or make peace with (I think) competing nations:
"If only there were briers and thorns confronting me! I would march against them in battle; I would set them all on fire [the Lord destroying the wicked]. Or else let them come to me for refuge; let them make peace with my, yes let them make peace with me" (27.4-5).
Thought that was an interesting juxtaposition of judgment and mercy, with the preference falling on mercy.
So have we resolved on this statement?: It was right for the OT saint to pray imprecatory prayers (aimed at justice, and not pain for the enemy) because the sacrifice of Jesus had not yet vindicated God's goodness in judging sin, but it is not right for the NT saint because God has vindicated himself and we are not yet in a state where we can pray such prayers purely (i.e. glorified state)?
I'm not sure of the statement myself. If Jesus's death vindicated God's Justice over sin, why are the saints praying for vindication in Rev.? Is the statement "love your neighbor but hate your enemy" (Matt 5.43) truly reflective of proper conduct in the OT? The second half of the statement is nowhere in the OT and I've understood it to be a distortion and not descriptive of a proper attitude anywhere at any time. Without that verse, are there other examples of "redefinition" for our attitudes towards enemies? And yes, we should note that any "redefinition" is temporary, unless we would say that the martyrs should pray for their enemies as well, which we find no support for.
DJ, I like your statement, "restoration is more glorious than vindication." But I wonder about your statement: "I wasn't saying it is wrong to pray for vengeance when we have been genuinely wronged. Just that it is better to pray for reconciliation." If it is better to pray for reconciliation, why would we ever pray for vengeance? Or should we somehow pray for both at once - for judgment and mercy? How would we structure such a prayer, and for what reasons would we pray for each?
I need to think about this some more. I have thoughts rolling around that I'm having trouble articulating.
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