Reflection on the Word on the Sunday of November 7, 2021.
God is a Warrior King - Psalm 127 : 1-5
Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved.
Sons are indeed a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
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The Lord God is a warrior King. Old texts depict the God of Israel, as a divine warrior, who is coming like a storm with thunders and lightnings. Although we learned that the God of Israel is the sole Creator of the Universe, in the ancient world, it was natural, even for the Israelites, that all nations on Earth, every city state had their own protective, national god or gods. When nation fought nation, it was deemed like their corresponding gods were fighting for their nations, as well. If a nation lost, their god lost the war as well. Somehow, this became almost visibly tangible, because the winners usually destroyed the temples and the statues of the gods of their enemies.
The Lord God of Israel, as a participant in a war in Middle East style, usually was represented by his angel. Tradition holds that it was usually Michael, as it is written in the Book of Exodus, chapter 23 that “Behold, I send an angel before you, (…), Pay attention to him, and listen to his voice. Don’t provoke him, for he will not pardon your disobedience, for my name is in him. But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries. For my angel shall go before you, and bring you in to the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I will cut them off.”
The notion that the Lord God of Israel is not only a protective war deity, but is the universal God of Heaven and Earth, had to develop through centuries and millennia. There happened some moral developments on other continents as well, thus we have to also acknowledge that almost all major religions on Earth were able to reach the conclusion that one of the major value in the Universe, which is undeniably God’s will for the living creatures, is the one, which can be phrased, that You Shall Not Do Harm.
It is really that simple. There is no real need to read all the books on Earth to understand why and how you shall not do harm, because it is enough to ask your own heart, or at least the better part of it, in order to know the right answer. However, doing no harm is not enough, we have to defend the innocent and the weak, especially the women and the children. Defending the righteous law and order, that is what real warriors do, according to a great sage from the Prairies. Obeying and following orders of tyrants blindly, that is what soldiers, including generals do.
The Not Harming principle was so significant at least in Asia, that they often included the animal world too. Maybe it sounds to some as a strange idea, but it is exactly how the Bible starts. It can be a surprise, but at the very beginning not only murder was forbidden, but killing of animals, even in order to eat, was forbidden as well. Moreover even for the animals was forbidden to eat each other. At the very beginning the animal food chain simply did not exist, it is a later development, or rather a corruption of existence.
It is written for every careful reader in the very beginning of the Book of Genesis that God told humans that “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food; And it was so. ”
Not only that this was the law at the beginning, the Bible tells us also that in the Messianic Era, which is coming, which is the world to come, the original order will be reestablished as it is written in the Book of Prophet Isaah, chapter 11 that “The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, the calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf together; and a little child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze. Their young ones will lie down together. The lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play near a cobra’s hole, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh, as the waters cover the sea.”
Nonetheless, the great coin of love and justice has two sides. Doing no harm is just one side of the coin, because the justice counterpart and the similarly ultimate commandment on the other side of the same coin is that we must defend the innocent against the wicked. The commandment says that You shall definitely not murder, as it is a premeditated evil. As omitting of self-defense is technically a suicide, so it is a murder of the self, it is forbidden, as well. Thus self-defense is a must, an obligation of every one and every community.
A lot of maxima, Jesus said in the Gospels, got misinterpreted, misunderstood, sometimes taken out of context and even arbitrarily twisted by the next generations.
It is not at least accurate to depict Jesus as a mindless pacifist. The famous quote here is that Jesus asserted in the Gospel of Matthew that " I tell you, don't resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also."
However, in the frame of the Sermon of the Mount, in a figurative speech, he taught also that “If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna. If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna.[”
Taking this speech out of the context and taking it literally, it could cause hat the majority of the serious followers of Jesus on Earth would lack an eye or two, or a stumbling hand or two. Regarding the turning of the other cheek, the context is “that everyone who is angry with his brother without a cause will be in danger of the judgment.”
It means that whatever are my grievances, if I get ragingly angry with my neighbor, it will be counted against me on Judgment Day. Figuratively, turning the other cheek for the slapping would be better than getting angry or taking a raging revenge, just similarly as plucking out my stumbling eye or cutting off my stumbling arm would be better than going to the Judgment Day, and letting them defile my soul before the Creator. It is a figurative speech.
In real life, we should not turn the other cheek to the obviously wicked, but we have to defend our families, our community, our town, our country, our planet, our galaxy. Aggression and cruel revenge is absolutely forbidden, just like dancing on the grave of our fallen enemies, however, self defense is a moral obligation, it is a must.
Nonetheless, we can expect God to fight on our side only, if we are on the right side, which is the side of God. If we are on the wrong side, God will fight against us. May the Lord help us mightily fight evil forces and wickedness, greed and idolatry, always, AMEN.
