REVENGE! Us Overcoming Them?

When I was about twenty years old, and just getting deep into classical church music, one of my cassette tapes was of the Choir of All Saints Cathedral, Halifax. They sang, in typical, traditional, Anglican chant, Psalm 149:

O sing unto the LORD a new song:

let the congregation of saints praise him.

Let Israel rejoice in him that made him:

and let the children of Sion be joyful in their King...

Let the saints be joyful with glory:

let them rejoice in their beds.

Let the praises of God be in their mouths,

and a two-edged sword in their hands;

To be avenged of the nations,

and to rebuke the peoples;

To bind their kings in chains, 

and their nobles with links of iron; 

To execute judgment upon them as it is written.

Such honour have all his saints. 

To sing harsh words beautifully… what does this do? Sometimes it masks what is truly being said. Perhaps the organ growls a bit and sounds harsher when the choir sings ‘bind their kings in chains, and their nobles with links of iron.’ 

Vengeance - such a common religious reaction. Such a human reaction! Some of you know I am spending six weeks on six stories that we tell in our lives, our culture, our religion. The story of dominating others, of being the victim of others, of taking revenge on others; and so on. Yet a seventh, the story of love, is far better. 

So far, in two sermons, in June, I have not told many stories. So here is one, that touches on revenge: us overcoming others. The Man Who Ran Over a Rattlesnake—a story of Safed the Sage, by Rev. William Eleazer Barton, c 1920.

There was a man who owned an Automobile, and he drove unto places afar. And there was a day when he stepped on the Gas, and went out into the country. And he beheld in the road ahead of him a Rattlesnake. And the Rattle-snake was crossing the road, and asking of him no favors save that he observe the speed limit, and give unto Transverse Traffick a fair share of the Publick Highway. And when the man saw the Rattlesnake, he ran the wheels of his Car over it, so that the back of the Serpent was broken. And the Serpent writhed in pain and died and the man drove on. And he patted himself upon the back and said, I have wrought a good deed, and there is one less enemy of the human race. And that may have been true; neither am I reproving him for what he did; for I am no friend of Rattlesnakes. 

Now it came to pass as he drove on, that one of his Tires went flat, and he stopped and removed it. And he found in the Inner Tube a small Puncture. For something had penetrated the Outer Tire, and cut it through. And he felt of the inside of his Outer Tire with his finger tips to find if peradventure a Tack had gone through his Tire, that he might remove it before he put in a new Inner Tube. And he found something that pricked his finger, and it felt like a Tack. But on the next day that man died. 

Now I once knew the President of a Railway who was unjust to a Brakeman; and the Brake-man rose to be a Conductor, and then a Division Superintendent, and then a General Manager, and then he caused the President to be fired, and he sat in the President's seat and he said, It all was written down in the Book of Fate from the day the Old Man Cursed me from his Private Car. 

And I have known of very humble men who have Resented being run over by Mighty Men, and who have kept it in mind for years until they found their opportunity. Yea, I have known the blind, unreasoning bite of a man whose back was broken to leave a poisoned fang for the finger of him who had run over him. 

Wherefore beware lest thou think too meanly of him whom thou despisest; neither be thou too ready to run over even the humblest of the creatures of God. For in this manner are the haughty brought often to humility. 

The urge to rebel and take vengeance is strong. Be it like the man driving the car who had it out for any rattlesnake. Or like the snake that seemed to leave a poison fang in the tire of the car. Or the Brakeman who worked on the railway, and worked his way up the corporate ladder, only to fire the company President who’d mistreated him. 

The first story we read today, was at the start of the text we call Ezekiel, that Hebrew priest and prophet is getting his calling to preach renewed. Among his own conquered people, now exiled in Babylon, Ezekiel is to speak out to them,  a rebellious people, whether they will listen and receive the message from God, or not. The leaders had been, many times, rebels against their own God. Things had gone badly for them; they were partly at fault themselves.

We have this tendency, when things go wrong, to blame and to want things made right - of course. But we want vengeance; we want revenge. We want to rebel against the ones who hurt us. We want to punish them and we want to win. But there is such a thing as seeking justice without vengeance. (Gareth Higgins) 

Revenge can feel like a good deed. Like the man who ran over the snake. “I have wrought a good deed, and there is one less enemy of the human race.” Yet, as Safed the Sage put it, ‘the Rattlesnake was crossing the road, and asking of him no favors save that he observe the speed limit, and give unto Transverse Traffick a fair share of the Publick Highway.’ 

To do justice without doing harm—that would be… special, peaceful, miraculous? As Jesus preached, it is no longer ‘an eye for an eye and tooth for tooth,’ quoting the Hebrew Scriptures. Rather, turn the other cheek, be generous, be peaceable. 

The one lesson I pick out from our Ezekiel scene today is the lesson—once again—of doing the small, good thing that is there for you to do. Prophet Ezekiel was to do some heavy preaching “whether they hear or refuse to hear.” At least they will know there has been a prophet in their midst. In other words, they’ll know they have been warned, they have heard from their God. The leaders of the Hebrew nation might never change their ways, or admit the failures of the past, but at least Ezekiel spoke the truth to them.

There is a place for rebellion, for protest, for refusing to go along with the powers that be. But we can do things kind and good, in the face of wrong and evil. Back when I was in college, the war in Bosnia broke out. The story was told of a cellist, in the midst of Sarajevo being bombed, who got out his cello and played. 

‘Why are you playing the cello,’ someone asked, ‘while they are dropping bombs?’

‘Hold on a minute,’ the musician said. ‘The question should be “why are they dropping bombs on me while I’m playing the cello?”’

There is a defiance that can be gracious and moving, without being harsh or violent. Without being vengeful.

I look to Jesus, in that hometown scene from Mark 6, today. The locals don’t respect Him. He speaks; He blesses a few people. He moves on. When Jesus instructs the disciples being sent out, they are prepared for both a warm welcome and for the cold shoulder. “If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” We don’t take violence against them, we don’t make a stink. We simply move on, in peace. 

We come in worship, in a few moments, to the time of remembering Jesus’ death by execution. In that scene, He is known for saying, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they’re doing.” As we are ‘at the Table,’ let us remember those words of His. And as we acknowledge that we do not always know what we are doing, we may yet be inspired to speak a different story than taking revenge and violently rebelling. We can live into the story of peaceful love, in the face of all the world of nastiness that hurts. 

What did Safed the Sage say? Wherefore beware lest thou think too meanly of him whom thou despisest; neither be thou too ready to run over even the humblest of the creatures of God. And let me end with words ‘of Safed’ from his Introduction to these stories. 

No apology is here offered for the optimism which underlies the philosophy of these little lessons. The author has lived long enough to know something of the sorrows and perplexities of life, but he still believes that this is a good world, and he is glad he is alive…