Last week, our newsfeed was filled with gruesome accounts of the murder of 50 people gathered to worship in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.  It wasn’t that long ago that the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh was the setting of an attack on the worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue which left 11 worshippers dead.  In 2015, 9 people were killed in Charleston, SC at the Emmanuel AME Church.  One thing unites these killings: a hatred based on religious, ethnic, and racial difference.  In each case, the killers felt justified – even proud, of their actions.

Killing people because they hold the “wrong” beliefs has a long history.  The Thirty Years War, the Inquisition, the slaughter of the Albigensians, and the Crusades are but a few of the examples that spring to mind.  But the tradition is far older than that.

One of the ancient examples is from a Bible story we teach our kids in Sunday School.  We get them marching around and blowing instruments and stomping their feet, pretending that they are marching with Joshua outside the gates of Jericho.

So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpets, they raised a great shout, and the wall fell down flat; so the people charged straight ahead into the city and captured it. Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys. (Joshua 6:20-21)

In the Old Testament there are a number of places where the Israelites ‘devote to destruction’ (חָרַם) all the inhabitants of the towns that they conquer.  They do this at the instruction of God according to the biblical text.

Obviously, this is a horror that we cannot imagine that God would order, but the scripture is quite clear that it was God’s command.  So, what are we to think?

I’m not suggesting that we no longer trust the Bible, but that we read it like grown-ups and that we read it like Christians.  The perfect Word of God is Jesus, the self-communication of God.  Scripture is a guide and norm, but Christ is the ultimate norm, the perfect standard of God’s will for humanity.  Jesus’ twofold command:  love of God and love of neighbor is the standard by which we are judged and by which even biblical teaching is judged.  Bear this in mind when you read that Amalekites, Hittites, Canaanites and the rest are condemned to destruction (Deuteronomy 20:17).  Bear it in mind when you read the Levitical death penalty for homosexuality as well (Leviticus 20:13).

Prayer:  God of infinite love, guide our steps to follow Christ that we may love all people as he taught us.  Amen.