Hear the comforting words of scripture:

Happy shall they be who take your little ones   and dash them against the rock! (Psalm 137:9)

Let death come upon them; let them go down alive to Sheol; for evil is in their homes and in their hearts. (Psalm 55:15)

O God, break the teeth in their mouths; (Psalm 58:6)

May his children be orphans, and his wife a widow. (Psalm 109:9)

Ok, so maybe these aren’t so comforting.  Maybe, in fact, they are decidedly uncomfortable.  These are the verses we don’t trot out when we have company.  We don’t even like to talk about them among ourselves.  You rarely hear them, even in church.

The Psalms, perhaps more than any other book of the Bible, speak forthrightly of all the emotions we experience.  That includes the painful emotions, the despairing moods, and the angry, envious, and self-righteous attitudes to which we are all susceptible.

I wince a little whenever I read these prayers for the destruction of those who oppress or betray and abuse.  I want to scold: “be merciful, even as God is merciful.”

But it is important for us to hear what lies behind these vengeful prayers.  Underneath them is a cry for justice.  They have been sorely hurt and abused.  The ones who did evil have triumphed over them; they have been falsely accused; friends have betrayed and abandoned them.  In their suffering they cry out to God to make it right.  They want evil to be defeated.  Frankly, they want to see the wrong doers suffer.

These strong desires for vengeance and justice began to make some sense to me on 9/11/01.  As I absorbed the horror of the attacks in Manhattan and at the Pentagon and the sacrifice of those brave souls on Flight 93, I understood how a person could pray for God’s judgement to fall on those who do evil.

The impulse is human.  To the extent that it is a desire for justice and not just retribution, it is a holy longing.  But we cannot give ourselves over to hate and vengeance – not in our actions or our hearts.

For all the evil and injustice, for all the oppression and violence against the weak and vulnerable, we pray that God would bring justice.  God’s justice is not simply the punishment of the ones who do evil.  God’s justice is deeper and more costly.  God in Christ takes on the suffering of the oppressed.  God in Christ absorbs the violence of the wicked.  God in Christ transforms the evil doers and makes us in the image of Christ.

Pray for God’s justice, which is our mission to enact here and now.  Pray for God’s transforming justice which will, in God’s perfect time, turn an upside-down world right-side-up.  Pray for the evil doers and us ordinary sinners, that we might be made right and new.

Prayer:  Our world is hurting; nature itself is wounded at our hands; our relationships are fragmented.  Bring healing and hope to us today and speed the day when your Kingdom is established throughout all creation.  Amen.