Somebody has to pay!
Commentary
Object:
Anger is like a volcano. Deep in many of us there is a lake of pain, pure molten hurt. From the outside no one sees it, usually. We cover it over so well. But one day the heat rises, the dam breaks, the cork blows, and the anger erupts like an explosion. And dogs get kicked. And triggers get pulled. And wives get beaten. And missiles get launched.
There are five levels of pain in our lives. The most obvious is that of physical injury. If someone hits me I hurt and often I retaliate quickly seeking to share the pain. It is the rule of the playground, the rule of ice hockey, the rule of road rage, and the rule of international politics. Most of us grow up enough to deal with that pain in more mature ways but it is always simmering somewhere around us.
The second level of pain is emotional. It is the pain we feel when our security is threatened. Displaced people and refugees struggle with emotional pain. So do children who bounce around between foster homes: always a new face, a new place, a new space. Every child counselor will speak of the lake of pain that washes around inside these little ones.
The third level of pain is social. It is the pain that happens when our closest relationships rub raw. Why do husbands beat their wives? Because no anger is more powerful than the anger we direct toward those we love. Why do family feuds start and fester for years? Because people are bound together in something they cannot escape and someone will have to pay for the hurt.
The fourth level of pain is psychological. It is the hurt trembling inside when someone attacks our self-esteem. Newspapers carried a horrible story of road rage several years ago: A man was driving through a construction zone where traffic crawled for miles and then funneled into a single lane. For most of an hour the man endured the snail's pace, inching along. Just as the road widened again and traffic began to move, another driver bypassed all the stopped cars, bouncing along the shoulder, and pulled in front of this man's vehicle. Not only did he do that -- the renegade driver then laughed in his face and flipped him the bird. That did it! To be irritated was one thing but to be taunted and suckered as a fool was quite another. He followed the other car to the next traffic signal. Then he reached into the glove compartment, pulled out a gun, walked up to the other guy's window, and shot him in the face. The psychological pain of humiliation caused the volcano to erupt.
The highest level of pain is rooted in our need for meaning in life. When Simon Wiesenthal was a young Jewish prisoner-of-war, he was led to a room where a Nazi officer lay dying. The injured man proceeded to describe a scene of horrible slaughter in which he had personally murdered dozens of Jews in a cruelly painful manner. As the man talked Simon shrank back, wondering why he was supposed to hear this. When the tale ended, the Nazi officer announced that he was dying but that he was scared to enter eternity with this blood on his hands. "Forgive me!" he demanded of Wiesenthal. "I need to be forgiven by a Jew!"
What would you do? This man never hurt Simon Wiesenthal personally, physically, or emotionally. Yet, how could he forgive someone who attacked the very core of his being? Could he forgive this beast and still find any meaning to his life?
This is pain at its deepest. The molten lake of pain inside bubbles until it fissures in revenge or explodes in rage or seethes in resentment and then hurt strikes out in exasperation.
How can the sources of pain's volcano be discharged before life takes vengeful turns? For one thing, it has to be identified and acknowledged. Without a finger on pain's pulse we leave it to crouch in wait, a secret snare ready to snap.
Something else needs to happen as well, according to the lectionary passages for today. The fabric of our lives needs to be reframed by God's grace. Pain happens naturally in our distorted world and anger hums about hurt. But the frame of grace stretches the scenery in new ways, even if it takes us an eternity to get used to it. Today, on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC, we need to think through these things once again.
Exodus 14:19-31
Taken by itself, this story seems to be one of revenge that stokes the fires of retribution among any people that has been harmed by oppression, slavery, or terrorism. We must remember that this is a continuation of the story that began in Exodus 1. The Egyptians were not worse than any other power in the ancient near east. The Bible never allows us to take that position. Instead, the conflict here is between the might of Egyptian religion and that of Yahweh. The encounter between these two mounted in the battles of the Ten Plagues (Exodus 7-11). Each foray met with stiff opposition. First, Yahweh jabbed at the gods of Egypt, embodied by the Pharaoh (who was considered divinely descended from the sun and the visible manifestation of the deity), and then Pharaoh hooked back. Dancing around the ring, they went ten rounds. Finally, Yahweh landed a jaw-crushing slam that sent Pharaoh to the mat. Down for the full count, the Egyptians ought to have conceded. But they came up roaring in pain and this is the post-fight kill.
Is it vengeance? Is it retribution? Is it a penalty fitting the crime? We can never fully answer these questions. But we can say several things: 1) this was a divine act of judgment that was intended as a sign to be read by the other nations of the world of that day (see the "Song of Moses and Miriam" in ch. 15); 2) this was not an act of Israel but of Yahweh (see Paul's theological reflection in 1 Corinthians 10:1-2); and 3) this was a typological act defining the character of Yahweh's people (see the teaching implication put forward in Hebrews 11:29).
The homiletic outcome for preachers in the Christian church may involve a number of things: 1) God's care for God's people is certain -- when God declares a covenantal bond, no power in this world can break it; 2) there is a price to be paid for continual opposition to the ways of God; in fact, 3) the very length and increasing severity of the series of plagues on Egypt is an intimation of God's graciousness, for God wished that the Egyptians would capitulate much earlier and make peace with God and Israel; and 4) God's judgment on Egypt is not the final word in God's attitude toward that nation -- Psalm 87 and the prophecies of Isaiah indicate God's desire to bring Egypt into the divine family that spans all nations on earth.
Romans 14:1-12
One of our daughters went to an all-day youth event some time ago. During the afternoon of games and recreation she got into the line-up for the sumo wrestlers. She is only a petite little thing but when they swallowed up her body in the foam rubber sumo wrestler suit she looked like Fat Albert. The point of the contest was to topple over the other pint-sized person bouncing around inside a similar suit. Both people were so clumsy that they looked hysterically funny and both were so padded that they couldn't hurt each other if they wanted to. It reminded me of what Paul says about patience and kindness. People who are patient seem to have a high capacity to absorb lots of the hurtful stuff that is always bouncing around in the daily grind of living. It is almost as if they regularly wear extra padding in order not to get quickly riled.
That does not necessarily make them insensitive but it does help control the anger that rages through society. Angry people throw fists. Angry drivers cut you off and wave at you with one finger. Angry athletes smash equipment and sometimes bodies. Angry men beat up on women. Angry women slap children. Angry nations strut military hardware and everyone cowers in fear.
We protect ourselves as best we can from the anger of others. We develop "civilization" in order to bring the darker passions under some rational control. But our tongues seem to be outside the loop on that rewiring and the bullets we fire from our mouths pass right through the protection of other padded hearts.
While we cannot make other people behave better, there is something we can do about our own stance in the sumo wrestling of life. There are only five basic responses we can make to others when they direct conversation, good or ill, toward us. These five "punches" are evaluate, instruct, support, probe, and understand. When we evaluate the other person's speech or actions, we set ourselves up as judge over him/her. When we instruct, we lift our own position to that of teacher. When we express support, we approach the other person as friend. When we probe, we seek further engagement and bring the person into our hearts. And when we summarize and repeat what's said, we show that we understand.
On the surface, this may seem like a conversational word game, and for some people it turns out to be merely that. Unfortunately for most of us, however, it is a game we need to begin playing with earnestness if we would hope to improve our communication and get that tongue off the hurtful trigger. That is because evaluative and instructional responses in conversation tend to shut down communication and throw barbs into the other person's soul. While none of us believes we ever use those rejoinders unless truly called for, the fact of research is that typical North American conversation includes around 80% of evaluative and instructional statements! In other words, we are almost constantly blowing pricks right through the sumo wrestlers' padding of other people and more tragically, most of the time we don't even know it.
Yet that seems to be what society encourages as normal and proper behavior. It certainly seems to play best in political campaigns and is why opposing armies need guns, or why racial tensions breed unchecked in a dozen other hot spots around the globe.
So too in our homes: a husband shakes an angry fist of paper at his wife and shouts, "Look at these bills! Where do you think the money's going to come from?" But he's not asking a question. He's really saying, "Oh, you stupid woman!" A moody teen yells at her parents, "Why are you always riding my case?" and the air is supercharged for a fight. Church members quibble about practices and raise their doctrinal swords to kill those who look most like themselves.
Maybe someday the raging fires of hell will be quenched by the refreshing fluids of heaven. Palmer Ofuoku, a Nigerian pastor, remembers when the first missionaries came to his village. Some became Christians, but not many, because these pale ones spoke many words of judgment (evaluation) and demand (instruction). It wasn't until another missionary came that Ofuoku began to listen and respond with faith and care. Why? Because, said pastor Ofuoku, this man stayed next to me when I was sick (support). He asked me about my family (probing) and let me know that he genuinely cared about me (understanding). Said Palmer Ofuoku, "He built a bridge of friendship to me, and Jesus walked across."
This sounds like Paul's reminder in verses 9-12. I wonder how many bridges like that I've built lately.
Matthew 18:21-35
Jesus' powerful teaching in this passage hits all of us. While the meaning is rather self-evident, there are some homiletic points to keep in mind. First, Peter's request likely comes out of personal hurt, as these requests usually do. Second, his willingness to forgive seven times more than doubles the going rate among the rabbis of the day (three times). Third, Jesus' response in verse 22 needs to be read next to Genesis 4:15-24, where Enoch expresses the outer limit of vengeance to be 77 times the original hurt. Fourth, attempts at converting the debts into current monetary values undermine the significance of Jesus' teaching -- the point is not the amount, but the impossibility of payment. Fifth, the repetition of the pleas for patience is symbolic of our own self-deception where we cannot see in others what we plead for from ourselves. Sixth, there is a correlation between our ability to forgive others and the extent to which the forgiving grace of God has penetrated our lives. Seventh, those who observe the servants in their interactions symbolize a world seeking a new way to deal with retribution and our witness must and will make a difference.
C.S. Lewis said that it was precisely through his reflections on the consistency of human revenge that he became a Christian. He was amazed that people of all cultures similarly demanded to have their "rights" protected. A child fights to hang on to a toy in a nursery. A man attacks the one who scratched the paint on his new car. A woman feeds the gossip network to get back at someone who wronged her. It's the stuff of the office scramble. It's the vicious competition fostered in schools and colleges. It's the thing on which societies hang their hats and load their guns.
Before Lewis became a Christian, all of this strength of moral indignation tormented his soul. How could there be a universal craving for justice without some Higher Power to plant it as a seed in the human spirit or standing as a final arbiter behind all things moral? Even where I may not be entirely honest or have full integrity, there is an urgent sense of "rights" at work within me. When Lewis relentlessly pursued the trail of moral responsibility, it led him back to God.
It was then, according to Lewis, that a new order of values took over. Even though thirst for justice in some form is universal, the logic of justice ultimately breaks down. For one thing, none of us is ever as righteous in our own lives as the moral behavior we expect from others. In other words, we will always attempt to lay a heavier burden on those around us than we are willing to submit to ourselves. Even where we excuse society generally as being immoral, we will want others to treat us with great justice and more. This double standard fosters a plague of moral decay. We cannot retain human dignity when we will destroy each other, untempered by mercy.
That brought Lewis to a second stage in his quest for a new order of things. He read about Jesus. Jesus, he realized, fully met the demands of God's justice but did so in such a way that, as the psalmist put it, in God "love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other!" (Psalm 85:10).
The logic of justice serves well to prove the reality of God's presence in this world, as Jesus points out here. Yet justice alone leaves us fainting for a quality of life that transcends the fear of both human and divine vengeance that justice brings. Only when we meet Jesus do we find something greater than mere justice. And only then can we go beyond the vindictiveness that Jesus rues in order to love with the grace of mercy.
Application
Lewis Smedes explored the themes of retribution and mercy that fall out of these three passages in terms we all understand as he told of his friend Myra Broger. Myra was a beautiful actress. Then she was nearly killed by a hit-and-run driver. Now she is crippled. At the time of the accident, Myra was married to another actor. He stayed around long enough to be certain that Myra didn't die from the accident. Then he divorced her because he couldn't be encumbered by her crippled weight. Now he is off with other beautiful women.
Myra hated him for it. She despised him for the vows he broke and detested him for the meanness that left her alone just when she needed him most. After several years, Smedes asked her if she had ever been able to forgive her ex-husband. She thought about it, and finally nodded her head with slow deliberation. Smedes was curious. How did she come to that conclusion? How could she tell if she had forgiven him? Myra Broger's answer was simple. "I find myself wishing him well," she said.
Smedes was unsure how to interpret that, so he asked, "Suppose you learned today that he had married a sexy young starlet... Could you pray that he would be happy with her?"
Smedes said he expected her to bristle at the thought, but she didn't. She responded almost casually: "Yes, I could and I would. Steve needs love very much, and I want him to have it."
That is not a blazing declaration of absolution for his crimes, but it is a crack in hell's armor. As William Blake put it in one of his poems:
Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
An Alternative Application
Exodus 14:19-31. Because this is September 11, the Genesis passage may be used carefully and powerfully to rehearse the events of this day in 2001, and then to lay the groundwork for a social response that does not end up with one or the other of the nations being destroyed.
There are five levels of pain in our lives. The most obvious is that of physical injury. If someone hits me I hurt and often I retaliate quickly seeking to share the pain. It is the rule of the playground, the rule of ice hockey, the rule of road rage, and the rule of international politics. Most of us grow up enough to deal with that pain in more mature ways but it is always simmering somewhere around us.
The second level of pain is emotional. It is the pain we feel when our security is threatened. Displaced people and refugees struggle with emotional pain. So do children who bounce around between foster homes: always a new face, a new place, a new space. Every child counselor will speak of the lake of pain that washes around inside these little ones.
The third level of pain is social. It is the pain that happens when our closest relationships rub raw. Why do husbands beat their wives? Because no anger is more powerful than the anger we direct toward those we love. Why do family feuds start and fester for years? Because people are bound together in something they cannot escape and someone will have to pay for the hurt.
The fourth level of pain is psychological. It is the hurt trembling inside when someone attacks our self-esteem. Newspapers carried a horrible story of road rage several years ago: A man was driving through a construction zone where traffic crawled for miles and then funneled into a single lane. For most of an hour the man endured the snail's pace, inching along. Just as the road widened again and traffic began to move, another driver bypassed all the stopped cars, bouncing along the shoulder, and pulled in front of this man's vehicle. Not only did he do that -- the renegade driver then laughed in his face and flipped him the bird. That did it! To be irritated was one thing but to be taunted and suckered as a fool was quite another. He followed the other car to the next traffic signal. Then he reached into the glove compartment, pulled out a gun, walked up to the other guy's window, and shot him in the face. The psychological pain of humiliation caused the volcano to erupt.
The highest level of pain is rooted in our need for meaning in life. When Simon Wiesenthal was a young Jewish prisoner-of-war, he was led to a room where a Nazi officer lay dying. The injured man proceeded to describe a scene of horrible slaughter in which he had personally murdered dozens of Jews in a cruelly painful manner. As the man talked Simon shrank back, wondering why he was supposed to hear this. When the tale ended, the Nazi officer announced that he was dying but that he was scared to enter eternity with this blood on his hands. "Forgive me!" he demanded of Wiesenthal. "I need to be forgiven by a Jew!"
What would you do? This man never hurt Simon Wiesenthal personally, physically, or emotionally. Yet, how could he forgive someone who attacked the very core of his being? Could he forgive this beast and still find any meaning to his life?
This is pain at its deepest. The molten lake of pain inside bubbles until it fissures in revenge or explodes in rage or seethes in resentment and then hurt strikes out in exasperation.
How can the sources of pain's volcano be discharged before life takes vengeful turns? For one thing, it has to be identified and acknowledged. Without a finger on pain's pulse we leave it to crouch in wait, a secret snare ready to snap.
Something else needs to happen as well, according to the lectionary passages for today. The fabric of our lives needs to be reframed by God's grace. Pain happens naturally in our distorted world and anger hums about hurt. But the frame of grace stretches the scenery in new ways, even if it takes us an eternity to get used to it. Today, on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC, we need to think through these things once again.
Exodus 14:19-31
Taken by itself, this story seems to be one of revenge that stokes the fires of retribution among any people that has been harmed by oppression, slavery, or terrorism. We must remember that this is a continuation of the story that began in Exodus 1. The Egyptians were not worse than any other power in the ancient near east. The Bible never allows us to take that position. Instead, the conflict here is between the might of Egyptian religion and that of Yahweh. The encounter between these two mounted in the battles of the Ten Plagues (Exodus 7-11). Each foray met with stiff opposition. First, Yahweh jabbed at the gods of Egypt, embodied by the Pharaoh (who was considered divinely descended from the sun and the visible manifestation of the deity), and then Pharaoh hooked back. Dancing around the ring, they went ten rounds. Finally, Yahweh landed a jaw-crushing slam that sent Pharaoh to the mat. Down for the full count, the Egyptians ought to have conceded. But they came up roaring in pain and this is the post-fight kill.
Is it vengeance? Is it retribution? Is it a penalty fitting the crime? We can never fully answer these questions. But we can say several things: 1) this was a divine act of judgment that was intended as a sign to be read by the other nations of the world of that day (see the "Song of Moses and Miriam" in ch. 15); 2) this was not an act of Israel but of Yahweh (see Paul's theological reflection in 1 Corinthians 10:1-2); and 3) this was a typological act defining the character of Yahweh's people (see the teaching implication put forward in Hebrews 11:29).
The homiletic outcome for preachers in the Christian church may involve a number of things: 1) God's care for God's people is certain -- when God declares a covenantal bond, no power in this world can break it; 2) there is a price to be paid for continual opposition to the ways of God; in fact, 3) the very length and increasing severity of the series of plagues on Egypt is an intimation of God's graciousness, for God wished that the Egyptians would capitulate much earlier and make peace with God and Israel; and 4) God's judgment on Egypt is not the final word in God's attitude toward that nation -- Psalm 87 and the prophecies of Isaiah indicate God's desire to bring Egypt into the divine family that spans all nations on earth.
Romans 14:1-12
One of our daughters went to an all-day youth event some time ago. During the afternoon of games and recreation she got into the line-up for the sumo wrestlers. She is only a petite little thing but when they swallowed up her body in the foam rubber sumo wrestler suit she looked like Fat Albert. The point of the contest was to topple over the other pint-sized person bouncing around inside a similar suit. Both people were so clumsy that they looked hysterically funny and both were so padded that they couldn't hurt each other if they wanted to. It reminded me of what Paul says about patience and kindness. People who are patient seem to have a high capacity to absorb lots of the hurtful stuff that is always bouncing around in the daily grind of living. It is almost as if they regularly wear extra padding in order not to get quickly riled.
That does not necessarily make them insensitive but it does help control the anger that rages through society. Angry people throw fists. Angry drivers cut you off and wave at you with one finger. Angry athletes smash equipment and sometimes bodies. Angry men beat up on women. Angry women slap children. Angry nations strut military hardware and everyone cowers in fear.
We protect ourselves as best we can from the anger of others. We develop "civilization" in order to bring the darker passions under some rational control. But our tongues seem to be outside the loop on that rewiring and the bullets we fire from our mouths pass right through the protection of other padded hearts.
While we cannot make other people behave better, there is something we can do about our own stance in the sumo wrestling of life. There are only five basic responses we can make to others when they direct conversation, good or ill, toward us. These five "punches" are evaluate, instruct, support, probe, and understand. When we evaluate the other person's speech or actions, we set ourselves up as judge over him/her. When we instruct, we lift our own position to that of teacher. When we express support, we approach the other person as friend. When we probe, we seek further engagement and bring the person into our hearts. And when we summarize and repeat what's said, we show that we understand.
On the surface, this may seem like a conversational word game, and for some people it turns out to be merely that. Unfortunately for most of us, however, it is a game we need to begin playing with earnestness if we would hope to improve our communication and get that tongue off the hurtful trigger. That is because evaluative and instructional responses in conversation tend to shut down communication and throw barbs into the other person's soul. While none of us believes we ever use those rejoinders unless truly called for, the fact of research is that typical North American conversation includes around 80% of evaluative and instructional statements! In other words, we are almost constantly blowing pricks right through the sumo wrestlers' padding of other people and more tragically, most of the time we don't even know it.
Yet that seems to be what society encourages as normal and proper behavior. It certainly seems to play best in political campaigns and is why opposing armies need guns, or why racial tensions breed unchecked in a dozen other hot spots around the globe.
So too in our homes: a husband shakes an angry fist of paper at his wife and shouts, "Look at these bills! Where do you think the money's going to come from?" But he's not asking a question. He's really saying, "Oh, you stupid woman!" A moody teen yells at her parents, "Why are you always riding my case?" and the air is supercharged for a fight. Church members quibble about practices and raise their doctrinal swords to kill those who look most like themselves.
Maybe someday the raging fires of hell will be quenched by the refreshing fluids of heaven. Palmer Ofuoku, a Nigerian pastor, remembers when the first missionaries came to his village. Some became Christians, but not many, because these pale ones spoke many words of judgment (evaluation) and demand (instruction). It wasn't until another missionary came that Ofuoku began to listen and respond with faith and care. Why? Because, said pastor Ofuoku, this man stayed next to me when I was sick (support). He asked me about my family (probing) and let me know that he genuinely cared about me (understanding). Said Palmer Ofuoku, "He built a bridge of friendship to me, and Jesus walked across."
This sounds like Paul's reminder in verses 9-12. I wonder how many bridges like that I've built lately.
Matthew 18:21-35
Jesus' powerful teaching in this passage hits all of us. While the meaning is rather self-evident, there are some homiletic points to keep in mind. First, Peter's request likely comes out of personal hurt, as these requests usually do. Second, his willingness to forgive seven times more than doubles the going rate among the rabbis of the day (three times). Third, Jesus' response in verse 22 needs to be read next to Genesis 4:15-24, where Enoch expresses the outer limit of vengeance to be 77 times the original hurt. Fourth, attempts at converting the debts into current monetary values undermine the significance of Jesus' teaching -- the point is not the amount, but the impossibility of payment. Fifth, the repetition of the pleas for patience is symbolic of our own self-deception where we cannot see in others what we plead for from ourselves. Sixth, there is a correlation between our ability to forgive others and the extent to which the forgiving grace of God has penetrated our lives. Seventh, those who observe the servants in their interactions symbolize a world seeking a new way to deal with retribution and our witness must and will make a difference.
C.S. Lewis said that it was precisely through his reflections on the consistency of human revenge that he became a Christian. He was amazed that people of all cultures similarly demanded to have their "rights" protected. A child fights to hang on to a toy in a nursery. A man attacks the one who scratched the paint on his new car. A woman feeds the gossip network to get back at someone who wronged her. It's the stuff of the office scramble. It's the vicious competition fostered in schools and colleges. It's the thing on which societies hang their hats and load their guns.
Before Lewis became a Christian, all of this strength of moral indignation tormented his soul. How could there be a universal craving for justice without some Higher Power to plant it as a seed in the human spirit or standing as a final arbiter behind all things moral? Even where I may not be entirely honest or have full integrity, there is an urgent sense of "rights" at work within me. When Lewis relentlessly pursued the trail of moral responsibility, it led him back to God.
It was then, according to Lewis, that a new order of values took over. Even though thirst for justice in some form is universal, the logic of justice ultimately breaks down. For one thing, none of us is ever as righteous in our own lives as the moral behavior we expect from others. In other words, we will always attempt to lay a heavier burden on those around us than we are willing to submit to ourselves. Even where we excuse society generally as being immoral, we will want others to treat us with great justice and more. This double standard fosters a plague of moral decay. We cannot retain human dignity when we will destroy each other, untempered by mercy.
That brought Lewis to a second stage in his quest for a new order of things. He read about Jesus. Jesus, he realized, fully met the demands of God's justice but did so in such a way that, as the psalmist put it, in God "love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other!" (Psalm 85:10).
The logic of justice serves well to prove the reality of God's presence in this world, as Jesus points out here. Yet justice alone leaves us fainting for a quality of life that transcends the fear of both human and divine vengeance that justice brings. Only when we meet Jesus do we find something greater than mere justice. And only then can we go beyond the vindictiveness that Jesus rues in order to love with the grace of mercy.
Application
Lewis Smedes explored the themes of retribution and mercy that fall out of these three passages in terms we all understand as he told of his friend Myra Broger. Myra was a beautiful actress. Then she was nearly killed by a hit-and-run driver. Now she is crippled. At the time of the accident, Myra was married to another actor. He stayed around long enough to be certain that Myra didn't die from the accident. Then he divorced her because he couldn't be encumbered by her crippled weight. Now he is off with other beautiful women.
Myra hated him for it. She despised him for the vows he broke and detested him for the meanness that left her alone just when she needed him most. After several years, Smedes asked her if she had ever been able to forgive her ex-husband. She thought about it, and finally nodded her head with slow deliberation. Smedes was curious. How did she come to that conclusion? How could she tell if she had forgiven him? Myra Broger's answer was simple. "I find myself wishing him well," she said.
Smedes was unsure how to interpret that, so he asked, "Suppose you learned today that he had married a sexy young starlet... Could you pray that he would be happy with her?"
Smedes said he expected her to bristle at the thought, but she didn't. She responded almost casually: "Yes, I could and I would. Steve needs love very much, and I want him to have it."
That is not a blazing declaration of absolution for his crimes, but it is a crack in hell's armor. As William Blake put it in one of his poems:
Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
An Alternative Application
Exodus 14:19-31. Because this is September 11, the Genesis passage may be used carefully and powerfully to rehearse the events of this day in 2001, and then to lay the groundwork for a social response that does not end up with one or the other of the nations being destroyed.
