As we work through Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 during the season of Pentecost, we have found that there are deeper implications than a superficial reading might indicate. This week, we come to verse 3, which says there is a time to kill, and a time to heal.
This is one of those verses that surprises me in the Bible. Why is killing being advocated? Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve looked at the idea that sometimes something has to die in order for something new or better or more healthy to emerge. But does that mean that violent killing must happen?
Too often lately when I watch the news I feel great sadness. I wonder how any good can come of hatred and violence so often evident. It can seem that killing and death is all around. Minor disagreements escalate into killing. Where is the good? Where is the healing?
In fact, the Bible has many images of killing being in juxtaposition with life. I Samuel 2:6 says, The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. In Ezekiel’s vision in the Valley of the dry bones, the prophet is asked, can these bones live? ‘O Lord GOD," I replied, "only You know.’ (Ezekiel 37:3). The bones then begin to reunite. God then commands, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude (Ezekiel 37:9-10).
Many times, the people of Israel ‘sin and turn to other gods.’ Then God kills their way of life by allowing attacks by enemies, and even by times of exile. But then, always faithful, God states, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth. (Jeremiah 33:6) As Psalm 30:5 reminds us, his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
How can healing begin to take place? How can the dead bones come together? It is a long, difficult process. Often the first step is acknowledging that there is death, killing, pain and then seeking forgiveness. A meme making the rounds on Facebook notes, “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world. Angry people cannot create a peaceful planet.”
Forgiveness is not ‘letting the other person off’. It is acknowledging that a wrong (evil, abuse, harm) occurred. It is listening to the hurt, painful as that may be. It is then choosing to acknowledge that I had a part to play in being wronged, or causing harm. It may, or may not, mean a relationship with the one who wronged me. Forgiveness and reconciliation involves working to ensure that the wrong (harm, abuse, evil) doesn’t happen again.
With God’s help, we can work for healing of all the wrongs and evils being exposed in our world. Things we may not have ever known about are coming to light. I need to examine where my culpability may be in things like systemic racism, or non-forgiveness, or unhelpful attitudes relating to safe COVID19 practices. We each need to do that.
We can, with God’s help, breathe new life into what seems to be killing all hope. Brother Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John Evangelist notes, “when we hear Jesus say “love your enemies”…Jesus is talking here of love at its most, most extreme, self-sacrificial way. Jesus is using the same “love” verb that describes how he literally lays down his life in being crucified by his enemies. Why? For love. It’s imaginable how we would give up our lives, lay down our lives, expend our lives in very self-sacrificial ways for our spouse, or lover, or child, or for someone else whom we adore. That goes without saying. But what Jesus is saying here is to love our enemies in the same way.”
This is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. Loving, forgiving—it’s not easy. Brother Curtis notes, “Jesus promises us the power of love, but this conversion to love is more than a lifetime’s process…You are a work in progress. Be filled with love (present tense)…Be-being-filled with love.”
Let’s work together to birth a new way in our own time and in our own place.
