Comments on: "For David hates the lame and the blind?"

By: Jamie

Jamie — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:41:45 +0000

Hello Rico,
While I will quite readily admit that your situation in Kingston is far more challenging (and violent…) than is mine in Winnipeg, I do wonder if the setting in which Jesus lived wasn’t as challenging as yours? In his case, it was the state-sponsored violence of the Roman Empire; a kind of rule-by-terrorism, which used such tools as crucifixion to break the hearts and souls of the people that it ruled. And yes, he did drive the money-changers from the temple, but if you look at the text it says that he used the whip to drive the animals out (“Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle.” John 2:15) It was a symbolic and prophet act of cleansing the temple or an enacted parable, and not a justification for violence. This is particularly clear in light of all that he says in the Sermon on the Mount, and even more so in light of what he does as his great and culminating act, which was to go to his cross. It was this refusal to return violence for violence that inspired the early church, producing figures like Polycarp, whose extension of table hospitality to the soldiers who had come to arrest him was for them challenging and transforming. They still arrested him, and he was ultimately executed, but remember; the meaning of the word “martyr” is witness, and what he did was a more powerful act of witness than any act of violence.

Having said all that, I realize that for me martyrdom is pretty much a theoretical thing, while in your context it could well be today’s reality.

Blessings,
Jamie

By: Rico

Rico — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 19:52:58 +0000

The practicality of living the Christian faith in the face of abject moral, ethical, and societal chaos is a challenge yet one that is necessary and indispensable in terms of making the Gospel relevant to its hearers.
I minister in the inner city of Kingston, Jamaica where if you are attacked and don’t defend yourself physically, you will forever be labeled as weak and not worthy of respect. Sometimes you have to resort to violence in order to defend yourself. There is nothing blissful or peaceful about hitting somebody up side the head. Believe me, however, if you try to hurt my family, my wife, my children, I will stop you in Jesus’ name. Let’s be real, let’s use the Scriptures as they were intended, and let’s stop hiding behind religious platitudinous ideologies that only work on paper. Jesus Himself made a whip and kicked people out of the temple.

Bless up,
Rev. Rico

By: Katharine

Katharine — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:10:54 +0000

Thanks for this. I came across this passage again for the first time in a while in my Bible reading. Before, I assumed there was some cultural thing going on with David that I didn’t understand; this time, I wanted to find out. I appreciate the insights offered here. I’m wondering, though, (in light of the fact that David willingly made a place for Mephibosheth not only in the kingdom, but in the palace) if David simply meant that he hated those particular blind and lame who were acting as guards and taunting his armies, not all blind and lame individuals. I’m also at a loss to understand how he could have handled the situation differently. I can’t imagine him sending soldiers up there to somehow safely remove the blind and lame soldiers– surely the whole Jebusite soldiers would have immediately attacked them and defeated them. I don’t know.
Speaking to Matthew, I have heard that Deitreich Bonhoeffer (sp?) wrote some interesting insights re: Christian activity in wartime. He himself was a pacifist until the situation in Germany became untenable. It was then that he, with great difficulty, made up his mind to do what he could for the Jews, and became party to several assassination plots against Hitler, working as a double agent in the Third Reich.

By: » Random Acts of Linkage #120 ::: Subversive Influence

» Random Acts of Linkage #120 ::: Subversive Influence — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:51:44 +0000

[...] appreciating a on an insult to David by Jamie [...]

By: Matthew Oliver

Matthew Oliver — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:52:16 +0000

Thanks for a sensitive treatment of that text (and your thanks to Walter, who has had a similar impact on me).

Six years after my retirement from the military life, I’m still struggling with the Christian tradition around ‘just’ war theory, and particularly after a month that included the deaths of three more Canadian soldiers overseas.

Does God’s prohibition on David building the temple, linked to the blood on David’s hands, inform us at all on the question of violence and our response to that violence in our world?

It almost seems there is a certain pragmatic element to God’s approach to David. There were things that needed to be done, things of blood and violence, before the kingdom could be one. After those deeds had been done, the rebuilding of the temple had to be left to the next generation, the ones who had not done the deeds of violence (acknowledging that Solomon was not pure white himself). There’s almost a divine acknowledgement that sometimes God’s people need to get their hands bloody.

In practical terms it brings to mind Rwanda in the early 1990′s. In hindsight, sending in a UN armed force to stop the genocide by force of arms would have been easily sanctioned under our ‘just’ war theory. Would that act of violence, even to save many lives, not leave some Christians with the same sort of blood on their hands as David?