Did David Break the Commandment; Thou Shalt Not Kill?

A Camp Tekoa Discussion I’m still stuck on

            This past July I spent a week serving the 300+ campers and staff at Camp Tekoa as their “Pastor of the Week.”  Camp Tekoa is an amazing, God-filled place and I consider my annual volunteering to be a vital part of my ministry.  One of the things that I love about Camp Tekoa is not only the beautiful mountains or fun camp activities of swimming, hiking, playing, etc., but it’s the little God-moments that happen everyday.  God just shows up; in a conversation, at the dinner table, on the porch rocking chairs, and you never see it coming.  I had one of those moments this year during my Bible Study with one of the 5th grade groups. 

                       

            Sitting in the Chapel in the Woods (a small worship area in the woods beside the lake complete with benches and a stone altar) I see the 5th grade group come for the morning.  Cute kids.  Now I’ve had a dozen groups so far of all ages and most of the Bible Studies have gone relatively the same.  Good stuff, but predictable.  Here I expect no different.  After a quick introduction a hand goes up from a sweet blond-haired girl in the back.  “Pastor Brad, I have a question, and it’s been bothering me.”

                       

            I look at her counselor and she sighs, “She asked me last night in the cabin and we went around in circles, so I said we’ll just ask you today.  I’m so sorry!”

                       

            Uh oh, I think, and ask her to go ahead with her question.  “Well, the Bible says you shouldn’t kill anyone, you know in the Ten Commandments, right?”  “Yes,” I reply while thinking, I bet that wasn’t the hard question, though I hope it is.  “Well, David, he killed Goliath, so was David bad, or what’s going on?”

                       

David and Goliath lithograph by Osmar Schindler 1888

         
I lit up.  It’s the best question I’ve ever heard about the Bible in a LONG time.  I wonder if she would be willing to ask that same question at home, or in church.  My guess is sadly no.  Sometimes we go to church not to be challenged or face challenges, but to be told what we want to hear.  Kids pick up on that, that you should never rock the boat.  I’m grateful that Camp Tekoa allows such sacred space for the sharing and growing of wisdom.  I pray that here at Liberty we can do that too (and I’ve seen places where we have, let’s keep it up and make it grow).  Now to the beauty of the question; it sounds simple but it hits two major sore-spots for many Christians who don’t like to think on these things.  The two issues are these;

1.      being confronted by passages where Scripture contradicts itself

2.      the tension between war, peace, security, and the Gospel

            Now #1 makes some Christians freak out.  When they hear that the Bible contradicts itself; they feel like this is a spring-board leading to a full-wage assault on their faith.  Usually those believers become extremely defensive to the point of meanness.  Now I’m going to say something that may get you worked up too.  Note that you shouldn’t, that it isn’t as bad as you think it is.  Here’s the truth; sometimes Scripture contradicts itself.  I knew that as a kid with this one; did Judas kill himself by hanging (Matthew 27:5) or by jumping off a cliff with a splat (Acts 1:18).  It can’t be both, can it?  Well a pastor once answered me this question when I was a teen, saying that it could be both (and this gets morbid).  He told me that Judas hanged himself on a tree branch overhanging a cliff, and the branch broke and Judas fell with the “splat.”  His explanation kind of reminded me of elaborate stories kids tell the teacher explaining why they didn’t have their homework.  That’s just one.  There are others and many are minor but worth noting;

·        In the Creation account, which came first; animals and then humans (Genesis 1: 25-26) or humans and then animals (Genesis 2: 18-19)?

·        The Sermon on the Mount; did Jesus preach it from a mountain (Matthew 5) or an open plain (Luke 6)?

·        When Jesus hung on the cross, did the soldiers offer him vinegar (Matthew 27:34) or wine with myrrh (Mark 15: 23)?

·        How many angels were in the Empty Tomb; one (Mark 16) or two (Luke 24)?  

                       

            Now you may look at this and say, “Big whoop.  It isn’t that big a deal.”  Or you may say, “But the Bible is inerrant!  Brad, you are off your rocker!”  Or, “This is the language of the enemy!  Don’t listen to it!”  I’m just accepting the facts; the Bible does have different accounts for the same events.  It sometimes says one thing and then later says another.  Even Jesus was real with this in Matthew 5: 43-44;  “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  He’s quoting Leviticus 24: 19-21.  So if Jesus notes it, we should too.  Now does this have to become that spring-board into a conversation of why the Bible is wrong?  Not at all.  But if you pretend these issues don’t exist, you lose credibility with the skeptics or a sweet little girl who asks a honest, serious question at Camp Tekoa.  My advice; acknowledge the inconsistencies, own them, embrace them.  Don’t fight them because a good hardened skeptic will list dozens of harder contradictions or discrepancies to pummel you.  That is also why you’ll never hear me say the Bible is inerrant.  It’s basically a rude way to say that you have no interest in talking with someone (skeptic or anyone) but that you’ll love talking at someone (or shout, yell, the garbage we’re all sick of).  The word I recently heard and love is inspired, that Scripture was and is Divinely Inspired.  The Bible has many different authors, and we need to own that.  It's not a single book, it's a library, the best library ever, but a library still.  This explains how and why many Scriptural accounts have different tellings.  This will lead you to truth, to grace, to salvation (with a little education and support of course), and you can avoid being tripped up on the contradiction stuff while at the same time acknowledging it.

David and Goliath by Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel

            And that takes us to #2 of the question; the tension between war, peace, security, and the Gospel.  This is bigger and has broader consequences for all of us.  This is another Scriptural issue that drove me crazy growing up; reading of a God who, “is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works" (Psalm 145:9) and yet in other passages says; "I will dash them one against another, parents and children together, says the Lord. I will not pity or spare or have compassion when I destroy them. (Jeremiah 13:14)."  Uhh…which is it?  Is God ordering the armies of Joshua to invade and slay all the men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys of Jericho, the enemies of God’s chosen (Joshua 6: 21), or is God commanding us to, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44)?”  Can it be both?  Neither?  Is one right and the other wrong?  Did David do the right thing by killing Goliath, or did he break God’s commandment of Thou Shall Not Kill? 

            Now we are going deeper into the Word.  Good.  We are normally very shallow with it.  Usually when I think of the sins of David I think of him stealing his best friend’s wife Bathsheba and having him murdered while in war.  I never thought of David attacking Goliath being on the same plane.  In my thoughts I guess I just chalked it up as, “He’s defending his country from the Philistines and Goliath.  I mean it’s Goliath!  He beat Goliath with a sling!  It’s a great story, so it’s cool and worth celebrating!  Like the movie Rocky!!”  So in times of war, the 10 Commandments become…overridden?  Inconvenient?  We can do that?  Well, think of the Nazis, I hear the reply.  The Nazis!  We had to fight back, to defend those who are helpless!  It was the Nazis!!!  Okay, so when Jesus told us to Love Our Enemies, he only meant some of the time, or that Jesus wasn’t really serious.  Yeah, my pulse is quickening too. 

            So what about men and women who volunteer to defend our country in our armed forces, to defend the helpless and defend our values?  Are their actions, just?  When we pray for our soldiers to come home, by what means are we praying for this outcome?  Where’s the grace here, or there?  Should there have been grace and mercy when David faced Goliath?  If you’ve forgotten, not only was Goliath killed and beheaded, the entire Philistine army was killed and the Israelites lined the roads with their bodies (a grim reminder to any other army who wants to mess with Israel). 

            Do I have the answers?  I wish, but I have wrestled with this for a long time, wrestled with God too, and this powerful question at Camp brought it all back to me.  While I don’t have answers, I do have a frame of mind that I’ll share with you when faced with issues of defense, defending your home, defending your people, security, and what if anything the Good Shepherd has to do with this.

David hoists the severed head of Goliath as illustrated by Gustave Doré 1866

            First, we must acknowledge we live in a broken world.  Our world is broken, and that brokenness is not new.  What is new is the magnitude of that brokenness.  It’s widening and more visible today.  People are living in hopelessness, fear, greed, and inflict real harm on people (innocent or not).  For some, standing idly by and watching in vain is the wrong choice.  So they sacrifice their time, their freedom, their relationships, and sometimes their very lives to protect the innocent and make a difference.  I’m not just talking about those who serve in our military.  Police officers do this.  Rebel armies do this against oppressors (while others call them terrorists.  Labels can be confusing).  So does a protest movement (which are often labeled rebel-rousers, or ungrateful losers.  Labels are partisan, and we have enough of that crap).  In times of relative peace these decisions aren’t as urgent, there is no the Biblical tension, and everyone is...cool.  Truthfully, these tensions and hurts are still there, they are just hidden under the surface.  In these current times, bullets and bombs, tear gas and rubber bullets are raining in our cities, and cities and places around the world.  Sometimes a bully needs a knuckle-sandwich, right?  Who is the bully?  It's a mess, and it gives us a headache.  I’m sure many of the authors of Scripture felt that way too.  Since we live a broken world, we have a lot of broken choices to choose from.  I get it when people volunteer to serve and combat this brokenness.  I love them deeply.  I honor their courage and selflessness.  For those times of war and conflict I pray for peace, I pray for mercy, and I will not judge them for their selflessness.  Also, I also want to live a world free from those brokenness that leads to violence.  That means for myself I have to see what choices I have to make.  We don’t always know the impact of our choices, so let’s make some good, holy choices of our own.  That leads us to my second frame-of-mind;

            Second, we need to take Jesus at his word and love our enemies.  This is beyond hard.  Have you ever tried to be friends or just be friendly to people you thought were absolute jerks?  I’m sure you have.  Sometimes it’s a co-worker, or a boss, so you don’t have a choice (or an easy choice anyway).  Sometimes it’s a family member that is rude, or racist, or someone that uses you or others.  They just make you mad!  Sometimes it’s a church member, whose pride and fear dominate the life of a church community.  And these are the kinds of people that Jesus commanded us to love?  Wouldn’t you rather spend time with people you like, people you’re comfortable with, people you agree with?  Of course (me too!), and that’s part of the reason why we’ve become so partisan over the decades.  We crave comfort, conformity, safety, and security, and especially among friends.  AH!  There are the words, the words that mess us up.  Safety and security.  We all want to be safe, we want to feel secure.  We want our homes, our children, and ourselves to be safe and secure.  We will go to extremes to insure this safety.  Is playing it safe a path to holiness, or wisdom, or is playing it safe and becoming secure setting us up for a greater fall?  Here’s such a struggle (though minor) I learned on vacation this summer.

           

"Stay on the right of the road!"

At the beach this past month my son was given a bicycle to ride with training wheels.  Will loved to ride his tricycle in the neighborhood at the beach, and now he LOVES his bike.  He peddles really fast too.  We were down there during the busiest times of the year, the July 4th week.  The traffic was insane; golf carts with careless teen drivers and big cars and trucks who wouldn’t notice a 4 year old on a little bike anyway.  So I’m walking and running beside him trying to teach him a valuable lesson, stay on the right side of the road.  Will loves to ride right down the middle of the road.  I don’t blame him, but he needs to stay on the right.  It’s just common sense.  Now I could have picked a safer way to ride all together; just wait till the late fall and winter and when Will is back again for a holiday, the traffic will almost be nonexistent.  Let him bike then and have the road to himself!  Unfortunately he wouldn’t learn a thing, and there is the occasional car in those times too.  So he bikes the July 4th week, sometimes obeying the road rules, and sometimes I’m having to physically turn the wheel to the right and move him while I’m apologizing to the breaking golf carts and cars as Will protests (all the cars and people were cool and understood, but it was stressful).  The next day Will was better at staying to the right.  He wasn’t perfect, but he’s better, smarter.  So back to the safety and security words.  I’m not saying safety is all bad, what I am saying is that we should be smart, use our brains, and instead of trying to become secure we should seek to be wise.  The path to wisdom isn’t found by avoiding risks.  In fact, while we can act safe, to pursue security is really about building walls to keep God’s Kingdom from growing.  Security is a mirage, and it can be a dangerous one.

            Jesus knew this well as he began to build the Kingdom of God.  He could have played it safe by spending time only with the Jews, or the Pharisees, or even the Romans.  It would have been a fun time, eating and drinking and telling tales within a secure kingdom that seemed eternal but wasn’t.  Instead he broke bread with sinners; the poor, the lame, the weak, the pathetic, the troublemakers, the rebel rousers, those whom the world judged were without value.  It was those very people who craved security and conformity that felt the most threatened by Jesus, and they killed him for it.  Ah, now here is a defense worth fighting for!  Jesus, who is the most innocent, the most pure, is going to be arrested by his enemies to be killed.  He did nothing wrong, and they’re going to treat him like a criminal (the same kind he kept company)?  Wouldn’t you stand in their way?  Wouldn’t you cry out at the injustice?  Can you see yourself rising up to defend Jesus?  Peter did, as he pulls out his sword and attacks Jesus’ enemies (injuring the slave of the High Priest).  Peter is only doing what David did against Goliath and the Philistines, right?  What does Jesus say?  In Matthew, Luke, and John, Jesus criticizes Peter, adding in Matthew, “Those who draw by the sword will die by the sword (Matthew 26: 52).”  So much for a defense.  Now is this the exception, or the rule?

            We are confronted with many choices; to be safe or be faithful.  To be honest or be shifty.  To be true or be a mirage.  Security is a mirage.  Just as locked doors don’t keep out thieves (they us e the windows, I’ve experienced it), the greatest army on earth can’t prevent every act of terrorism.  There will never be security when people hate and they teach their children to hate, or if we do teach that hate ourselves (often we don’t even realize we’re doing it, but our actions and attitudes are passed and learned every generation).  The hate will grow when we isolate ourselves from people we don’t like, trust, and hate.  Isolation is another broken choice, so maybe we should make wiser, holier choices.  What it look like if we invited the jerks, the criminals, and the fallen to dinner in our homes?  What would happen?  The cynic in me says, “They’d steal your stuff when you go to wash your hands, or worse.”  That could happen.  Or maybe, in the breaking of the bread the fallen may see Jesus for the first time.  Maybe you’ll discover you are the fallen one and you’ve actually invited Jesus over for dinner.  You won’t know if you’ve shut the door and locked it.  Again; we experience the tension, pain, discomfort, maybe even death.  But that’s where the grace is found.

            As I watch the bloodshed in the Holy Land (which hurts tenfold now that I’ve met some of its beautiful people) I’m torn.  I understand the Israeli’s desire for peace and security where there is so much hate.  I understand the Palestinians desire for peace and security where there is so much hate.  Will there ever be peace when an eye is sought for every lost eye?  It’s the way we’ve done things for a long time, and it’s not working, but we keep trying.  To defend oneself or another in a broken world is a heartbreaking choice, and I’m torn between supporting those who take up these “noble causes” and being faithful with the commands of Jesus.  Perhaps there is no middle ground to be found in this tension.  Maybe we need to just embrace the brokenness, the hurt, and allow ourselves to be hurt in the process.  It’s how a loving relationship is nurtured.  You promise to love and trust and expect the same to be returned, but you can’t guarantee that.  If you want become secure from being hurt; don’t ever get married, don’t have children, and leave home quickly.  What kind of life is that?  What kind of life would I have if Jesus never invited a sinner like me to share the broken bread and the cup at His table, even as my brokenness and sin inflicts mortal wounds upon his flesh?

           

            There are no easy answers here, or maybe I just don’t want to admit the truth.  So I’ll return to the question at Camp Tekoa and close with this thought experiment.  “Well, the Bible says you shouldn’t kill anyone, you know in the Ten Commandments, right?”  “Yes.”  “Well, David, he killed Goliath, so was David bad, or what’s going on?”  Here’s a thought; What if the Israelites laid down their weapons and invited the Philistines to join them for supper and worship the living God before the Ark of the Covenant?  What would have happened?  The Israelites would have been slaughtered you may be saying, and perhaps so.  Instead they defended themselves, slaughtered the army who sought to slaughter them, and Israel lived another day…and Israel fell another day (to Babylon).  We face the brokenness of our world and sometimes decide that doing the right thing is a luxury and chose brokenness as the norm.  Let us pray for a better way.  I believe we may discover a better way when we embrace the brokenness, and be willing to take and accept the brokenness into ourselves.  It’s what Jesus did for us, he embraced our brokenness, and it killed him, but in that brokenness you find the grace.

            All of this was shared over hours on a bright, humid morning at Camp Tekoa with 5th graders and high schoolers.  

“There is no way to peace along the way of safety.  For peace must be dared.  It is itself the great venture and can never be safe.  Peace is the opposite of security.  To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself.  Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment.  Wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of almighty God.  Not trying to direct it for selfish purposes.  Battles are won not with weapons, but with God.  They are won when the way leads to the cross.”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor and theologian who spoke out against Nazi atrocities in Europe, who joined Nazi resistance groups, and was alleged to have been involved the assassination attempts against Hitler.  He died a concentration camp shortly before the end of the war.  Again, tension.

            I have to thank the countless number of fellow pastors and friends whose insights and debates help me craft this blog.