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You Shall Not Kill
Wednesday, September 20th, 2006
“Bishop George Packard has a burden. He carries it with him. There are times in his sleep when it overpowers him and wakes him, leaving him to wrestle through the night with shadows. There are days when stress mounts, the memories suddenly bursting around him in unpleasant succession. And in the ticking of the clock, the race toward oblivion that is the fate of all human beings, he seeks atonement in everything he does as a husband, a father and an Episcopal priest.” (Loosing Moses… p 101)
Bishop Packard’s burden is the price he pays for killing…not murder but killing as a soldier in Vietnam. Way beyond the politics and questions of morality involved in war is the stark truth that killing of any sort erodes one’s soul irrevocably. Bishop Packard finds that the sixth commandment, “You shall not kill,” dominates his life, and his years of giving life as a priest hasn’t satiated his thirst for forgiveness/atonement. The fact that he was doing his duty as a patriot and citizen does not seem to help. “When my life is over,” he said, “when in those last 30 seconds that I am fighting for breath in some room, I will make a plea to God. I will say that I did the best I could in the oddities life gave me. I will ask to be forgiven.” ( p 114)
“Where was God in Vietnam? It is the question all who have been to war face, for war is a Godless endeavor. When love, compassion and human kindness are replaced by the vast, grotesque panorama of violence and destruction of war, God is banished. Human beings, who have the freedom to choose good and evil, cannot find within them the power of the divine when they embrace a world of sin. At that moment they shut out the divine. And war is a state of almost unadulterated sin” (p104)
Added to war are the specters of addictions, sex trade, environmental poisonings, genocide, abuse of women, domestic violence, and unabated starvation. Each of these is a way of killing and each of these weighs heavily on our hearts and consciences. In the background the sixth commandment rings with new urgency and poignancy, “You shall not kill.”
Jesus fulfilled this commandment by filling it with the command to love. He filled the commandment with warnings against belittling and destructive anger and stubborn grudges. There is more at stake than just another’s physical life, there is the essence of a person that can be “killed” in a variety of ways short of murder. He urged reconciliation and restoration in response to being wronged. Also, James states clearly in his letter that war’s origin is greed, covetousness, and selfishness. (James 4:1-4) When seen in the light of day, all killing springs from those same motives.
This coming Sunday, as you visit the “Stations of Mercy” you will become aware of how we all are indirectly complicit in some of these ways of killing. It would be easy to become overwhelmed. I would encourage you to prayerfully seek God’s counsel at each station and ask if there is some response that God would have us/you make.
One Response to “You Shall Not Kill”
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 11:34 am and is filed under Ten Commandment Series.
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September 20th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
When Jesus was asked about “do not kill” he emphasized the motives, the heart behind the action, rather than the action itself.
How difficult this is for us!
We would much rather have a measurable, countable commandment (”haven’t killed, check; “haven’t made an idol, check. . .”)than to live in a relationship with a present God.
Yet relationships are what Jesus says the commandments are about. “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as you do yourself.”
Where’s the countable checkmark there? How can we get it off our “to do” list? When will this requirement be satisfied, so I can move on to something else?
Yet if someone asked you how much work it is to love your boyfriend, your wife, your child, your grandfather, most of us would say “that’s different–that just *is*, it’s not something I have to *do*”.
Precisely. If loving God and others is a chore, there’s something wrong. Something that can be corrected, but it isn’t OK the way it is.