Dogs shall lick thy blood

Today's readings appear to offer two very different views of God and justice.

The Gospel (Matthew 5:43-48) has some of the most beautiful expressions of God's universal love: a love that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ calls us to manifest in our own lives:

Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you,
and pray
for them which despitefully use you
and persecute you;
That ye may be
the children of your Father which is in heaven:
for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good,
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if ye love them which love you,
what reward have ye?
do not even the publicans the same?

And if ye salute your brethren only,
what do ye more than others?
do not even the publicans so?

Be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

On the other hand, the first reading (1 Kings 21:17-29) contains extremely vivid expressions of God's justice, beginning with this cheery prophecy:

Thus saith the LORD,
In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth
shall dogs lick thy blood...

The recipient of this warning is the notorious King Ahab. Despite, however, his recourse to fasting, sackcloth, and the Lord's forbearance, the prophecy eventually comes true (1 Kings 22:37-38):

So the king died, and was brought to Samaria;
and they buried the king in Samaria.
And one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria;
and the dogs licked up his blood...

(Literature fans may remember this vivid image being recalled in Moby Dick [chapter 16]: "Oh! he ain't Captain Bildad; no, and he ain't Captain Peleg; he's Ahab, boy; and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king!" "And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did they not lick his blood?")

Although few reach the rhetorical intensity of "dogs shall lick thy blood," some Christians seem to do nothing but splash endlessly in the dramatic denunciation of evil.

Other Christians seem to do nothing but soak endlessly in a soft rain shower of nonjudgmental mercy.

Sadly, each extreme tends to dwell on the parts of Scripture that support their approach while minimizing the parts of Scripture that go against their preferences.

We must embrace all of God's teaching, not only the parts that suit our particular tastes or particular situations.

We must not filter God.

Rather, you and I need to be transparent vessels of the Lord.

We must be truthful and we must be clear - as we look within our own hearts and as we give witness to others - about what is right and what is wrong, drawing not upon the current whims of culture but upon the eternal truth of God.

Likewise, as we look within ourselves and as we reach out to others, we must be open and boundless as channels of the indescribable mercy of God's universal love.

Mercy and justice, clarity and love - such is our God; so must we be.