Reacting to Reactionaries

I woke up two days ago whistling.  My normal routine is to place both bare feet out of bed at the same time, stretch my back and head to the living room where I'll first do my devotion, deep breathing and prayer, then on to my computer where a digital avalanche of e-mails is waiting to snow me under.

The whistling is done quietly and I find that they actual expulsion of breath through pursed lips does, in fact, make the work easier.  So two days ago, I whistled while I turned on the computer and then cut it short.  In front of me was a photograph of twenty-one men in orange kneeling before twenty-one men dressed in black outfits.  Those who stood behind, garbed in darkness, had their faces covered and I've seen enough of this picture the last months (too much of this picture) to know that there is nothing life giving about this scene.

What plays out, not only in the visual description but also in the written commentary causes the mind to boggle and explode in tumultuous confusing emotions.  Horrified - mortified - I read the described scene: the water in the background - the metaphor, the inherent evil that rides like a villainous demon behind these men in black clothes.  And I find myself wanting to point my finger, denounce the heinous action as cowardly and call on God's holy angels to avenge the deaths of these twenty-one.  I want to call on the governments of the world (as if I had any power whatsoever) to smash the perpetrators of this horrendous evil; I see my enemy as a set of eyes peering out of a black mask.

And then I open my Bible, reading the book of Matthew for devotions, to chapter 5 and I am accosted with the insanity of this world set alongside the inexorable difficulty of Jesus words.  Don't murder, not just the body, but with words.  No more eye for eye, or tooth for tooth, head for head; if your enemy slaps you, turn the other cheek.  And I want to scream. THIS IS NEITHER RIGHT NOR FAIR, JESUS!  How can you possibly suggest that we should, at this time, turn the other cheek, to be weak? 

It's impossible.

And then even harder:  ⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

And I can't do it.   I can't be perfect. I can't for the life of me understand how to love this enemy.  The questions Jesus asks are well and good when they are rhetorical, but when they meet me in the most vulnerable part of life, they strike me deep at my core and I have no answer - "If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?  If you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?" 

I don't have an answer.

From a Lutheran's perspective, from the right-hand kingdom, it's our responsibility to use the law to protect those who have no protection, but from Jesus' words above, how does turning the cheek work?  From a Christian's perspective, I am lost, adrift on a sea of righteous anger, tossed about by seeing red enraged against these reactionaries who believe that they are justified in committing murder, but at the same time seeing how I, at the same time, kill people over and over again with my cutting words.  Where is the judgment against me? 

C. S. Lewis writes about this in his book The Great Divorce, an allegory of life after death, as the bus that takes people to heaven is leaving the station, the main character greets the ghost sitting next to him, the one who, in life, was a murderer,

"If they choose to let in a bloody murderer all because he makes a poor mouth at the last moment, that's their lookout.  But I don't see myself going in the same boat as you, see?... I'm a decent man and if I had my rights, I'd have been here long ago and you can tell them so."

"You weren't a decent man and you didn't do your best.  We none of us were and none of us did.  Lord bless you, it doesn't matter." 

"You!" gasped the ghost. 'You have the face to tell me I wasn't a decent chap?'

"Of course.  Must I go into all that?  I will tell you one thing to begin with.  Murdering old Jack wasn't the worst thing that I did.  That was the work of a moment and I was half mad when I did it.  But I murdered you in my heart, deliberately, for years.  I used to lie awake at nights thinking about what I'd do to you if I ever got the chance...  You made it hard for us, you know.  And you made it hard for your wife too and for your children."

Ouch.

That's hard for me to stomach because I want to point my finger at someone else, turn God's omniscient eye on anyone but myself.

But I still don't know what to do about the news.  I still don't know what to think?  What is the response by Christians in all of this?