From the Apostle Paul, to the church in Colossae:

Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

And the church in Galatia:

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

And the church in Corinth:

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

In short – if we, as Christians, happen to believe that Paul had something important on the issue of races and classes, then we ought to recognize that its core is this: In Christ, there is no discrimination between races, classes, sexes or nationalities in the salvation they have received.

In this respect, it is love that ought to lead Christians to both respect and love all men, as loved by God, created in His image, and paid for by Jesus’ blood, if only they will recognize him as Lord.

Unfortunately, as he is wont to do, Satan takes something that God has made good – a love and respect for all men – and has taken that grain of truth and twisted it into a false view of “tolerance”, and then inflicted it upon the people of the world. Even though I’ve not paid incredibly close attention to the news this past week or so, I’ve heard (or been sent) a number of stories that all seem to have this tension as a common thread between them.

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So I just finished the Psalms on my Through-the-Bible-in-90-(Commute)-Days journey.  One of the last psalms in this book is Psalm 137 – a hauntingly beautiful Psalm that has been worked into modern songs and art.  It is set during the Babylonian captivity, and speaks to the sorrow of a people oppressed, persecuted and removed from their homeland:

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.

There on the poplars we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.

This is one of those passages in the Bible that reminds you that following God is not always about being blessed and putting the best face on grief. Sometimes it is just too painful and immediate to deal with sorry as joy. I know I have felt that way before.

What is interesting to me is how the modern “borrowings” of this Psalm stop where I have stopped above, or before, and pretend that the ending of the Psalm was never written:

Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”

O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-
he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

In a way it is sad when we neuter Scripture – be is Psalm or prose – to remove the sting it might contain.

There are times where we curse and do not bless. There are times when we do not love our enemies. There are times where it is our burning desire that God would see them repaid and – at least figuratively – their infants “dashed against the rocks”. And it is sad when I repress these true feelings, pretending they do not exist, rather than dealing with them – both in anger and later (hopefully) in regret.