When We Make A Huge Mistake
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of watching more movies over ten days time than I ever have in my life. My wife, Jacquie, was one of the judges of the shorts program at the Cleveland International Film Festival. She saw 160 short films over those 10 days. I didn’t see quite so many, but she and I did take in some great movies from all over the world.
In one of the short films from Bosnia, a teenage boy on a bike is hit by a bus and rushed to a hospital in the capital city of Sarajevo . The boy was hooked up to monitors, IV’s and other equipment designed to save his life and it looked like he would be all right as his parents sped from their rural home to be with him. Then a bomb dropped by a NATO bomber during the bombing campaign of 1995 knocked out the power supply to the hospital. By the time the boy’s parents arrived at his hospital room, their son had died – along with many others in the hospital whose survival depended on electricity.
I remembered, as I watched the movie, that I had been in favor of NATO intervention at the time. The news had been filled with reports of a huge massacre at Srebenica as part of the ethnic cleansing campaign engaged in by Bosnian Serbs. We couldn’t just stand by and idly allow another Holocaust.
The film, however, was a reminder that geopolitical opinions formed in the comfort of my armchair about what should be done on the other side of the world can have disastrous results if my political leaders decide to do exactly what I think they should do. Like most Americans, I wasn’t in favor of sending American soldiers to the Balkans to be in harm’s way. But bombs dropped from 20,000 feet – especially “smart” bombs that, of course, only kill bad people – wouldn’t that be a neat solution to a nasty problem?
I guess it was. The bombing eventually led to the Dayton Agreement, which brought the conflict to an end.
Still, a lot of innocent people died, not just because the “bad” people killed them, but “good” people like us Americans, killed them, too. And they are just as dead, whether murdered by the “bad” people or the “good” people.
I went away from the movie feeling a little like the people of Jerusalem must have felt after hearing Peter’s sermon on Pentecost. They, too, had acquiesced to – even approved of – the execution of the carpenter from Nazareth called Jesus a little over a month earlier. Now, they were learning that they had crucified the One who was both “Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36).
What were they to do? They asked Peter.
He replied, “Repent and be baptized”.
My baptismal vows call on me to repent. They call on me to renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness (such as violence) and to reject the evil powers of this world. They also call on me to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.
Killing the bad people by dropping bombs on their cities from 20,000 feet isn’t in keeping with those vows as I understand them.
Lord, have mercy.
