[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Milosevic

Slobodan Milosevic is dead. He died in his UN prison cell last night, 
likely of heart failure; he'd had heart trouble and high blood pressure.

He has managed to slip out from under human justice; he'll never now face a 
verdict passed upon him by a court of law.  His victims won't have that 
vindication -- the final proof that their accusations against him were 
indeed well-founded and that he was guilty as charged. No doubt many of 
them today are raging with frustration: he got away from justice, in the end.

This is where to be a person of faith is to have a strong, particular joy 
(even if it is Lent -- Lent can hiccup, just for a day!) For Milosevic 
hasn't slipped away out from under justice; he has fallen straight into it 
-- the real thing, the thing compared to which all human justice is only a 
shadow and a shade. For Slobodan Milosevic in held neatly and firmly in 
God's hands right now. If I had his track record, I wouldn't want to be in 
that position.

When Nicolai Ceaucescu was executed back at Christmas '99, I had a peculiar 
vision, of a long, bare grey desk in a quiet shadowy office; on one side of 
the desk, Ceaucescu sat, and on the other side there sat a figure 
of  immense authority saying gently, "Please explain to me, Mr. Ceaucescu, 
*why* you committed these acts?" And Ceaucescu would be incapable of *not* 
seeing what he'd done and the consequences of his acts, rippling out in 
space and time. No excuses, no wriggle-room: just truth -- not unkindly 
presented, but inescapable truth.

Milosevic now faces the same judge. And for those who worry that he's 
evaded judgment, try to imagine what it would be like for Milosevic fully 
to experience (for example) the pain of a single village whose menfolk had 
been slaughtered and whose women had been raped at his behest. Imagine 
Milosevic gazing into the hurt of a single child's heart, experiencing it 
to the fullest. Whatever scraps of dishonesty and self-excupation he might 
cling to, to hide from that knowledge, God will gently but firmly remove.

Justice in this world matters immensely; when done as it should be, it's an 
essential part of our care for each other. We cannot talk about loving our 
neighbour as ourselves if our neighbour is struggling under the weight of 
injustice and we're doing squat about the problem. Yet at the same time, we 
have to understand that our justice is never all that it should be and 
often it's incomplete and partial -- because we are not all that we should 
be, and we are incomplete an partial. It's paradoxically our job to do our 
utter best and to live with the knowledge that that's still not exactly right.

But this is a fallen world, and there are cases of extraordinary injustice 
where the perpetrators seem to get off the hook. Hitler, Stalin, Pol 
Pot,  Ceaucescu, Milosevic, all died without ever being brought to justice. 
Even when we do manage to catch, try, and punish those who have done 
extraordinary evil, the punishment never really seems to fit the 
crime.  There's a human instinct that wants to make sure that the hurt on 
both sides is equal, but that never happens.

And should it? How would hurting Milosevic benefit his victims? Would it 
somehow diminish what he'd done to them? Would it help them heal?  Would it 
bring back the dead and restore the trust and happiness of the living? Of 
course not. It might make his victims feel a little better, briefly, but 
really it sets nothing to rights.

We who have faith believe that we have a judge who has the capacity both to 
bring Milosevic to true justice and to restore what Milosevic damaged, if 
we're only willing to trust in God's ultimate victory. I don't see 
Milosevic, like Ceaucescu, sitting in that quiet office; Milosevic was too 
much the wild man for that. I see his soul held lightly but firmly in the 
palm of God's hand and being faced, inescapably, with his own actions and 
their consequences.

I can see something else, though: that God would not hold onto Milosevic's 
soul, which has the freedom, if it wishes, to fly off into the darkness, 
away from the Light. It doesn't happen often (I hope!) but I am sure in my 
bones that if we prefer Hell to Heaven, God will respect our wishes. It may 
be that Milosevic will make that choice. Given the man's extraordinary 
wilfulness, it wouldn't surprise me.

But I am very sure of one thing: in the end, God's way will prevail. Not 
tomorrow, not the day after, probably not in my lifetime or my kids' 
lifetime, but in the very long run that we call  Eternity -- because 
ultimately, *all* of us face God's justice and God's mercy. We do so 
knowing that Jesus broke the brunt of sin, and that therefore we have free 
access to God's love and mercy.

Even if it weren't Lent, I would never sing "Alleluia!" at a person's 
death, however horribly that person had behaved. Death's too solemn a thing 
for alleluias.  But this is a day for insisting on decent, comely things, 
for stepping deliberately into Light. It's a day for folding dishcloths 
warm from the dryer, making cinnamon raisin bread, clearing clutter from 
the stairs, putting scraps of sheep's wool out for the returning birds to 
weave into their nests. It's a good day to stand on the front step, 
listening to the croon of a mourning dove, the first in this year. It's a 
good day to get out for a walk, noting the thickening buds on bare 
branches. It's a good day for humming songs in C-major, songs of confidence 
in the surety of ultimate justice.

Slobodan Milosevic's soul is in the capable hands of the best and most 
effective of Judges now, and we can get on with Lent, knowing what's at the 
other end.


This is Canada; it's only March, and we'll likely get another good snowfall 
before winter is done with us. That's just the way it is.

This is an imperfect, broken, fallen world in which human idolatry of 
"honour" and self-importance and revenge warp the way we treat each other. 
It's a world in which people profess to worship God without giving God's 
commands the slightest real heed.  God knows it can be a grievous place.



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I'm about to hit some sacred cows, and they moo so badly. -- Phyllis 
Tickle, aka The Divine Miz T.