What about "lovingkindness" don't you get, Rush and Pat?

"Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God." Micah 6

"Love one another, as I have loved you." John 15

"Love your neighbor as yourself." Luke 10

My good friend Marion's father is near death, and I've been perusing these texts from Micah, John and Luke this afternoon, preparing to preach his funeral sermon. Norm was a loving, kind, generous guy, one who embodied those words from Micah, and John, and Luke's parable of the Good Samaritan.

While thinking about this good guy, two other guys intruded on my computer screen, two guys who must have read these same texts many times in their lives as avowed Christians. But you wouldn't know it from their words today.

The two men are Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson, standard bearers for the Christian Right.  But today, in the wake of the Haitian earthquake, they revealed that they aren't standard bearers for Christianity, or for any religion that places love of neighbor and compassionate lovingkindnes (hesed) at its core.

Pat Robertson said, on the Christian Broadcasting Network, that the earthquake is the result of the Haitians "pact with the devil":

"And you know...something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you will get us free from the French." True story. And so, the devil said, "OK, it's a deal." And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor."

And Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show,  said this: "[W]e've already donated to Haiti. It's called the U.S. income tax."

Well, if one ever wondered if "the devil" exists, wonder no longer: just tune in to CBN. And as for Rush, well, I just want to say "shame on you for making political capital out of the suffering of thousands." If anyone wonders if evil exists, wonder no longer.

The evangelist in me wants to send a couple of bibles to Pat and Rush, and advise them to read the parable of the Good Samaritan, or Micah's words about what God asks of us. But I won't waste money on them, because the people who are doing God's work of compassion and mercy in Haiti--like Doctors without Borders and Partners in Health--need it.