God, The Enemy
Sermon
SERMONS ON THE GOSPEL READINGS
Series I, Cycle A
Do you remember when Timothy McVeigh, the man responsible for the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, was executed? As the time of his execution drew near, McVeigh gave a handwritten statement to the warden, intending it to take the place of any verbal comment. In that statement, McVeigh quoted a section of the poem "Invictus," which is Latin for "unconquered." That poem, by nineteenth--century British poet William Ernest Henley (1849--1903), reads, in part, "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."
In case you haven't heard the poem, here it is:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
From what we had learned of McVeigh's attitudes and opinions, those lines probably came as close as any to a philosophy of life for him. Even to the point of ending the appeals process, McVeigh sought to be the master of his fate.
But of course he was not. And in a letter written just a day before his death, he demonstrated how little he understood that. He wrote that if it turned out that there was an afterlife, he would "improvise, adapt and overcome."1 As if he or any of us will have the ability to affect our environment after arrival in the world to come! Once we are at the judgment seat of God, none of us is any longer master of our fate.
One man, hearing of McVeigh's reference to "Invictus," said that it made him recall Mrs. Johnson, his eighth--grade English teacher. That was the year they read "Invictus" in English class, as part of a unit on poetry. The man said that although he could not remember what other poems they studied that year, this one stuck with him because it was the only one where Mrs. Johnson took issue with the poet. After reading the whole poem, she challenged her class to look again at the last lines, "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul," and to discuss whether they could indeed reflect the true state of affairs. She even asked whether in any sense, those words could be considered bravado, a posturing of courage in the face of frightening things humans cannot control.
It's worth noting that when the poet Henley wrote those words, he probably was not thinking of setting his own standard of morality, as McVeigh appears to have done. Far from claiming the right to be judge, jury, and executioner of others, Henley was vocalizing his attitude toward the hurts and setbacks of life. At the age of twelve, Henley developed tubercular arthritis, and his left foot was amputated in his teens. He had other health problems later on and actually wrote "Invictus" while once again in the hospital, too ill to work. He was, as his poem says, "bloody, but unbowed." For Henley, "Invictus" was an expression of courage in the face of life's difficulties, not a license to kill.
Henley had a long, close friendship with the great author, Robert Louis Stevenson, who in fact, based part of the character of Long John Silver in Treasure Island on his one--footed, hearty friend.
Stevenson wrote of Henley's poem that, "[Henley] wanted me to understand that 'I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul,' not my teachers, family, friends, money, or the 'powers,' that may be. To come 'out of the night that covers me,' I must be 'unafraid,' 'unbowed,' and 'unconquerable.' "2
What might Jesus have said about the sentiment expressed in the "Invictus"? Actually, we could say that he has already rendered a judgment about it. We find it in Matthew 10:28: "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell."
This is a troubling verse, for Jesus is not talking about Satan, but about God. Jesus presents God as the enemy - the ultimate enemy - in whose hands our final fate lies. Those who would kill the body - a body that cannot survive forever in any case - are one thing. But to put ourselves above the moral reality God has planted within us is another matter altogether, for we stand to lose that which not even death itself can take away.
To grasp the starkness of what Jesus was saying here, consider the experience of Victor Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi death camps. If ever there was an earthly enemy - one with the power to kill the body - there it was. But Frankl writes about the things that the Nazis, with all their evil power, could not take away. He recalls men living in the camps with him, who despite starving themselves, nonetheless walked through the huts comforting others, and giving away their last piece of bread. He saw that as evidence of one human freedom that no earthly power can take away: the freedom "to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances."3 So even the worst that this world can throw at us cannot take everything.
But there is one, if we understand what Jesus is saying, who can take even that final freedom - and everything that we are. Perhaps that is why Frankl writes that for those like him who had not yet been killed when the Allies liberated the concentration camp inmates, there was "the wonderful feeling that, after all he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear any more - except his God"4 (emphasis mine).
Admittedly, we don't often think of God as an enemy, but when we are refusing him entry into our lives, barricading our spirits against his admission, he becomes for us the enemy at the gates. The noted philosopher of an earlier era, Alfred North Whitehead, once wrote that, "Religion is the transition from God the void to God the enemy, and from God the enemy to God the companion."5 Life without awareness of God is meeting God the void; life confronted by God is meeting God the enemy. What it takes to get to God the companion is surrender - exactly what one does when an enemy wins.
For many of us, our first surrender to God came not because God gently asked permission to come into our lives. More likely he used a battering ram to punch an enormous hole in our emotions or some other aspect of our being. He came in like an invader, commandeered space, and made it clear that we'd better learn to live with his presence, at least for a while.
God, it seems, is not one to pussyfoot around, patiently waiting in the background until we choose to invite him in. When he decides he's coming, he comes, using any one of several portals into our soul. The fact that we may have them fortified seems not to matter.
We then have a choice - either make peace with him or turn him out by force. If we insist on being invictus, an unconquered soul, then there are grounds for thinking of God as our enemy.
God is also the enemy in that he draws lines in the sand and says, "You shall not...." You shall not step over these. And if you do, there are consequences.
When the people of Judah crossed those lines, they heard God's word through the prophet Hosea. It was a call to repent, but it also recounted the judgment that had befallen them specifically at God's hand: "Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up" (Hosea 6:1). We tend to hear only the positive parts of that verse - "Repent ... he will heal us ... he will bind us up." But the words in between speak of an equal reality - "it is he who has torn ... he has struck down."
Luke also records this story we read from Matthew. Luke too reports Jesus describing God in adversarial terms, but Luke also adds Jesus' comment about the sin that cannot be forgiven, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Luke 12:10). The work of the Holy Spirit is to reveal God's truth to us and to convict us of our sins. The only way to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is to reject what the Spirit reveals to us, to refuse the conviction and deny God's truth. Thus we do not repent, for we say, "I have nothing to repent of." If we will not repent, we cannot be forgiven. If we persist in that way long enough, we eventually lose the ability to hear the Spirit. We can't be forgiven because we see no reason to repent.
Given that definition, it would seem that Timothy McVeigh, with his self--proclaimed unconquered soul, might be a poster child for the unpardonable sin. But of course, ultimate judgment is up to God, not to us. And although McVeigh said he was an agnostic (as, by the way, was Henley), during his final hours he reportedly accepted a visit from a Catholic priest, who gave him last rites.
Of course, Jesus did not warn of the danger of losing our souls just to scare us. He wants our fear to serve us well, to drive us to God, to cause us to live with the good fear of the Lord within us. The same God who knows the hair count of our heads and who cares for lowly sparrows wants our allegiance and our love, for we are of more value than many sparrows, Jesus says.
Jesus tells us that God does not want to be our enemy, but until we have surrendered first place to him, the outlook for inner peace is bleak. Christ wants us to be able to say, "God is the master of my faith, the captain of my soul."
That affirmation has a great bearing on this life, but where that may count most is in the life beyond the grave. Where it is decided, however, is right here, by each one of us, on this side of eternity.
____________
1. Jon Bonne, "Unrepentent McVeigh is executed" MSNBC.com, July 11, 2001.
2. www.bowdoin.edu/~azimman/henley.html
3. Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (New York: Washington Square Press, 1963), p. 104.
4. Ibid., p. 148.
5. Quoted in The Interpreter's Bible, vol. 8, p. 157.
Stan Purdum
In case you haven't heard the poem, here it is:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
From what we had learned of McVeigh's attitudes and opinions, those lines probably came as close as any to a philosophy of life for him. Even to the point of ending the appeals process, McVeigh sought to be the master of his fate.
But of course he was not. And in a letter written just a day before his death, he demonstrated how little he understood that. He wrote that if it turned out that there was an afterlife, he would "improvise, adapt and overcome."1 As if he or any of us will have the ability to affect our environment after arrival in the world to come! Once we are at the judgment seat of God, none of us is any longer master of our fate.
One man, hearing of McVeigh's reference to "Invictus," said that it made him recall Mrs. Johnson, his eighth--grade English teacher. That was the year they read "Invictus" in English class, as part of a unit on poetry. The man said that although he could not remember what other poems they studied that year, this one stuck with him because it was the only one where Mrs. Johnson took issue with the poet. After reading the whole poem, she challenged her class to look again at the last lines, "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul," and to discuss whether they could indeed reflect the true state of affairs. She even asked whether in any sense, those words could be considered bravado, a posturing of courage in the face of frightening things humans cannot control.
It's worth noting that when the poet Henley wrote those words, he probably was not thinking of setting his own standard of morality, as McVeigh appears to have done. Far from claiming the right to be judge, jury, and executioner of others, Henley was vocalizing his attitude toward the hurts and setbacks of life. At the age of twelve, Henley developed tubercular arthritis, and his left foot was amputated in his teens. He had other health problems later on and actually wrote "Invictus" while once again in the hospital, too ill to work. He was, as his poem says, "bloody, but unbowed." For Henley, "Invictus" was an expression of courage in the face of life's difficulties, not a license to kill.
Henley had a long, close friendship with the great author, Robert Louis Stevenson, who in fact, based part of the character of Long John Silver in Treasure Island on his one--footed, hearty friend.
Stevenson wrote of Henley's poem that, "[Henley] wanted me to understand that 'I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul,' not my teachers, family, friends, money, or the 'powers,' that may be. To come 'out of the night that covers me,' I must be 'unafraid,' 'unbowed,' and 'unconquerable.' "2
What might Jesus have said about the sentiment expressed in the "Invictus"? Actually, we could say that he has already rendered a judgment about it. We find it in Matthew 10:28: "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell."
This is a troubling verse, for Jesus is not talking about Satan, but about God. Jesus presents God as the enemy - the ultimate enemy - in whose hands our final fate lies. Those who would kill the body - a body that cannot survive forever in any case - are one thing. But to put ourselves above the moral reality God has planted within us is another matter altogether, for we stand to lose that which not even death itself can take away.
To grasp the starkness of what Jesus was saying here, consider the experience of Victor Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi death camps. If ever there was an earthly enemy - one with the power to kill the body - there it was. But Frankl writes about the things that the Nazis, with all their evil power, could not take away. He recalls men living in the camps with him, who despite starving themselves, nonetheless walked through the huts comforting others, and giving away their last piece of bread. He saw that as evidence of one human freedom that no earthly power can take away: the freedom "to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances."3 So even the worst that this world can throw at us cannot take everything.
But there is one, if we understand what Jesus is saying, who can take even that final freedom - and everything that we are. Perhaps that is why Frankl writes that for those like him who had not yet been killed when the Allies liberated the concentration camp inmates, there was "the wonderful feeling that, after all he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear any more - except his God"4 (emphasis mine).
Admittedly, we don't often think of God as an enemy, but when we are refusing him entry into our lives, barricading our spirits against his admission, he becomes for us the enemy at the gates. The noted philosopher of an earlier era, Alfred North Whitehead, once wrote that, "Religion is the transition from God the void to God the enemy, and from God the enemy to God the companion."5 Life without awareness of God is meeting God the void; life confronted by God is meeting God the enemy. What it takes to get to God the companion is surrender - exactly what one does when an enemy wins.
For many of us, our first surrender to God came not because God gently asked permission to come into our lives. More likely he used a battering ram to punch an enormous hole in our emotions or some other aspect of our being. He came in like an invader, commandeered space, and made it clear that we'd better learn to live with his presence, at least for a while.
God, it seems, is not one to pussyfoot around, patiently waiting in the background until we choose to invite him in. When he decides he's coming, he comes, using any one of several portals into our soul. The fact that we may have them fortified seems not to matter.
We then have a choice - either make peace with him or turn him out by force. If we insist on being invictus, an unconquered soul, then there are grounds for thinking of God as our enemy.
God is also the enemy in that he draws lines in the sand and says, "You shall not...." You shall not step over these. And if you do, there are consequences.
When the people of Judah crossed those lines, they heard God's word through the prophet Hosea. It was a call to repent, but it also recounted the judgment that had befallen them specifically at God's hand: "Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up" (Hosea 6:1). We tend to hear only the positive parts of that verse - "Repent ... he will heal us ... he will bind us up." But the words in between speak of an equal reality - "it is he who has torn ... he has struck down."
Luke also records this story we read from Matthew. Luke too reports Jesus describing God in adversarial terms, but Luke also adds Jesus' comment about the sin that cannot be forgiven, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Luke 12:10). The work of the Holy Spirit is to reveal God's truth to us and to convict us of our sins. The only way to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is to reject what the Spirit reveals to us, to refuse the conviction and deny God's truth. Thus we do not repent, for we say, "I have nothing to repent of." If we will not repent, we cannot be forgiven. If we persist in that way long enough, we eventually lose the ability to hear the Spirit. We can't be forgiven because we see no reason to repent.
Given that definition, it would seem that Timothy McVeigh, with his self--proclaimed unconquered soul, might be a poster child for the unpardonable sin. But of course, ultimate judgment is up to God, not to us. And although McVeigh said he was an agnostic (as, by the way, was Henley), during his final hours he reportedly accepted a visit from a Catholic priest, who gave him last rites.
Of course, Jesus did not warn of the danger of losing our souls just to scare us. He wants our fear to serve us well, to drive us to God, to cause us to live with the good fear of the Lord within us. The same God who knows the hair count of our heads and who cares for lowly sparrows wants our allegiance and our love, for we are of more value than many sparrows, Jesus says.
Jesus tells us that God does not want to be our enemy, but until we have surrendered first place to him, the outlook for inner peace is bleak. Christ wants us to be able to say, "God is the master of my faith, the captain of my soul."
That affirmation has a great bearing on this life, but where that may count most is in the life beyond the grave. Where it is decided, however, is right here, by each one of us, on this side of eternity.
____________
1. Jon Bonne, "Unrepentent McVeigh is executed" MSNBC.com, July 11, 2001.
2. www.bowdoin.edu/~azimman/henley.html
3. Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (New York: Washington Square Press, 1963), p. 104.
4. Ibid., p. 148.
5. Quoted in The Interpreter's Bible, vol. 8, p. 157.
Stan Purdum
