Oskar's Cruelty
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series I, Cycle A
Schindler's List is a true story of World War II. It focuses on the heroism and self-sacrifice of Oskar Schindler, a Catholic from Krakow, Poland. Schindler goes from wanton war profiteer to a conspirator who tries to free condemned prisoners from concentration camps.
In one sequence, we see Jews being herded like cattle onto freight trains, hungry, hot, and thirsty. The train is taking them to the death camps. The German soldiers are lolling about the station docks and enjoying the suffering they see, when tall, clean, rested, and pampered Schindler arrives in a spotless white suit. The Colonel offers him a drink and Oskar glad-hands among the soldiers for a minute. He has a bright idea! "Let's hose down the cars!" He convinces the Colonel to give him a soldier to man the hose, and they begin spraying the cars.
In this way the captives could drink and be cooled. And Schindler did not have to give away too much in the appearance of compassion. In fact, he and the soldier seemed to be having fun with the fire hose, even to getting the Colonel to order another length of hose, so they could reach the last car.
While Schindler was playing with the hose, and the prisoners were squealing and reaching for the water, the Colonel said, "Oh, Oskar, you are too cruel! You're giving them hope!"
Of course there were people like that Colonel. There still are. For the truth is, not everyone cares if they are right with God. Their life is right with them, and that's okay. What they don't know is that all of life, WWII or 2005, is a life or death struggle. Maybe not literally, as in war, but on the inside, all the time.
In that scene we have a contrast between the people on the train who are condemned to certain death and have no hope, and Oskar who wants to save them and gives them as much as he can.
In 586 B.C., Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, who took to Babylon the cream of the nation, and imported other peoples into the land. This was their policy of occupation and suppression -- dilute a people and its culture to discourage organized rebellion.
A temple priest named Ezekiel was one of the ones taken to Babylon. He was called by the Lord to prophesy in great mystic visions to the people of the Exile, and in writings to those back home, of God's judgment, but also of restoration and promise. The valley of the dry bones is one of his most famous visions.
Did you notice that phrase from Ezekiel? "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off." No hope at all. Desolation and depression, gloom and sorrow everywhere. And they aren't there by choice. Can you feel the devastation Ezekiel says the Israelite people in exile felt?
In his autobiography, It Doesn't Take A Hero, Desert Storm Coalition Forces Commander-in-Chief Norman Schwarzkopf writes of his reactions flying back to his headquarters after the cease-fire talks with the Iraqis. "We had to bring Kuwait City back to life, which meant repairing and turning on the water supply, electrical power grid, and telephones, helping the police maintain order, searching for booby traps and clearing the beaches of mines, reopening the harbor, and a thousand other tasks." While our troops were occupying southern Iraq, they had to keep order, and manage refugees, and you might remember they had charge of 80,000 prisoners of war.
There was devastation, but also hope born of the knowledge of being on the winning side, having the power of the U.S. and UN forces at your command, and Arab riches to pay for it.
Actually, Ezekiel's message is that there is always hope. When confronted with defeat, gloom, sickness, disappointment, loss, or death, we are tempted to ask, can these bones live?
That's precisely where Ezekiel is this morning. "Can these bones live?" is the question at the end of the rope and that's where you just tie a knot and hang on. But in Ezekiel, "Can these bones live?" is asked by God, who doesn't really want an answer, and Ezekiel gives him the only answer: God knows. You know, Lord. And the answer God gives is, "Yes the bones can live."
To ask, "Can these bones live?" is to reach the point of the birth of faith -- or the rebirth of new faith. It is out of the death of hope that the hope of life springs. We're not always ready for it. As Alexander Graham Bell said, "When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us."
Can these bones live? Of course! More doors open for us all the time.
Hope and joy can spring from loss and pain -- it only takes a willingness to step away from the apparent loss and grow with the situation -- take the long view of life.
Ezekiel has a message of hope for people who have lost all grounds of hope. There is a God who can achieve the impossible. But the human end of it is to continue in the knowledge of that God.
Can these bones live? O Lord, thou knowest.
We live in faith that we have eternal life. Life is lived here and now, and we have eternal life here and now. That is the truth that makes us free.
The most amazing thing about eternal life in the here and now is that we can live each day in faith, no longer living in fear of dying. Years ago, professional golfer Lee Trevino was struck by lightning while he was playing in a tournament. He said, "When I got killed by lightning, I realized the passage from life is a tremendous pleasure."
Trevino was sitting under a tree when lightning hit. "It bolted my arms and legs out stiff, jerked me off the ground," he recalls, "and killed me. I knew I was dead. There was no pain. Everything turned a warm, gentle orange color. I saw my mama who had been dead for years. I saw other people from my life. It was a newsreel like you read about -- my life passing before my eyes. But it was so pleasant, so wonderful; I felt great. I thought, boy, this dying is really fun. It's when I woke up in the hospital badly burned and in pain that I knew I had come back to life again for some reason."
It's typical to hear people who have had near-death experiences say they were mad over having to come back to this world. They'd be happier in the other world. But from what Lee Trevino says, it's good to know that if you're still here, you are here for a reason. Even if that reason seems uncertain to you.
In the midst of the uncertainties of life, the Christian has one great certainty: God loves you, whoever you are. God has shown the depth of his love by giving his Son for you, whatever you have done. The greatest act of God lies not in the creation of the world, but in the giving and the raising of his Son as the savior of the fallen, sinful world.
Ezekiel has his eyes opened by the knowledge of God. We have the grave opened by the knowledge of Jesus Christ. In him we know the grace of God: God's answer to the tragedies of life. That is our hope, and we are not clean cut off.
Can these bones live? Easter is the best answer we can have. And that's not Oskar being cruel; it's God showing his love.
In one sequence, we see Jews being herded like cattle onto freight trains, hungry, hot, and thirsty. The train is taking them to the death camps. The German soldiers are lolling about the station docks and enjoying the suffering they see, when tall, clean, rested, and pampered Schindler arrives in a spotless white suit. The Colonel offers him a drink and Oskar glad-hands among the soldiers for a minute. He has a bright idea! "Let's hose down the cars!" He convinces the Colonel to give him a soldier to man the hose, and they begin spraying the cars.
In this way the captives could drink and be cooled. And Schindler did not have to give away too much in the appearance of compassion. In fact, he and the soldier seemed to be having fun with the fire hose, even to getting the Colonel to order another length of hose, so they could reach the last car.
While Schindler was playing with the hose, and the prisoners were squealing and reaching for the water, the Colonel said, "Oh, Oskar, you are too cruel! You're giving them hope!"
Of course there were people like that Colonel. There still are. For the truth is, not everyone cares if they are right with God. Their life is right with them, and that's okay. What they don't know is that all of life, WWII or 2005, is a life or death struggle. Maybe not literally, as in war, but on the inside, all the time.
In that scene we have a contrast between the people on the train who are condemned to certain death and have no hope, and Oskar who wants to save them and gives them as much as he can.
In 586 B.C., Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, who took to Babylon the cream of the nation, and imported other peoples into the land. This was their policy of occupation and suppression -- dilute a people and its culture to discourage organized rebellion.
A temple priest named Ezekiel was one of the ones taken to Babylon. He was called by the Lord to prophesy in great mystic visions to the people of the Exile, and in writings to those back home, of God's judgment, but also of restoration and promise. The valley of the dry bones is one of his most famous visions.
Did you notice that phrase from Ezekiel? "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off." No hope at all. Desolation and depression, gloom and sorrow everywhere. And they aren't there by choice. Can you feel the devastation Ezekiel says the Israelite people in exile felt?
In his autobiography, It Doesn't Take A Hero, Desert Storm Coalition Forces Commander-in-Chief Norman Schwarzkopf writes of his reactions flying back to his headquarters after the cease-fire talks with the Iraqis. "We had to bring Kuwait City back to life, which meant repairing and turning on the water supply, electrical power grid, and telephones, helping the police maintain order, searching for booby traps and clearing the beaches of mines, reopening the harbor, and a thousand other tasks." While our troops were occupying southern Iraq, they had to keep order, and manage refugees, and you might remember they had charge of 80,000 prisoners of war.
There was devastation, but also hope born of the knowledge of being on the winning side, having the power of the U.S. and UN forces at your command, and Arab riches to pay for it.
Actually, Ezekiel's message is that there is always hope. When confronted with defeat, gloom, sickness, disappointment, loss, or death, we are tempted to ask, can these bones live?
That's precisely where Ezekiel is this morning. "Can these bones live?" is the question at the end of the rope and that's where you just tie a knot and hang on. But in Ezekiel, "Can these bones live?" is asked by God, who doesn't really want an answer, and Ezekiel gives him the only answer: God knows. You know, Lord. And the answer God gives is, "Yes the bones can live."
To ask, "Can these bones live?" is to reach the point of the birth of faith -- or the rebirth of new faith. It is out of the death of hope that the hope of life springs. We're not always ready for it. As Alexander Graham Bell said, "When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us."
Can these bones live? Of course! More doors open for us all the time.
Hope and joy can spring from loss and pain -- it only takes a willingness to step away from the apparent loss and grow with the situation -- take the long view of life.
Ezekiel has a message of hope for people who have lost all grounds of hope. There is a God who can achieve the impossible. But the human end of it is to continue in the knowledge of that God.
Can these bones live? O Lord, thou knowest.
We live in faith that we have eternal life. Life is lived here and now, and we have eternal life here and now. That is the truth that makes us free.
The most amazing thing about eternal life in the here and now is that we can live each day in faith, no longer living in fear of dying. Years ago, professional golfer Lee Trevino was struck by lightning while he was playing in a tournament. He said, "When I got killed by lightning, I realized the passage from life is a tremendous pleasure."
Trevino was sitting under a tree when lightning hit. "It bolted my arms and legs out stiff, jerked me off the ground," he recalls, "and killed me. I knew I was dead. There was no pain. Everything turned a warm, gentle orange color. I saw my mama who had been dead for years. I saw other people from my life. It was a newsreel like you read about -- my life passing before my eyes. But it was so pleasant, so wonderful; I felt great. I thought, boy, this dying is really fun. It's when I woke up in the hospital badly burned and in pain that I knew I had come back to life again for some reason."
It's typical to hear people who have had near-death experiences say they were mad over having to come back to this world. They'd be happier in the other world. But from what Lee Trevino says, it's good to know that if you're still here, you are here for a reason. Even if that reason seems uncertain to you.
In the midst of the uncertainties of life, the Christian has one great certainty: God loves you, whoever you are. God has shown the depth of his love by giving his Son for you, whatever you have done. The greatest act of God lies not in the creation of the world, but in the giving and the raising of his Son as the savior of the fallen, sinful world.
Ezekiel has his eyes opened by the knowledge of God. We have the grave opened by the knowledge of Jesus Christ. In him we know the grace of God: God's answer to the tragedies of life. That is our hope, and we are not clean cut off.
Can these bones live? Easter is the best answer we can have. And that's not Oskar being cruel; it's God showing his love.
