Readings:
Matthew 18:21-35; Exodus 15:1b-11, 20-21
Were you disturbed by the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures tonight? I certainly was – and I hope you might have been too. I hope we all listened carefully, wondering how, on this day – or any day – we might pay attention to what the Spirit is saying to the church, even as we hear words of celebration at the slaughter of one’s enemies?
It’s September 11 2011 – ten years on from 9/11 – how do we, as Christians, speak about this tragedy? This evening’s readings offer two different approaches – both owned by our Judaeo-Christian heritage: the story of a God, who is on our side, drowning our enemies ... and the story of a man of God, who teaches us to turn the other cheek, to offer love and healing – and always, to forgive and forgive and forgive....
Our stories of faith invite us into the occasions of our own life when we are faced with choice – choices of how we will react in the face of fear, terror and oppression. Is our only option to return violence with violence; will we delight in the vanquishment of those who have hurt us; or will we respond with openness and forgiveness – even when we have been hurt to the core of our being?
Some of you may know of Etty Hillesum, who lived for only 29 short years in the middle of last century; a vivacious, sharply intelligent young woman, who had that magic ability to light up the world wherever she went. Like many such lively people, she also lived with occasional bouts of depression. Very self aware, she thought of herself as “‘a small battlefield’ where the problems of her time were being fought out.” As she came to understand herself – and her faith – she seemed to welcome these difficulties, believing “we should all make ourselves available for those struggles. We should accommodate them, pay attention, care about them.”
What Etty wanted to do more than anything else was to write – “it drove her mad that she didn’t even know the words to describe the colors she saw.” [1] But increasingly, in 1941-Amsterdam, what she found she had to pay attention to, was the way her life – and the lives of so many other people – “were being complicated … by the fact that they were Jews living within the tightening noose of [Hitler’s] Third Reich.”[2] Her writing demonstrates that spiritual practice can be developed in the midst of much joy – and also, when our lives are overturned with incredible suffering.
I wonder what Etty would have thought of our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures tonight? – a reading taken from her religious tradition (although she and her family were not particularly observant Jews). What would she have thought of this – one of the founding legends of the Jewish people – the rejoicing of the drowning of the Egyptian enemies? She writes in her diary: “the problem of our age [is ] hatred of Germans [which] poisons everyone’s mind. ‘Let the bastards drown, the lot of them’ – such sentiments have become part and parcel of our daily speech and sometimes make one feel that life these days has grown impossible.”[3]
Things haven’t changed - life continues to be impossible for vast numbers of people on our planet. It doesn’t take much imagination to think of all the groups that might be candidates for drowning in the Reed Sea – along with those Egyptians of long ago. Not just the Germans; those who lost loved ones at Pearl Harbour would probably want to drown the Japanese; and those who experienced the bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On this day, when we remember that one option is to turn to hatred, declaring whole countries part of an axis of evil – that one option is to act unilaterally and pre-emptively against any nation thwarting the imposition of a particular way of life on them[4] – that one option is to claim God is on ‘our side’ – Etty’s writing reminds us it doesn’t have to be this way – there is an alternative.
Etty writes “suddenly, a few weeks ago, I had a liberating thought which surfaced in me like a hesitant, tender young blade of grass thrusting its way through a wilderness of weeds: if there were only one decent German, then he should be cherished despite that whole barbaric gang, and because of that one decent German it is wrong to pour hatred over an entire people.”
She goes on, “that doesn’t mean you have to be half-hearted; on the contrary, you must make a stand, wax indignant at times, try to get to the bottom of things. But indiscriminate hatred is the worst thing there is. It is a sickness of the soul. …. If things were to come to such a pass that I began to hate people then I would know that my soul was sick and I should have to look for a cure as quickly as possible.”[5]
And so, she sets out to live out – and to reflect on – what it means to affirm the inherent meaning and beauty of life without ever turning away from the full depravity of what was going on around her. Her spiritual practice was intense as she sought to be “an unblinkered witness to history” without giving way to hatred. When she was eventually incarcerated, Etty found that “if she could look straight into the eyes of the eight-months-pregnant wife of an epileptic man who was being transported to Poland, and if she could then look that same day, and just as unwaveringly, into the eyes of the bully who was pushing him onto the train … and if she could then still swear that life is meaningful, then and only then, she maintained, would her words carry weight.”[6]
‘I try to look things straight in the face, even the worst crimes, and to discover the small, naked human being amid the monstrous wreckage caused by [humanity’s] senseless deeds’ she writes. ‘I am no fanciful visionary… I try to face up to your world, God, not to escape from reality into beautiful dreams.’[7]
“When Etty first began writing [her] diary, she described her desire for ‘a tune’: a thread, or medium – a calling that would make sense of her existence. By the end, [as she heads, singing and smiling, towards Auschwitz and death] she has found it, and what she has found is so quiet it is almost intangible by ordinary standards. Harvard Medical School
Etty wrote “we must learn how to … experience something pleasurable without trying to hold on to it, and we must be able to experience the most intense form of suffering without going to pieces or trying to pass it on to someone else.” [9]
A compassionate witnessing, at the Reed Sea, helps us see the multiple threads of pain and celebration interwoven. When we witness with compassion, we hear the Hebrew Midrash suggesting that while the Hebrews celebrated, God wept because, "the Egyptians are [God’s] children too!" [10] And 10 years ago, God wept in New York – but also God weeps in the ensuing and continuing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan. How might our world have been changed had the terrible trauma in New York been responded to with compassionate witnessing? Just imagine how we might each contribute to the transformation of this world if we were to choose,, in our day to day responses to other people, not violence, not revenge but forgiveness and compassionate witnessing.
As we come to the Table, we are invited to pay attention to an alternative Way of living. Here, we pay attention to and remember Jesus, who in the face of terror, violence and murder continued to choose forgiveness, love and compassion. Here, we remember Jesus, whose broken body opens up a new hope-filled pathway into life, even in the midst of the pain of the world. Here, we find Love and Life. Amen
[1] Carol Lee Flinders Enduring Lives 2006, p.41
[2] Flinders, p.45.
[3] Etty: A Diary 1941-43 translated by Arnold J. Pomerans, 1983, p.8.
[4] “Throughout history, nations and non-state actors have justified their wars with all sorts of rationalizations – territorial expansion, retaliation, protection, self-defense, and to spread their economic and political ideology. America is no exception in this regard ... The thirty-three page [US] National Security Strategy of 2002 .. praised American democratic capitalism as the ‘single sustainable model of national success’ and ‘right and true for every person in every society.’ We would export our way of life ‘to every corner of the globe,’ said the NSS and we’d act unilaterally and pre-emptively against any nation that tried to thwart us. Needless to say, some countries didn’t like such hubris.” Dan Clendenin “National Tragedies in Light of Spiritual Truths: The Tenth Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks” www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20110905JJ.shtml
[5] Etty: A Diary 1941-43, p.8
[6] Flinders, p.78.
[7] Flinders, p.35.
[8] Flinders p.89.
[9] Flinders p.90.
[10] R U M O R S # 518; Ralph Milton's E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor; September 7, 2008
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