Holy Week Meditations

Driving around as much as I do gives me a lot of time in the car, and since I’m not one of those folk who can pray while driving, much less talk on the phone, and since I have a hard time finding a radio station I can stand to listen to, I nearly always have a CD in the player, either music or an audio book. For a couple of weeks during Lent I listened to Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb. On one level, it’s an adventure story, far more exciting that anything in James Bond. On another level, it’s a meditation on the nature of evil and the quest for justice.

Adolph Eichmann was the man chosen by the Third Reich to put the “Final Solution” into practice. He made the plans and signed the orders that ultimately sent 6 million Jews to camps where they were shot, gassed, or worked to death. Those who survived were left with lifelong physical and emotional scars. Yet Eichmann, with his last breath, proclaimed his innocence. In the first place, he said, he had not killed anyone, nor had he ordered the killing of anyone. Yes, he had made the arrangements for Jews to be sent to the camps, but he wasn’t responsible for what happened to them after they got there. Besides, he said, he was following orders. He really had no choice.

Eichmann disappeared at the end of World War Two and was not captured until 1960, when he was found living in Argentina under an assumed name. Those who hunted down Eichmann and brought him to trial were nearly all either survivors of the camps or people who had lost family members in the Eichmann-orchestrated Final Solution. They could have simply assassinated him, and there were some on the team who wanted to do just that. But the view that prevailed was that the trial had to be public, so that the world would know and not forget. For many in 1960, the world had moved on, the Second World War and all that went with it was old news; the present threat was not Germany but Russia and the Communist influence. Eichmann’s arrest and his trial in an Israeli court brought recent history back into the headlines. Judging by the activity of Holocaust deniers in our own day, the instinct that led to a trial was the right one. Those who don’t believe the Final Solution was real should be sentenced to read the transcript of the Eichmann trial.

In an interesting twist to the case, a Canadian minister spent time with Eichmann after his conviction, while Eichmann was awaiting execution. The minister’s goal was to help Eichmann see his sin and need for repentance and forgiveness.

But Eichmann would have none of it. He stuck to his reasons for innocence, adding that he did in fact believe in God, though not a personal God, and that when he died he would return to the God who created him. So Eichmann was hanged, the only person ever to be executed by the state of Israel, and in a bit of historical irony, his body was cremated and his ashes scattered at sea so that no monument or memorial could even be erected at his grave site. Justice had finally caught up with Adolph Eichmann.

But in what sense could justice ever be done to Eichmann, or Hitler, or Goering, or for that matter Stalin or Pol Pot or Saddam Hussein? I believe that forgiveness was available to Adolph Eichmann, but—unless God did something with him in the final judgment that I don’t know about—Eichmann didn’t take it. My vision of Eichmann’s eternity is that he is overwhelmed by what he did. All that he tried to keep from thinking about he now has no choice but to think about; all the walls he put up to the truth are now broken down. No external torment is necessary; he is tormenting himself.

All this is by way of thinking about the thief on the cross. There two thieves, of course: one abused Jesus; the other had another view: “we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man”--Jesus--“has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:41-43)

If there is forgiveness for the thief, there is forgiveness for Eichmann. If there is forgiveness for Eichmann, there is forgiveness for me. Eichmann didn’t take that forgiveness. May God give us the grace to take the forgiveness that Christ offers, and be thankful.

New Reformed Association

I just learned about this, and I think it's interesting:

http://www.reformedchurches.org/

Missing Link

I tried to insert a link in my last post, but for some reason it didn't come through. Here it is again; you may have to copy and paste it into your browser:
http://www.buy.com/prod/smith-micro-quickverse/q/loc/105/213897871.html?adid=17653

Bible Software

Anyone looking for Bible software might like to check this out:

It's a good price, anyway, and I've had good success ordering from Buy.com.

Encouragement for Members

I'm a little busy this week--who isn't, in Lent?--and this came to my inbox from the Alban Institute, so I thought I'd share it. It's very good as long as you remember that we are trying to avoid the words "laity" and "clergy" when we talk about church:

http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=8988

Joseph

One of my spiritual disciplines is to read daily, or almost daily, the readings from the Daily Lectionary. (These readings can be found in several places, including the Book of Common Worship and The Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study, both the print and online versions). For the last several days I have been pointed to the story of Joseph, which begins in chapter 27 of Genesis and ends with the end of that book, chapter 50. Every time I read it I find myself asking the same question:why does it take so much space? Chapters 37-50 (with the exception of ch.38, which tells the story of Judah and Tamar) are devoted to the story of Joseph, his father, and his brothers. That’s 13 chapters out of 50, more chapters than are devoted to Abraham (11:27-25:11) or Jacob (27-35, though of course the story of Joseph is an extension of the story of Jacob). The story of Joseph could have been told much more succinctly, perhaps as the Revised Common Lectionary does, for the 19th and 20th Sundays in Ordinary Time: Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 and Genesis 45:1-15. But that doesn’t do justice to the evident importance of the story of Joseph, et.al. in the eyes of the Genesis redactor. It struck me the other day that the detailed list of Jacob’s descendants who went to Egypt (Genesis 46) suggests that the sojourn to Egypt was just as important to the nation as the departure from Egypt and the journey to the Promised Land.

Now, here’s a stretch, or maybe not: what if we saw the sojourn in Egypt as a necessary formative period for the people of God, but one from which of course they had to be freed? When Joseph sent for his father and brothers it was their salvation, but eventually it became their prison.

Could we see the Constantinian compromise in a similar light? Constantine saved the Church from persecution, but he (and his successors) also ensured that the Church would remain in a sort of captivity, a bird in a gilded cage as it were. Luther spoke of the “Babylonian Captivity” of the Church (Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, October 1520), but it might be worthwhile to think about the Egyptian Sojourn of the Church. The history of the Church could be seen as the history of our attempt to leave Egypt without doing without its comfort and security. Someone at the Transformation Conference two weeks ago said “the children of Israel could never have left Egypt if they hadn’t taken the bones of Joseph with them” (Genesis 50:24-25; Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32).

Maybe it’s time for us to revisit the story of Joseph. What does this dramatic narrative have to say to us as a Church learning how to be Church in a time and place different from what we grew up in?

No Gold Medals

A couple things came together for me last week with the close of the Winter Olympics: someone said something in passing about there not being any gold medals for visiting church members in the nursing home. No, I thought, nor are there any for preaching, leading worship, moderating a Session, or any of the hundred and one other things that pastors do on a daily basis.
I, for one, don’t want it any other way.
After all, most of the really important and worthwhile things that take place in life never make it into the public eye. You hug your kids when they go to bed at night. Nobody knows that unless you tell them, but you are doing something to shape their character and personality that is far more important than a gold medal.
The other thing that got me thinking along these lines was picking up a Temptations greatest hits CD. It opens with the classic “My Girl:”
I got sunshine on a cloudy day,
When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May...The vocals are great, especially David Ruffin’s lead, but the “hook” of the song is the guitar line that begins the cut and sets the mood and tempo. Responsible for that, and for much of the rest of the Motown Sound, were a group of studio musicians who worked seven-day weeks for $10 a song, and who received no credit for their work until recently. They were known collectively, and informally, as the Funk Brothers. My guess is that you’ve heard of the Temptations, the Miracles, the Supremes, and Stevie Wonder, but you’ve probably never heard of the Funk Brothers, yet without them there would have been no Motown. (If your taste runs more to mainstream rock-’n’-roll, you might like to know that it’s not one of the Beach Boys who opens up the song “California Girls;” it’s the largely unsung bassist Carol Kaye—and you’ve probably never heard of her, either, though she’s appeared on more than 10,000 recordings, according to her web site, http://www.carolkaye.com/)
Jesus said, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43b-45 TNIV) See—it’s not too bad working in the background.