THE END IN THE MEANS

Luke 4:1-13

"It is better that one man should die for the people, than the whole nation perish." ¹ Those are the words used by Caiaphas, the High Priest, to justify the execution by the Romans of a political prisoner named Jesus of Nazareth, who was tortured, and put to a humiliating and painful death on a cross. "Better that one man should die, than the whole nation perish." Is it true?

This is the first Sunday in the season of Lent, and it is the first Sunday of 3-week sermon series on the theology of the cross. This [cross] is the only symbol in our worship space (well, aside from these flags)--it is at the heart of our tradition. I'd like then to explore with you: what does the cross, this absurd and paradoxical symbol at the heart of the Christian faith, mean to us--mean to me, mean to you in your life? This morning is an introduction to our reflection together.

We begin this journey, a journey that leads to the cross, with Jesus in the wilderness. If you've been going to church long enough, you'll know that this is the story we read every year on this First Sunday in Lent: Jesus, after his baptism, is impelled into the wilderness, to be tempted by Satan, by the Devil.

One way we can look at this story is as a parable about Christian ethics--exposes a temptation about justifying a certain way of getting things done. Specifically, it is a story about the ancient question: can the ends can justify the means? Is Caiaphas' moral calculation correct? As we think about this story, we are forced to think of these questions: What is the purpose Jesus is trying to accomplish, the laudable "ends" of the Kingdom of God? What is God trying to accomplish through him? And how is Jesus going to do that, to accomplish that? What's at stake in the story is how you get there, how you get from point A to point B. That's where the temptation comes in.

In my version of the story, the Tempter looks like an attorney in an Armani suit (no offense to you lawyers, but that is sometimes the form that Satan actually takes in the scriptures). And in an unctuous voice he says to Jesus--I picture Jesus sitting there on a rock looking down at the sand--he says something like this: "The first time in all of human history, we can create social well-being for everyone; we can unify the world under one government, and one religion, with one unifying figure--you. Just do a few miracles here, a few pyrotechnics. No more hunger. No more fighting. Freedom for everyone. For the first time in human history, you have the power to do this. To solve all these problems once and for all. Here, try it out. Start with yourself; feed yourself. Turn these stones into bread."

And there's Jesus, looking at the ground, listening as his guts are gnawed by hunger.

"You just need to realize, JC, that you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. We'll need to summon the moral courage to compromise a bit of human freedom to get there; and we may need to deal with some people who get in the way--but think of how much pain you can relieve--a small compromise is all. Everyone will forget it when they see the good we will have done."

Of course there are many stories about this kind of moral choice that human beings face; about the figure of Mephistopheles who tempts those who wish to experience and accomplish higher things, at the cost of their soul.

But, for Christians, the ethical ideal at the heart of our tradition is very simple, so simple I find it amazing how readily we tend to forget. Here it is: we can never justify using the means of evil to accomplish a good end. OK--perhaps the caveat is that in a morally impure universe, it may be necessary; Rwanda is an awful prospect for a pacifist to face. But, the idea is that we can never, ever justify it as "right." The cross messed up that whole calculation.

If you want to look at what Jesus was trying to accomplish, look at his life, not at what he was trying to accomplish--because on one level, the level of human accomplishment, he failed--he died, was executed. Jesus' life is the means and the end. Christian ethics is about the fact that, to adapt Marshall McLuhan's famous phrase, "The medium is the message." The means is the end.

I want to read to you some words spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who makes this point far more eloquently than I can. These remarks were part of his Christmas sermon of 1967, toward the end of his life when he was questioning the nation's policy about Viet Nam. This is what he said:

And the leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in North Vietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace. What is the problem? They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.²

I need do a bit of a prologue before I say what I'm about to say, because it may seem to some like mixing religion and politics; I'm not one to create a dichotomy between them in any case, and I firmly believe that what I'm going to speak about is a moral issue, not a political one. This morning I'd like to talk about torture. First, I want to recognize that you may disagree with me; I am not offended if so, and am glad for the freedom to disagree in loving community. It doesn't matter if you agree with my opinion or not, but whether these ancient words of scripture prick your conscience, our conscience, our nation's conscience, when we realize that people are being tortured, some of them who may be guilty of terrorism, some of them certainly innocent of any involvement whatsoever, but they are being abused and afflicted toward the goal of national security, and with the blessing of our nation's government, the current policy governing our system of law.

My worry is not only about the pain inflicted on those people--that concerns me a great deal to be sure--but with the cost to our nation's soul. It is not my job to tell you what to think, but to ask whether the ancient words of scripture afflict our conscience; whether in the face of great moral ambiguity, they elicit our outrage, or at least discomfort, or whether we simply are more concerned about the price of gasoline and being late for brunch because the service is running too long.

Perhaps you might say, "It's not really torture. Wasn't there a bill recently, Senator McCain's, and the good guys won." Having studied the issue, it is my belief that this is not the case. And so my simple challenge to you (every once in a while, a preacher gets a challenge card, and we need to use it wisely); my challenge to us all, is to take some information home with you--to stop by the table in the fellowship hall that the Peacemaking Committee has set up, and ask them what the definition of torture is, and whether our government has clearly said it will not use it. Not to agree with me and my opinion on this matter, but to exercise your own conscience, to study an urgent moral issue and apply our conscience to it, and if conscience calls us, to act. To do something.

I want to end with the words of a man named Ian Fishback, a Captain in the 82nd Airborne division of the Army and a West Point graduate, who has served in Afghanistan and in Iraq. In a letter to Senator John McCain, Captain Fishback expresses his deep concern that unclarity over what constitutes torture has contributed to a wide range of abuses by our armed forces, and a moral crisis in our nation. His letter contributed to some of the legislation Senator McCain put forth.

He states that this unclarity stems from "the larger question, the most important question that this generation will answer. Do we sacrifice our ideals in order to preserve security? Terrorism inspires fear and suppresses ideals like freedom and individual rights. Will we confront danger and adversity in order to preserve our ideals? If we abandon our ideals in the face of adversity and aggression, then those ideals were never really in our possession. I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is 'America.'

"It is better that one man should die, than the whole nation perish." Is it?

Amen.

 

¹John 11:50. Caiaphas' words are ironic, in that they serve as "prophecy"--foretelling the redemptive suffering and death of Jesus, but using it as his own moral justification.

²Martin Luther King, Jr. "A Christmas Sermon." December 24, 1967.

 

March 5, 2006

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