"&request.querystring("c")&"

He Gave His Life that Others Might Live

The Rev. Canon George M. Maxwell, Jr.
The Cathedral of St. Philip
Atlanta, Georgia
22 April 2007

It’s been a difficult week for me.

I was looking forward to the chance to tell you about our Farmers Market.  I wanted to tell you that we will soon have a variety of local growers and artisans selling out of our parking lot on Saturday mornings.  I wanted to talk to you about how we can promote sustainable agriculture, more humane treatment of animals and healthier diets.  I wanted to persuade you that, acting together, we can learn to care for our environment and have fun doing it.
 
All of that changed last Monday.  Once I heard about the tragedy at Virginia Tech, I couldn’t think of anything else.  Those thirty-three students and faculty members looked to me like a representative sampling of all of us.  They were old and young.  They were male and female.  They were African-American, Asian, Middle Eastern and Caucasian.

My initial reaction was to find my children and hug them.  I saw a funny cartoon later in the week of two middle-aged parents clinging to their child in his college dorm room.  The child is looking a bit perplexed, as the parents explain that they just couldn’t get what they needed with an email or a letter.  This is just how I felt!

As the week went on, though, I began to feel even worse.  The more I listened to the news, the less isolated the violence felt.  It wasn’t just one disturbed kid on one college campus.  There were constant reminders that this kind of thing had happened before.  It seemed somehow related to the tragedies at Columbine; in Jonesboro, Arkansas; and in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

And, once I recognized it, I could see it in other places too.  There was the haunting connection between the pictures on the front pages of newspapers on Thursday.  Pictures of the grieving faces of family members in Blacksburg appeared above the fold, while pictures of the twisted frames of public buses in Baghdad appeared below the fold.

I couldn’t help but wonder when it would all stop.  

It looked like a disease that had a life of its own.  By the time you feel the pain, it has already spread.  And, I was getting the uncomfortable feeling that we didn’t really know how to protect ourselves from it.   These victims were innocent.  They were created for something better than this.  Even the killer ultimately killed himself, as if he could feel that the image of God in him had already died.

The world just seemed to be out of joint. 

That’s when I started looking for somebody or something to blame.  And, I didn’t have to look far.  There were plenty of candidates.  The gun shop owner, who sold the killer guns in violation of federal law.  The mental health officials, who allowed him to remain on the street despite his apparent pathology.  The Deans, who failed to respond to complaints about his behavior.  The security personnel, who failed to warn of the danger after the rampage started.  The community, which failed to care for its most troubled members.
   
Some or all of these people may well bear some responsibility.  And, there will be plenty of time later to figure that out.  But, I doubt if we will conclude that any of these people really caused the tragedy all by themselves.

That’s not why I was looking for someone to blame anyway, was it?  I was looking for someone to blame so that I could try to make some sense out of all of this.  I was looking for someone to blame so that I could bring some order to the chaos that this violence had created.

Even if I could have convinced myself that there was someone to blame, it wouldn’t have helped much.  Getting angry at someone we blame for a tragedy may make us feel better, but it’s really just masking the symptoms of the disease.  It does nothing to deal with the causes of violence, and may even make them stronger.

We think we’re fighting against hate, but blaming someone usually just amounts to paying them back.  In the end, it feels a lot like hate and looks a lot like a search for yet another victim.  That, I think, is why so many of us looked for so long at those taped images of the killer that appeared on television and in the newspapers.  And, that is why the survivors protested so loudly against them.  They couldn’t afford to mask the symptoms; they were still feeling the pain of the disease itself.
 
Despair seemed inevitable.

The scriptures that we heard today, however, suggest a different way to look at all of this.  We heard about the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus and we heard what I think of as the re-conversion of Peter on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias.  Both stories are fundamentally about the hope that comes from learning to see things as God sees them.  Paul and Peter each learn to see themselves as the beneficiaries of God’s continued self-giving through Christ.  They realize that they have been given new life and, as a result, their lives are no longer completely their own.
 
And, this realization gives them new hope.  The Resurrection is nothing, if not the promise that life has conquered death.  This means that our faith often boils down to trusting enough in God to endure the suffering of the world until the powers of violence finally destroy themselves. 
 
When I look back on the events of the week, I can see things that suggest this it true.  I can see those students, hugging each other, at the candlelight vigil.  I can see the Amish men from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, standing quietly just outside of the line of police tape, intent on returning the kindness that they received when their children had been the victims.

And, I can see the face of Liviu Librescu.

Mr. Librescu was a professor of mathematics and engineering.  He was no stranger to violence.  He grew up as a Jew in Romania during the Second World War.  He knew what it was like to be deported to a labor camp, and to be imprisoned in an urban ghetto.  He knew what it was like to lose a promotion because he refused to swear allegiance to a corrupt regime, and to lose his job because he asked to move his family to a safer place.

They say he heard shots in the hallway, and used his own body to barricade the door to his classroom.  They say he died when the killer began shooting through the door.  They say he saved the lives of his students, who found refuge by crouching under their desks, or crawling out of the windows.

They say he gave his life so that others might live. He gave his life that others might live.

It’s been a difficult week for me.  I had been looking forward to telling you about the Farmers Market, and about how caring for our environment can be part of building a better life for ourselves and our children. Instead, I struggled all week with the tragedy in Blacksburg, Virginia, and the other outbreaks of violence that seem to threaten all of our futures.

When I could see only the violence, I could feel only despair.  But, when I tried to see things the way that Peter and Paul learned how to see things, I began to sense a feeling of hope.  When I could see people living for other people – and, in the case of Mr. Librescu, dying so that others might live – then I could remember what I already knew to be true.  I could remember that we have already been inoculated against the disease of violence.  These acts of self-giving are signs of a growing immunity. 

In the end, I find myself talking to you about just what I thought I would be talking to you about.  I find myself talking to you about living for others and the hope that this kind of life creates for our future.  It’s the way that will teach us how to live in harmony with our environment, and it’s the way that will teach us how to live in harmony with ourselves.
 
And, I can think of no better place to start than in prayer. 

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Let us pray.

O God of grace and glory, we remember before you this day, all of our sisters and brothers who have become the victims of violence this week -- and especially the thirty-three students and faculty members of Virginia Tech who died so senselessly in Blacksburg on Monday.  We thank you for giving them to us as companions on our earthly pilgrimage.  In your boundless compassion, console us who mourn and give us all the quiet confidence that we will need to continue our life on this earth, until, by your call, we are reunited with those who have gone before; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Amen

Comments? Contact The Rev. George Maxwell at: gmaxwell@stphilipscathedral.org

view other sermons