If you’ve been watching the news in the greater
Philadelphia area these past few weeks you’ll certainly have heard of the
disappearance and murder of four young men in their teens and early twenties.
The victims were all white and from the Philly suburbs of Bucks County (Vastly
less has been said on the TV news about the routine slayings of African
American and Hispanic youth in the city, but—hey!—that’s our media for you.). I
was asked earlier this week to preside at the funeral of one of the victims, a
nineteen-year-old named Dean. A few days later, Dean’s family told the funeral
home they’d prefer to find their own clergy for Dean’s memorial service, so I
was let off the hook. This was a relief to me as the funeral was scheduled a
little too close time-wise to a wedding I was already committed to performing.
Don’t get me wrong—I don’t cower from
painful and tragic situations. In two decades of urban ministry I’ve been
called on to preach at the graveside of murder victims, tragic accidents,
suicides, those who have died untimely young, and—recently—a veritable host of drug overdoses. I take a
certain professional pride in ministering in situations which are so soul-shatteringly
painful because I want to make sure that those who grieve are given the
opportunity to grieve and not made to sit mutely through prayers blandly read
from a book or made to listen to an altar call disguised as a tribute to their
deceased loved-one. I feel that healing only comes through honesty.
Even though I won’t have to preach at Dean’s
memorial, I’ve been thinking a lot about this young man in the last few days. The
gospel lesson assigned for Pentecost 7 Year A in the Revised Common Lectionary (Matthew
13:24-30, 36-43) speaks to me of the dichotomy of this young life which was
ended by violence. It’s Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds. You know it.
It’s the story of the man who plants good seed in his field, but an enemy comes
along and sows weeds among his good crops. The man warns his hired hands not to
try to pull up the weeds, because they might uproot the wheat along with them
and the crop will be ruined. The farm-workers are counselled to let the bad
grow with the good and wait until the harvest to sort it all out.
Not everything I learned about young Dean
was good. He wasn’t exactly a Boy Scout. He’d been in trouble with the law. He was
also lured to his death on the pretext that he’d be buying a certain quantity
of marijuana. The kid had to know
that this was illegal. Still, everyone who spoke to the press about Dean
remembers him as a nice young guy. He had a job at a local ice cream shop. His
co-workers liked him. They found him to be funny and warm and treated him like
a family member. Everyone remembers his smile. He loved his family, and his interest
and ambitions seemed to be mostly wholesome.
So was he a good kid who made some
mistakes, or a dope-smoking little punk who should’ve known better, given the
advantages he had, than to get involved with the wrong kind of people? Both
descriptions are probably true. Dean was like the field sown with wheat and
weeds, both wonderfully loving and selfless, yet still prone to temptation and
folly. The same contradictions have been applied to Dean’s twenty-year-old
killer. According to a Washington Post
article, neighbors remember that boy, Cosmo Dinardo, as “a good kid who went
out of his way to help others—such as volunteering to shovel them out during
snowstorms and refusing payment.” Was Dinardo a “good kid” with serious mental
problems or a sociopath? Both?
All of us, I think, are a combination of
weeds and wheat. Which means, of course, that we should be very careful about
how we judge people. Punish wrongdoing, yes. But who are any of us to say who
is “evil” and who is “good?” In choosing to be wrathfully judgmental, we are
fertilizing our own weeds. And if the weeds get enough of our emotional “Miracle
Grow,” they’ll choke the goodness out of us—no matter how righteous we think we
are.
I certainly have to keep an eye on this
myself. The same week as the quadruple murder I’ve referenced was reported, a
local Philadelphia funeral director, a guy named Harry, was attacked in the
garage of his funeral establishment. Some guy came in off the street while Harry
was working alone on a project using a circular saw. The attacker struck Harry
with the saw, cut his face to ribbons, broke four of his ribs, and left him
with a serious head injury. He stole Harry’s wallet, cash, credit cards, and
cell phone, and left the funeral director unconscious and bleeding. I know Harry. He’s a real nice guy, a Viet
Nam veteran, and has conscientiously cared for families in my congregation. I
want the s.o.b. who hurt him caught and punished.
What I don’t
want is to think of the afore-mentioned s.o.b. as a human being. I don’t
want to have to consider that he might be a junkie so crazed by his addictions
that he’s not in control of his own actions. I don’t want to think that he
might be suffering, or that he has a family that loves him, or that he was once
his mother’s pride and joy. I don’t want to see the wheat in him. He’s just a
weed to me.
This kind of absolutism seems to be
rampant today in our public discourse. No wonder our congress can’t get
anything done—all they seem to be able to do is vilify the opposition. But no
one is wholly bad or good. We are, as Martin Luther said, at once justified and
sinner. I certainly pray that violence will be restrained, that guilt should be
punished, and that laws should be obeyed even if the threat of force must be
used. But I pray that I may not hate
the guilty. I pray that I can learn to be merciful in my assumptions, because I
am certainly in need of mercy myself. I pray that I can leave God’s work up to
God.
Dear
Jesus my Lord, you who were the victim of violence, please watch over the
families that have been wounded by violent acts. Be present with the mourners
of victims, and with the families of those who suffer because their loved ones
have done violence. Let your Holy Spirit move into the hearts of those who have
committed crimes and bring them to repentance. Remove hate, vengeance,
arrogance, and all that separates us from your love from our hearts. Help us to
see a shared humanity as you see it. For this and for all you see we need, we
ask in your holy name. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment