Healing the Enemy 2001

*Preached at Grace North Church January 21st, 2001.*

Last month my friend Brent came to visit. Now I've preached about Brent many times. We went to California Baptist College together, and he's lived in Bulgaria ever since. His father had recently died, and so Brent had come stateside for the funeral, and of course, wanted to get together before he headed to the airport to go back to Eastern Europe.

I was delighted; not that his father had died, of course, but that I would get to see my friend, and so I picked him up and drove him over to our house.

Now, Brent is NOT an animal lover, and much to his annoyance, we now care for three dogs. Hunden, the stray we picked up is only an annoyance when let OUT of his crate, and our two permanent dogs are quiet and docile, so I figured I'd be able to keep the animal situation at a level that would meet Brent's comfort needs in that area. Title this sermon "The best laid plans of mice and men."

When I got home, our whippet/lab mix Clare was huddled in a corner with her tail between her legs. NOT a good sign.

A brief inspection revealed the reason. There were puddles all OVER the floor. Now this was very puzzling, as the dogs had not been left alone for very long. Since my wife works 60+ hours per week, she pays a woman named Anna to come in every other week to help with the housework, because, you know, otherwise I have to do it all, and I don't move the couch when I sweep. You get the picture. Anyway, Anna had only left an hour ago, and our famous canines are usually okay for up to 12 hours without a potty break.

Of course, I scolded them and took them outside, and then cleaned up the mess as best I could, making frustrated apologies to Brent. I thought that was the end of it. I'd finish cleaning up, and then Brent and I could get down to some serious catching up. But no... I no sooner let the dogs in again when there was almost instantly another puddle on the floor. And then another. And another.

Now this was unheard of behavior from our dogs, and I quickly ascertained that Abigail, our black cocker was the culprit as her entire backside was matted and wet. Abigail had not had an accident in the house for over four years, so this was very bizarre indeed.

It's not easy to be a good host when you're having to clean up after perpetually incontinent canines, you know, but that is no excuse. I was absolutely beside myself with anger at her and embarrassment that my dog-intolerant friend was having to endure such a gross-out episode. I am ashamed to say I lost my temper. I screamed at Abigail, and literally tossed her out the back door, instead of setting her down gently. I tied Abigail up in the back yard, quickly mopped the floor, and called Kate to inform her that soon I would be strangling her dog.

Kate later informed me that when she got off the phone, she turned to her boss and said, "I have to go home now before my husband kills my dog." Truer words were never spoken.

An hour and a half later, when Kate rolled in, Abigail was still tied up in the yard, surrounded by numerous puddles. Thankfully, Brent and I had been able to put most of the episode behind us and had gotten some good visiting in, so I was not quite so disposed to canicide by that time.

Kate was as puzzled as I was about Abby's behavior, but soon we would be more puzzled still. "John," Kate said, "These puddles, they aren't water. Look, they're oil."

And sure enough, they were. It didn't take Kate long to put on her deerstalker and get to the bottom of things. It seems the night before we had been deep-frying homemade potstickers. So when Anna came and began to clean the stove, she lowered the cauldron containing the vegetable oil to the floor for a few moments. Apparently she didn't notice little Abigail sneaking up for a treat. After measuring, Kate concluded that Abigail had drunk over four cups of vegetable oil.

The poor girl. And poorer still that when she got home her daddy yelled at her, tossed her like a rag doll, and tied her up in the yard. Abby's gastric distress lasted about another 12 hours, but they were infinitely more endurable with Kate's understanding caretaking instead of my bellowing.

Of course, I felt awful for what Abby had gone through. I felt doubly awful for being such a meanie while she was in such distress. Abigail had no control over the effect that over two pints of oil would have on her tummy; but I certainly had a great deal of control over the level of frustration and anger I felt in dealing with her.

When it comes down to it, Anna was careless, Abigail was just being Abigail, and I was a monster. I was, at very least, the very incarnation of the punitive, demanding god I have for so long rejected. Abigail was not the enemy. The enemy was within. And I shudder at the revelation that I myself possess such a capacity for violence.

The shadows lurking in the human heart are no surprise to Jesus, of course. He knew that the centurion in our gospel stories today was not the enemy. Oh, sure, he was a Roman, and the Romans had invaded and occupied Israel. But Jesus was able to see this man with the eyes of compassion. He was able to see him not as an occupying soldier but as a concerned householder, and in John's version, a scared father, who desperately sought help for his little boy.

What was Jesus' response? He didn't say, "Forget you, you filthy Roman pig-dog," or something of the like. No, instead he marveled that this man was able to set aside his Roman elitism and ask a humble country parson belonging to a conquered people for help. Jesus saw him as a human being in need of grace, not as the enemy. And likewise the enemy saw Jesus as a kind and compassionate man, not as an unruly subject that must be kept in his place.

It is very easy for us humans to demonize and destroy anything that hurts us, annoys us, or frightens us, even when we have nothing to be frightened of. And none of us are strangers to this phenomenon. Some of us in this parish fought the Japanese in W.W.II, and yet have subsequently come to love individuals from Japan. White people in this country were terrified of living in proximity to people of color, and yet now, most of us live side-by-side, and not only is it peaceful, but our neighborhoods are richer places for it. For centuries Christians blamed the Jews for killing Jesus, but in fact it wasn't the Jews who were responsible at all; we worship a Jew in this very church.

I remember that before Kate and I got married, Kate's grandmother, a Pentecostal warned her, "You shouldn't marry John. He's a Catholic. Your cousin married a Catholic and she's in a mental institution now."

The jury is still out on whether Kate will need to be committed after being married to me for seven years, but the truth is, her grandmother knew nothing about me, and very little about Catholicism.

Sam Keen, in his ground-breaking book "Faces of the Enemy" offers us a poem which I would like to share with you:

To Create an Enemy
Start with an empty canvas
Sketch in broad outline the forms of
men, women, and children.

Dip into the unconscious well of your own
disowned darkness
with a wide brush and
stain the strangers with the sinister hue
of the shadow.

Trace onto the face of the enemy the greed,
hatred, carelessness you dare not claim as
your own.

Obscure the sweet individuality of each face.

Erase all hints of the myriad loves, hopes,
fears that play through the kaleidoscope of
every finite heart.

Twist the smile until it forms the downward
arc of cruelty.

Strip flesh from bone until only the
abstract skeleton of death remains.

Exaggerate each feature until man is
metamorphasized into beast, vermin, insect.

Fill in the background with malignant
figures from ancient nightmares-devils,
demons, myrmidons of evil.

When your icon of the enemy is complete
you will be able to kill without guilt,
slaughter without shame.

The thing you destroy will have become
merely an enemy of God, an impediment
to the sacred dialectic of history.

There must be an antidote to this kind of projection, and indeed, our tradition supplies one in the cross. Abelard, about whom I have preached in the past, broke with the teachings of the church of his time and taught a novel interpretation of the crucifixion. The cross, for Abelard, was not the bearer of our shame, but in fact the illuminator of our shame. When we look at that gory crucifix we see the horrible truth about ourselves. The Jews did not kill Jesus, the Romans did not kill Jesus. We killed Jesus. The violence necessary to nail an innocent man ot that cross is resident in each and every one of our hearts. The horrible, unfathomable truth is that god came to earth to tell us face to face that we are loved, and we were so threatened by this that we murdered him. Abelard tells us that the horrifying revelation of the violence that abides in each of us is stripped naked for all to see on that cross. And the sight of it should so humble us with shame that our hearts would be turned, the hammer and nails fall from our grasp,

The image of the crucified should move every soldier to put down his gun, every politician to cease his slander, every mob to lay aside the rocks balled tightly in their fists, and the wall of pride every one of us has erected between ourselves and God crumble, as grace-filled communion between Creator and creation is restored.

The Jews didn't crucify Jesus. The Romans didn't crucify Jesus. We did. And we continue to do it, every time we project the shadow of our own fear, hatred, or even annoyance onto another and get out the nails.

The cross is not the only image that can effect this metanoia, this change of heart. The fence upon which Matthew Shepherd was hung will suffice just as well. The image of the gas chambers at Awschwitz would be likewise efficacious. But for Christians, the cross is an image of profound power, one that can cut us to the quick if we only have the eyes to see.

The truth that Jesus reveals to us is that there are no bad peoples. He embraced everyone without exception, Jew and gentile, men and women, the righteous and the unclean alike. I would venture to say that there are no bad dogs. There is only the unreconciled shadow within each and every one of us that we have yet to befriend. Jesus on the cross is the icon of that violence resident in our hearts, and it is that icon that has the power to turn us forever from that violence, and say "never again. Never again." It has the power to move us to withdraw our projections, and to befriend that which we fear instead of killing it. Because if we do not, it is not the enemy outside of us that will do us in, but the enemy within. Let us pray.

Lord Jesus, we are easily frightened by things and people we do not understand. Grant us a measure of your spirit, to recognize that the enemy resides in our own imaginations, and not in others. May the image of your passion so humble our hearts that we may forsake hatred, violence, and fear, and open them to you and to each other. For we ask this in your name, you who were not afraid to embrace us, for you even embraced our shadow. Amen.