March 29, 2024

Being in Hell and Not Losing Hope by Karen Johnson back

Greg Boyle, Jesuit priest about whom you’ll hear more before the end of this sermon, writes in his book Tattoos on the Heart, “In the monastic tradition the highest form of sanctity is to live in hell and not lose hope.” I offer that quote at the beginning of this sermon for I think it speaks to a theme that runs through the lessons for this day which bridges the journey between Christmastide and Epiphany. That theme is the encouragement not to lose heart in the face of seemingly impossible challenge.

Before looking at the lessons, however, I want to tell you a true story that has been widely reported in the press and a couple of years ago made into a quite wonderful movie, Des Dieux et Des Hommes, or in English, Of Gods and Men. It is the story of 7 French Trappist monks in Algeria who in 1996 made a choice which I believe exemplifies that highest form of sanctity…living in hell and not losing hope. It was a time of horrific terror… Islamist insurgents in a battle with the Algerian government. Determined to cleanse the country of infidels, they were systematically searching out and exterminating those whom they understood to be radically opposed to their view of faithfulness. The monks were very much amongst the hunted. In a testament written by their abbot as he feared they could face death, and in the diaries and letters the monks wrote, we read that they viewed themselves to be ordinary people who mostly got on each others’ nerves. What held them together, however, was their common experience that God made known in Jesus Christ is the Reality in whom we live and move and have our being; and that this God -- of a love which would not let them go -- had called each of them to life in community with one another for ministry in that country tortured with the conflict between insurgents and the government. Warned by many to abandon their outpost mission where they worked side by side with their Muslim neighbors providing farming assistance, medical aid, personal advice and even worship space since there was no mosque for their services, the monks made a choice their notes described this way: to adjust to the likelihood of death rather than leave and betray … God who is the love of our lives. As much as they longed to be spared the deaths which seemed inevitable, they longed even more to stay engaged with this Reality. Their hope was not primarily for a particular outcome. As much as they prayed that the conflict would end without further bloodshed, theirs or anyone else’s, their hope remained not so much for anything as in something; more precisely in Some One. Their hope was in God…the One who had gifted them with life worth living and with the capacity for living it with each other in spite of their frequent spats. Their hope was in God whose loving providence had already so gifted them that they trusted it could sustain them no matter whether it would be through continuing to live as they felt called to live or through dying as they did so.

I am reminded of a sermon I once heard Killian Noe preach when she was reflecting on the many challenges she heard upon deciding to let her children be part of the annual mission trip she took with other C of S folk to Nicaragua. This was during the years of conflict between the Contras and the Sandinistas. Killian had gone on several of these trips and found them to be profound experiences of that God who was the love of her and her fellow missioners’ lives and the love of the Nicaraguan villagers’ lives with whom they worked. Of course, she said, she wanted her children kept safe. But more than that she wanted them to experience such love.

The monks stayed rather than betray God who was the love of their lives. They were kidnapped and held captive for 2 months, and finally all beheaded. The abbot’s last words, prepared in advance and recorded in his testament, were to his executioner: Thank you my friend of the last moment who will not know what you are doing…May we meet in heaven, like happy thieves, if it please God, our common Father.

I think the story helps to distinguish Christian hope from wishful thinking or optimism and I think that is important if we are to appreciate today’s Scripture lessons. Wishful thinking longs for a particular result and optimism foresees a happy outcome in the near future. Christian hope, however, is neither an upbeat yearning nor a positive outlook for a soon to be realized outcome. It is rather a stance marked by a trust in the Goodness and Ultimate Sovereignty of God no matter what is going on in external conditions; and a desire deeper than anything else to remain in engaged relationship with this One Who has become the love of life. I think this kind of hope is at the heart of all our scripture lessons this morning, this second Sunday of Christmas and the day before Epiphany when Christmastide gives way to the season which will see us all the way throughto Lent.

The portion of Jeremiah we heard a moment ago was written during the last years of the Kingdom of Judah. It is part of a section in this prophet’s work often called The Book of Consolation. These are texts written after a long period of religious apostasy and moral corruption. The prophet has warned his beloved compatriots that they are bringing disaster on themselves by having abandoned their covenantal relationship with God. This internal threat was matched by a threat to the country’s very existence because of the likelihood of invasion from their enemy to the north. The prophet has been convulsed by God’s revelation to him of this impending doom and by the responsibility to speak this hard word. But speak it he does. Then comes a brief period of reform under King Josiah and it is from this time that today’s message comes. Sing! Give praise! Raise shouts of gladness. These instructions come, mind you, not because present conditions warrant such exclamations. In fact calamity is just around the corner with the country’s downfall imminent and exile awaiting its survivors. As such, just as with the monks, the instructions serve, I think, as sustenance given in advance that God’s beloved might endure during the impending devastation…that they might live in hell and not lose hope.

The Gospel text is another example. It is the era of Herod. The second of 5 children, Herod was the son of converts to Judaism. He knew the stories of his forebears in faith including the calamitous disasters they had endured when they abandoned faith and sought security in worldly sources. Herod knew all this, yet he opted for a life focused on the counterfeit securities of the world – power, status, wealth. And so he cozied up to the Roman occupying forces and bought his way into leadership positions. He dealt with his opponents, real or suspected, by exterminating them, not unlike what we have recently seen in North Korea with Kim Jong Un’s ‘elimination’ of his uncle and former mentor. Like Kim, Herod was particularly vicious with his own family. One such was his wife’s brother, Aristobulus, widely recognized as a youth of faith and virtue suited to high religious office. He eventually became High Priest and so popular that Herod perceived him as threat. So while vacationing in Jericho on a hot day, he invited Aristobulus to a bathing party at which he playfully dunked him, again and again and again, until the young man drowned. Herod kept his wives, children, and their families under frequent surveillance and is known to have murdered his mother-in-law and his daughter’s first and second husbands, and finally his own wife and son.

It is this Herod about whom the visitors from the East and Joseph are warned in dreams. And so the visitors return home via a safer route and Joseph flees to Egypt with the baby and his mother. Realizing he has been outwitted, Herod then orders the slaughter of all children in and around Bethlehem 2 years old or younger. In Jim’s sermon last week we were reminded that though the Holy Family escaped this slaughter, their sojourn in Egypt as refugees could scarcely have been easy; and the thought of ever returning to their homeland hardly imaginable. Yet somehow they managed to hang on to hope while enduring hell. So when news came that Herod was dead and another dream warned Joseph not to return to Judah where Herod’s son was ruling, but rather go to Galilee, he took the family home to Nazareth.

And then there is the epistle. There is debate over its authorship, but general agreement that if it is Paul, he was writing from prison at the end of his life. And if it was written by an admirer of Paul who had access to his writings, then it was written close the end of the first century. By then Christians had fled the homeland given the destruction of Jerusalem in the 70’s and the unrelenting persecution of Roman emperors intent on exterminating all descendents of David. Like the Islamist insurgents in Algeria, they wanted to cleanse the land of infidels. In addition to facing this kind of threat, the early Christians were also struggling mightily to define the nature of the fledgling church. As in the time of Jeremiah, there was as much threat from internal wrangling as there was from opposing political forces. From within either one ominous context or another – Paul in prison or an admirer living in the conditions I’ve just described - the writer again sounds the call to hope…not that anything or for anything, but in God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with enlightened perspective so we may know the hope to which we have been called … the riches of his glorious inheritance, the immeasurable greatness of his power. I think the monks in Algeria, the prophet Jeremiah, Joseph and the magi, and whoever wrote the epistle to the Ephesians have something to teach us of what that glorious inheritance is, of what that greatness of his power is that gives us cause for hope. It has to do with experiencing God to be of such grace as to become the love of our lives; and with discovering who we are as God knows us and loves us to be; and then choosing to live as this Knowing Loving God Guides. To be awakened to such truths is to be gifted with life worth living and dying for even with people who get on our nerves. It is to be gifted with the capacity to be in hell and not lose hope.

At the beginning of this sermon it was Fr. Greg Boyle whom I quoted and I promised to tell you more about him. He is a man for whom God has become the love of his life. He has come to treasure himself as God knows and loves him to be and who has chosen to live as this Knowing Loving God has Guided him even in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances. That Guidance led him more than 20 years ago to found a program called Homeboy Industries in the gang capital of the world, the barrios of L.A. His book tells true story after true story chosen, as he writes in the preface, to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives. Convinced that every life in its core is of inestimable value, and wanting desperately to have that truth tattooed onto every heart, he tells these stories about gang members. Let me just tell you one.

Because of the success of this ministry, Fr. Boyle gives hundreds of talks each year and has received countless humanitarian awards. Sometimes the dates of these occasions conflict, so he can’t be present at them all. In these cases he asks one of the former gang members who’ve come through the ministries to stand in for him. This was the case for an award ceremony at Loyola Marymount University, so he asked Elias Montes to stand in for him. Boyle, or ‘G’ as gang members call him, writes, Eighteen years old, working at Homeboy Silkscreen, Elias had traded his gang past for fatherhood and gainful employment. Given the horror show that had been his family of origin, given the environment in which he had grown up, and given the number of obstacles on his road … his success was the more astonishing. And so ‘G’ asked him.

Stunned, but honored, Elias said yes. Then ‘G’ told him he’d have to give a little acceptance speech. Panic set in. To help, Cara, a senior staff member was assigned as his advocate. She would help him, drive him, and accompany him. His panic remained. “I can’t,” he said. “You can,” she replied. Over and over. Somehow her encouragement prevailed and he managed to write a few sentences on a piece of yellow legal paper. On the drive there, however, panic returned. He wanted to leap from the moving car. Cara helped him stay the course. At the auditorium, the panic escalated. Terror took over as he saw the place packed, standing room only. Sweat beads broke out on his head. The emcee announced, “Accepting the award on behalf of Father Greg Boyle is Elias Montes.” The crowd clapped politely. He stumbled to the microphone, shaking, holding his lined paper with the ‘prepared’ speech.

The audience seems to ‘get’ there is something astonishing about this terrified trembling kid in the spotlight. They grow quiet. Elias says his speech and ends with a simple finish: “Because Father Greg and Homeboy industries believed in me, I decided to believe in myself. And the best way I can think of payin’ em all back is by changing my life. And that’s exactly what I’ve done. Thank you.” He slinks back to his seat next to Cara.

The applause is deafening. The crowd rises to its feet, people crying and clapping. He whispers to Cara an expletive I won’t say here followed by, “They sure are clappin’ a lot for ‘G.’” The ovation doesn’t stop. “It’s not for ‘G’ … Elias … it’s for you,” Cara corrects. Elias straightens as if connected to a power plant. “Nuh-uh,” he says. “Yeah, huh,” Cara replies.

He’d been connecting with that Power Plant for a while by then. Now he knew it. He’d begun to know who he is as the Source of that Power knows and loves him to be. He’d begun to choose to live as this Knowing Loving Power was Guiding him to live. It was fast becoming the love of his life. It wasn’t as if he were connected to a power plant.

He was.

And so are we.

It’s the Power Plant who blesses us with enlightened perspective so we may know the hope to which we have been called.

In the monastic tradition the highest form of sanctity may be to live in hell and not lose hope. But it is also a gift, intended for everyone, of our Knowing Loving God whose Guidance wants to bless us with life worth living and dying for. As Christmastide comes to a close and Epiphany beckons us onward, may the hope-filled legacy of the 7 French martyred Trappist monks, Jeremiah, Joseph and the magi, whoever wrote the letter to the Ephesians, Greg Boyle, Cara, and Elias Montes give us nourishment to live hopefully in the days ahead no matter what dark nights they may include.

Jeremiah 31.7-14 Ephesians 1.3-14 Matthew 2.1-23