Third Sunday of Easter: April 22, 2007
Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe
Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe
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The tragedy of worst campus massacre-suicide occurred last Monday (Monday, April 16, 2007) at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. 33 people died and nearly 30 others were wounded by a single gun man who killed himself in the end.
How do we explain such a tragedy? How do we explain why such evil happened? The media and the experts have been attempting to explain why such tragedy happened at Virginia Tech by looking at various angles. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, April 17 noted that “No newspaper is in a position to criticize anybody for capitalizing on tragedy or taking convenient positions. There will be time for both in the days to come. But now is a time to respect, quietly, the tears and the pain of this terrible event.”[i]
At the Virginia Tech Convocation on Tuesday following the tragedy, Professor and poet Nikki Giovanni offered these words:
“We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. ... We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.”[ii]
No one deserves a tragedy and yet tragedies happen all over the world. While I was reading the articles on Virginia Tech massacre on the website, I noticed a small headline indicating that five car bombs killed at least 172 and wounding scores more in Baghdad, Iraq on Wednesday, April 18, 2007. The article further reported that “across Iraq, at least 10 other people were killed in bombings and shootings, and 58 bullet-riddled corpses were found, bringing the day’s death toll to nearly 230.”[iii] No one deserves a tragedy and yet we seemed to have become desensitized by its overwhelming presence.
How do we respond to such tragedies as followers of Jesus Christ?
For me, it is remembering those who acted with courage – doing the unthinkable. I would like us to remember the courage of the professor Liviu Librescu on that fateful Monday. His courage reminded me of the story of the old woman and the spider as I was reflecting on the whole incident and trying my best to put it into perspective.
“As Jews worldwide honoured on Monday the memory of those who were murdered in the Holocaust, a 76-year-old survivor sacrificed his life to save his students in Monday’s shooting at Virginia Tech,” began the article in the Jerusalem Post.[iv] It is reported that professor Librescu used his body to block the door of his engineering classroom so his students could escape through the windows as the gunman tried to shoot his way inside.
Professor Librescu was born and raised in Romania. He survived the Holocaust as a child and escaped Romania’s Communist rule as an adult. During the Second World War, his family was interned at a labour camp that was built to exterminate Jews and the Roma people – also known as the Gypsies. Librescu was 10 at the time – a child among 200,000 people crowded into crude barracks without running water, electricity or latrines. “That experience helped shape his character,” his son said to a reporter.
“He saw people who gave their lives for others in difficult times. He knew what it meant to help others.’”[v]
Like the old woman in the story, Professor Librescu chose to help knowing that he would be hurt. In the end he sacrificed his life so that others could live. One man chose to kill innocent people out of his own misplaced rage on Monday, April 16 before killing himself – and another man chose to be killed to save the lives of others. Each person made a choice – one for death of himself at the expense of the lives of others, another for the life of others at the expense of his own life.
Cho Seung Hui killed 32 innocent people and then killed himself.
The victims are from various ethnic and national backgrounds, and from 18 to 76 years old.
Ross Abdallah Alameddine,
Christopher James “Jamie” Bishop,
Brian Bluhm,
Byan Clark,
Austin Cloyd,
Jocelyne Couture-Nowak,
Daniel Prez Cueva,
Kevin Granata,
Matthew G. Gwaltney,
Caitlin Hammaren,
Jeremy Herbstritt,
Rachel Elizabeth Hill,
Emily Hilscher,
Jarrett Lane,
Matthew J. La Porte,
Henry Lee,
Liviu Librescu,
G.V. Loganathan,
Partahi Lumbantoruan,
Lauren McCain,
Daniel O’Neil,
Juan Ramon Ortiz,
Minal Panchal,
Erin Peterson,
Mike Pohle,
Julia Pryde,
Mary Read,
Reema Samaha,
Waleed Shaalan,
Leslie Sherman,
Maxine Turner,
Nicole White.
33 people died on Monday, April 16. Cho himself, I believe, was also a victim of violence. I know it is hard to see the killer as one of the victims of violence. I am aware that many do not wish to hear Cho’s name. Even his own family members seem to be distancing themselves away from him.
This is what Shane Claiborne, a social activist who lives among and serves the homeless in the Kensington neighbourhood of Philadelphia, says about violence.
“There is a common thread in many of the most horrific perpetrators of violence that begs our attention – they kill themselves. Violence kills the image of God in us. It is a cry of desperation, a weak and cowardly cry of a person suffocated of hope. Violence goes against everything that we are created for – to love and to be loved – so it inevitably ends in misery and suicide. When people succumb to violence it ultimately infects them like a disease or a poison that leads to their own death… Violence is suicidal. Suicide rates of folks in the military and working the chambers of death row execution are astronomical; they kill themselves as they feel the image of God dying in them.”[vi]
In the scripture lessons read today, we heard a story of Simon Peter – one of the closest friends of Jesus; a friend of Jesus who ultimately betrayed him. We hear Peter being challenged, invited, and enabled by the risen Jesus.
Jesus asks Peter “do you love me” three times before Peter begins to understand the meaning of the question. “Do you love me in the poor, the rich, the persecuted, the persecutors, the hungry, the greedy, the deceived, the deceiver, and even those who do not know what they do when they keep crucifying me? If you love me in them, take care of them.”
Peter finally gets the meaning of the question by the third time and finally answers with conviction, “Yes, I love you in the poor, the rich, the persecuted, the persecutors, the hungry, the greedy, the deceived, the deceiver, and even those who do not know what they do and keep crucifying you. I will tend them and feed them.”
This was his conversion experience – a point of reference for his ministry. This is what caused Peter to start over his life as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Loving your neighbour is a challenge. Loving yourself is a challenge. Loving those whom you do not believe deserves to be loved is a greater challenge. Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” “Do you love the fragmented and broken image of God within each person?”
When Peter was with Jesus before the crucifixion, the words of Jesus remained outside of him. The words of Jesus were beautiful ideals to Peter. After the crucifixion, however, when faced with the risen Jesus, something drastic happened to Peter. An internal transformation. When the gospel of Jesus Christ became an integral part of his being, Peter was transformed and was able to embrace even those who were hurting him and the followers of the Way of Jesus Christ. When Peter finally understood that Jesus is found in each person he encountered, he was able to choose to love them. In the end Peter himself became a martyr. Peter accepted Jesus’ invitation to feed his flock. To love is to choose to accept and see God in every living being, even in those we see as undeserving.
May the love of God comfort all those who are mourning and grieving. May we practice love in our lives by seeing Christ in all we meet. May we choose love, knowing that it takes tremendous courage to love the kind of love Jesus invites us to share.
Amen.
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[i]Too terrible for words, Editorial, Los Angeles Times, April 17, 2007.
[ii] Transcript of Nikki Giovanni’s Convocation address, delivered April 17, 2007, (Virginia Tech web site).
[iii]Edmund Sanders, Car bombs kill at least 172 in Baghdad, Los Angeles Times (latimes.com) [Thursday, April 19, 2007] & Karin Brulliard, Bombers Defy Security Push, Killing at Least 158 in Baghdad, Washingtonpost.com [Thursday, April 19, 2007].
[iv] Israeli professor killed in US attack, Jerusalem Post (on line edition), April 17, 2007.
[v] Sonia Verma, Hero ‘had no fear,’ globeandmail.com, April 18, 2007.
[vi] Shane Claiborne, When Violence Kills Itself, God’s Politics (web site).
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