Commandment #6: You Shall Not Kill
November 8, 2009
The Reverend Anne Felton Hines
One of the longest-running and best-loved television shows in the 1960s and ‘70s was “MASH,” the combination sitcom and dramatic series about military medics during war; there really hasn’t been anything quite like it since.
Part of what made it so compelling was that it wasn’t only about the medical team; it was really about two religious truths: The humanity of every person, even our enemies; and the tragedy of war. There was no dancing around those two themes. The show took seriously the sixth Commandment handed to the Israelites by their God: “You shall not kill.” But how seriously have the rest of us taken that Commandment?
This morning’s sermon is the sixth in an “occasional series” on the Ten Commandments. We have explored the first five of those laws that are also known as “the Laws of Moses,” reflecting on what they might have meant to the ancient Israelites, but more importantly (as far as I’m concerned), what meaning they might hold for us today – even those of us who no longer consider ourselves part of what’s known as the Abrahaimic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
One of the scholars writing in the Interpreter’s Bible contended that the sixth Commandment has perhaps “been the most successful of all the Commandments, because it has reminded us that a person’s life is one’s most precious earthly possession, and one’s right to enjoy life must be protected from idle irresponsibility which would deprive a person from it. Respect for human life,” says the scholar, “has grown because of the sixth Commandment.”
Oh really?! I wonder what evidence he had of that? Because when I look at our world, I don’t see much evidence that humanity has taken that Commandment to heart much at all – especially those whose religious traditions look to the Commandments as one “pillar” of their faith. The “Abrahaimic faiths” have a history of violence against those who disagree with them, and they are still caught up in wars today.
The violence between modern-day Jews and Muslims in the Middle East has gone on pretty much unabated since Israel was founded as a Jewish state, and shows no signs of letting up any time soon. And let’s not forget that former president George Bush, a devout Christian, said that God told him to wage war on Iraq. When I think of these realities, I think of one of my favorite bumper stickers: “What is it about ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ that you don’t understand?”
The Rev. William P. Mahedy, who served as a Roman Catholic military chaplain during the Vietnam War, writes that, “War is sin. It has nothing to do with whether a particular war is justified or not,” he says; “war as a human enterprise…is a form of hatred for one’s fellow human beings. It produces alienation from others…, and ultimately represents a turning away from God.”
Episcopal Bishop George Packard, talks of his experience during the Vietnam War – a period before he decided to become a priest, and was a soldier on the front lines of battle. He says that he began collecting photos he’d find in the pockets of enemy soldiers killed in combat. In one pocket he found a picture of a blond woman, very likely taken from the pocket of an American soldier killed earlier that day by this same North Vietnamese soldier; the tragic irony was not wasted on Packard.
“I use to burn the pictures I found,” he wrote, “because I felt that I had in my possession tokens of the lives of those I had killed…; something precious, something ultimate that I had taken away from another human being.”
On Wednesday our nation will be honoring veterans of our various wars, as well we should; they have risked, and in thousands of cases, have lost their lives in battle. I do not accuse them of sinfulness for violating the sixth Commandment, for they were simply doing what they were trained to do – in many cases because they were drafted into military service; and in many other cases, because military service was the only chance they saw for making a better life for themselves.
But that doesn’t negate the idea that war itself – the deliberate taking of human life – especially when in the service of political power or greed, but even when in the service of more noble causes – is what Bishop Packard calls “a godless endeavor,” where “love, compassion and human kindness are replaced by the vast panorama of violence and destruction….,” shutting out “the Divine.” It is what soldiers are forced to do, no matter what their religious tradition has taught them. But it is what those in power choose to do, even while calling on their religious traditions as their rationale. And we citizens far too often lend them our support.
“What is it about ‘Thou shalt not kill?’ that (we) don’t understand?”
War is not the only vehicle for killing that is sanctioned by the State, of course. The death penalty is another way in which we, as a society, break the sixth Commandment. I have spoken more than once from this pulpit about my belief that killing someone who has killed others is wrong, always. It doesn’t deter future murders, nor does it bring so-called “closure” to the family of the victim. Instead, it sanctions vengeance rather than forgiveness, brokenness rather than health.
And of course, all three Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – call on us to feed the hungry, care for the poor, heal those who are ill. So it is indeed a puzzle how so many of our government leaders who profess to be followers of those traditions, are willing to withhold services that would provide health care and other basic human needs to so many Americans. I am thrilled that the House of Representatives passed a national healthcare plan yesterday. But 215 legislators voted against it! Is that not merely a more passive violation of the sixth Commandment?
But I want to explore another meaning of this Commandment as well, besides the physical killing of a human being. There is the killing of the human spirit as well.
Last Monday night, Meredith Graham and I attended an interfaith worship service to mark the one-year anniversary of the passage of Proposition 8, and to voice our hopes for the defeat of a similar anti-gay marriage ballot measure being voted on the next day in Maine. (As we now know, that ballot measure passed; once again, love was defeated by fear – but I have faith it is only a temporary defeat.)
The service we attended was marvelous, with members of the Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist and Unitarian Universalist communities participating. I led the procession to the front of the church, carrying a Flaming Chalice.
One of the high points of the event was the L.A. Gay Men’s Chorus, which sang the inspirational song, “Dream.” As they sang, their faces radiating joy, I wondered what their lives had been like as children and adolescents. Did they grow up in a family that accepted them for who and what they were? Did they know they were loved – were a child of God with as much holiness as anyone else?
Or did they face the kind of teasing that “Oliver Button” suffered in this morning’s children’s story? Were their spirits crushed by the fear and cruelty of others, even by family members who should have been the most generous with their love – who should have provided a harbor of safety and comfort, but instead pushed them away out of fear?
According to Dr. Leonard Felder, the words of the sixth Commandment have as their root the Hebrew “rahzt-akh,” which has three slightly different translations. The first translation means to not murder or kill another human being or oneself. But the second and third translations refer to spiritual death – “Don’t break, bruise, or crush” the will or spirit of another; and “Don’t humiliate” another person.
We know that the spirit of many individuals has been bruised – even broken – by the oppressions of homophobia, racism, agism, sexism, ableism, and more; and as a faith community, we are called to examine our role in such oppression, and take steps to overcome it. But are there ways that we crush another’s Divine spirit with our individual words or actions, either deliberately or inadvertently?
The Talmud – the interpretation of the laws found in the Jewish Scripture – warns us that “using sneering words or humiliation is the equivalent of murder.” It says, “The person who makes someone else ashamed in the presence of others is as if this person has shed blood.”
That’s pretty powerful! But it surely can feel sometimes as if a part of us dies when we’re humiliated by the words of another. Shame can be such a powerful emotion.
And that’s why I’m still haunted by those times in my youth when I joined friends in merciless taunting of another student. Why did I do that? What compelled me to participate in such mean-spirited behavior towards someone who had done nothing to harm me? If I had imagined what I would feel like if I were being treated that way, I would have known I was crushing the spirit of that person – that I was ignoring the God within them – indeed, ignoring the me in them.
I have often wondered what became of the one or two students who were the targets of my bullying. Were they able to rise above it? Did they have a family who enveloped them with love and acceptance, strong enough to obliterate the pain caused by me and others at school? I desperately hope so.
Indeed, I hope they had a religious community such as this one, that would teach them that no matter what anyone else said, they had “inherent worth and dignity” by virtue of simply being human; that they were a child of God, too, and held within them the light of the Divine.
Ridiculing or punishing a child or adolescent for being who they are can be devastating, because they haven’t usually had time to develop the self-confidence that might allow them to transcend the humiliation. Their Divine spirits are so much more vulnerable – can be crushed so much more easily than that of an adult.
So they look to us – both their biological families, and their religious families – to re-affirm for them that they are loved and are lovable. The Talmud says that “The person who saves even one life saves an entire world.” I believe that is so. I believe that what could make all the difference in a child’s life is one person – be it a family member, a teacher, a minister, or simply a friend – who has faith in that child, who mirrors back to that child his or her Divine light. And by doing so, we make a difference in the world; we create hope by embodying love. It happens even with something as simple and common as volunteering in our Religious Education program.
And we all know how it feels to suffer a death of the spirit from the harsh words of others. Because even as adults, we can be the victims of humiliation and cruelty; it is simply often masked behind jokes, or side comments, or sarcasm. But it can be just as hurtful.
And most often it is done without thinking, in the smallest of gestures. Someone once said, “Feelings are everywhere; be gentle.” Ahhh yes! Feelings are everywhere, and can be easily violated. And every time we violate someone’s feelings, we are violating the sixth Commandment.
Why would the ancient storytellers portray Yahweh as giving a Commandment that could have both physical and psychological ramifications? Perhaps because they knew that the Israelites needed to create community if they were to survive, and a community will be undermined if the members of it don’t treat one another gently, with concern for their feelings. A healthy community must be one where each person is seen as carrying the spark of the Divine – where the God or Goddess in each person is recognized and honored.
It is why the topic of the first session every new year of our Small Group Ministry is “Listening.” When we fail to really listen to another person as they share their thoughts and feelings – when we interrupt them, or ridicule their ideas, or give them unrequested advice, we chip away at their spirit, and that prevents us from deepening our relationship with them. In a religious community, we need to honor one another by learning how to listen.
But that is not always so easy to do; I know that as much as anyone. As a minister, I’m supposed to always speak and act from a place of love; but sometimes I fall short of that.
Sometimes, I act instead out of a place of fear; and fear way-too-often trumps love. I am, it seems, human. Perhaps we humans act that way because we haven’t fully transcended the many woundings to our own spirit that we’ve encountered throughout our lives. Perhaps we kill our own spirit through fear, through self-doubt and even through self-loathing. Rabbi Harold Schulweiss suggests that the sixth Commandment also speaks to the idea that “There are ways we…die a thousand deaths…through…self-recrimination and guilt.”
So perhaps the authors of those ancient stories of the first Israelites knew that in order to treat one another with “worth and dignity” – in order to be able to see the Divine light within another – each of us needs to first know that light within ourselves. Only then will we be able to reach out to others with compassion, acceptance, and love.
May this church we call our religious home be a place where every child feels safe to ask their questions; where every adult feels welcomed and heard; and where we all, young and old, work together to nurture life and to create a world of peace through the power of our love.
Amen.
© 2008-2010 Anne Felton Hines. All rights reserved.
