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April
10
2016

Resurrection from Hate

SCRIPTURE TEXT:  Acts 9:1-6 

Rev. Monte Marshall  

It’s the Easter season and we’re continuing to tell resurrection stories.  We’re celebrating all the ways in which resurrection is possible in our lives, moving us from despair to hope, from darkness to light, from death to life.    

This morning we’re telling stories about what it’s like to be resurrected from hate.  Let’s pray.  PRAYER. 

Hate: a feeling of intense dislike or extreme aversion; or acute hostility.1  Do we know hate?  Have we seen it at work?   

Elie Wiesel knows hate.  He’s a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s death camps.  He once said of Hitler and Hitler’s lieutenant, Josef Goebbels:  They were convinced that whatever they were doing was for the benefit, for the sake of humankind…. They were convinced that if they were to kill all the Jews in the world, the world would be a better world…. We weren’t human in their eyes.”2  

Julio Rivera knew hate.  He was a 29-year old gay man in New York City.  On July 2, 1990, he was lured to a schoolyard and brutally killed by three white skinheads who wanted to “reclaim” their neighborhood from gays and homeless people.3   

James Byrd, Jr. knew hate.  He was a married, African-American man with three kids.  In the pre-dawn hours of June 7, 1998, in Jasper, TX, three white me beat him, dragged him behind a pick-up truck for three miles, and left his lifeless body in front of an African-American cemetery.  The murder was motivated by race.4 

Tahir Khan and his family know hate.  On July 4, 2012, the word “Terrorists” was spray-painted on their home here in San Antonio.  On the same day, firecrackers were set off on their doorstep.  They thought that someone was shooting at their house.  Tahir and his family are Muslims from Pakistan, but American citizens nonetheless.  At the time of this incident, they had lived in this country for nearly twenty years.5  

Hate.  Do we know hate?  Have we seen it at work?  Hate has its genesis in fear—fear of the other—fear of the enemy—fear of the unknown.  Hate has its genesis in the human psyche, spreading its malignant tentacles into one life, and then another, and then another—diminishing life wherever it goes—spawning oppression, bigotry, violence and death.  Hate thrives in darkness and despair.  Hate is a stinking, lifeless tomb that entraps and imprisons. 

And yet, Luke’s description of Saul in the book of Acts, suggests a man trapped in the grip of hate.  In Acts 7, Saul approves of the religious execution of a Christ-follower named Stephen.  After Stephen’s death, Saul begins “ravaging the church,” to use the language of Acts 8.  He enters “house after house, dragging off both men and women” and throwing them into prison. 

In this morning’s text, Saul is whipped up into a frenzy of religious zeal, breathing “murderous threats against the disciples of Jesus.”  The Greek literally says that Saul was ‘breathing in’ the threats, almost as if he [was] internalizing them or muttering what he was going to do to the Christians under his breath.”6   

The text then says that Saul went up “to the high priest and asked for letters, addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, that would authorize him to arrest and take to Jerusalem any followers of the Way he could find, both women and men.”  One commentator calls Saul, at this point in the story, “a man of violence.”7  It might also be said of Saul that he was a man of hate. 

But here’s the good news:  Resurrection comes to Saul’s life and he is transformed!  Luke tells the story of a flashing light and the voice of Jesus confronting Saul with his persecution.  As the story continues to unfold in Acts 9, Saul himself becomes a baptized follower of the Way.  His eyes are opened to a new way of life rooted not in hate and violence, but in mercy and love.  His transformation is so profound that he receives a new name:  Saul becomes Paul—an apostle of Jesus Christ!  

And now for even better news:  Resurrection stories like this are still being written because God is still at work bringing life out of death.  Let me tell you about a friend of mine named Hap Halloran.  Hap was a veteran of World War II in the Pacific and a survivor of Japanese Prisoner of War camps.  As Hap could attest, during those years of war, there was more than enough hate to go around on both sides.   

Hap was a navigator and bombardier on a B-29 bomber.  His job was to rain down death and destruction on the Japanese people in their homeland.    On the 27th of January, 1945, during a bombing run on Tokyo, Hap’s bomber was shot down.  Hap bailed out over Tokyo at 27,000 feet.  He was captured by the Japanese. 

He first fell into the hands of civilians.  They beat him severely.  He was then handed over to the authorities and placed first in a prison, and then in a POW camp.   

During his captivity, the hatred of his enemies rained down up him.  He endured months of unspeakable horrors—one deprivation after another, torture, humiliation, starvation.  With few exceptions, his captors were brutal and sadistic in their treatment of him.  

But finally, on August 29, 1945, Hap’s POW camp was liberated.  He returned home, married, raised a family and became a successful businessman.  

But his captivity still tormented him.  He hated the Japanese—all Japanese—and this hatred diminished his life.  For almost 40 years his sleep was disturbed by horrendous nightmares.   

Now Hap Halloran had been a follower Jesus all through his ordeal.  But it was not until 1984 that Hap finally experienced resurrection from years of hate.  It happened when he decided to return to Japan on a mission of reconciliation and forgiveness.  Hap wrote about this trip: “I hoped I could void all my memories of ‘those long ago days’ and view people and places as they are presently.  Positive results slowly became evident in my outlook, feelings and judgments.  Understanding and reconciliation became a reality.”  In fact, after this trip, Hap’s nightmares stopped.   

Through the years, Hap returned to Japan seven more times.  He even spoke to groups at the Peace Parks in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two cities destroyed by atomic bombs dropped from American B-29 bombers in August, 1945.   

My friend, Hap Halloran, died on June 7, 2011.8  To me, his resurrection story bears witness to a truth we proclaim every time we receive Holy Communion: “Love always is the answer to hate.”             

So this is the good news: Christ is risen!  Christ is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!  No matter how hate-filled we may feel, God has plans for us—plans for light and life!  Can our lives be turned around?  Can we find new life when everything feels lifeless?  Can light shine in what feels like an empty tomb?  The answer is YES, YES, YES!  Then our stories—then each story—can be a resurrection story.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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