COMMENTARY: In war, saints and sinners are a matter of perspective

c. 1999 Religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. He lives in Durham, N.C.) ACITREZZA, Sicily _ Sicilians know that conquerors come and go. So do those absolute convictions that drove their leaders and justified their warfare. Left behind are temples to the conquerors’ deities, fortifications that […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. He lives in Durham, N.C.)

ACITREZZA, Sicily _ Sicilians know that conquerors come and go. So do those absolute convictions that drove their leaders and justified their warfare.


Left behind are temples to the conquerors’ deities, fortifications that were never stout enough, and bloodlines that make the faces of Sicilians a road-map to European history.

The temples, castles and gun emplacements have a long half-life, thanks to the dry Mediterranean air, and provide great vistas for tourists. Far shorter are the imperatives that made the mayhem once seem worthwhile.

In the low-lying shadow of Greek ruins at Agrigento, a Roman theater at Catania, a Norman cathedral that withstood a vindictive pope and an explosive Mount Etna, and the castle which once signified Siracusa’s greatness, today’s rumbling of cargo planes, troop transports and bombers toward Serbia seems to fit, but not to dominate, the landscape. They, too, will pass.

In any warfare, who are the sinners and the saints is always a matter of perspective. Each side blames the other and says its own cause is just. As troops over the ages have discovered when they actually meet, armies are mostly just folks, men and women doing a job about which they are told little.

The consequences of chasing this ship or taking that valley can be severe, but the purpose defined at throne or conference table might never be known at ground level.

Are some wrong and some right? People always like to think so. Sometimes, the vista actually seems clear. Saying No to the Serbs’ genocide against Kosovar Albanians seems clearer than most. Usually, the vista is cloudy, the right way shrouded within prejudice and calculations of gain.

Usually, when we label someone else a sinner, all that we truly can say is that we disagree with their behavior or beliefs. To prove them absolutely wrong tends to be difficult. To prove them wrong enough to kill tends to produce oratory more than science or philosophy.


Whenever we think we have escaped those mists and arrived at perfect clarity about someone else’s badness, we ought to remember the maddening way Jesus dealt with sinners.

Jesus treated them like saints. He ate in their homes, healed their children, honored their lives, and invited them into his entourage. His message _”Repent and believe”_ was aimed at sinner and saint alike. No one was beyond God’s forgiveness; no one was beyond a need to rethink their lives.

This expansive embrace of weak humanity infuriated the self-righteous. Having separated themselves from the herd, they couldn’t imagine a messiah who went into the herd, noticed missing sheep and went in search of them. What kind of messiah would touch the unclean, eat with tax collectors and honor a harlot?

Many in our time would also be offended if they paid attention to Jesus’ behavior. So they don’t. They turn to Paul and the Law of Moses, find legalisms that justify their hatreds, and don the robe of judge. They project their righteous wrath onto Jesus _”It is God’s will!”_ and fail to see that, if Jesus is anywhere, he is with the weak and wounded, the fallen and forgotten.

God’s love isn’t a rare perfume that must be measured out to only the very finest. God’s love is like a mighty river, which floods everything it touches. The self-righteous and intolerant cannot abide such a non-discriminating flood, so they build shrines to their unique vision and send troops against those whom they deem beyond God’s care.

Sicilians love to tell of the Norman king who saw beyond hatred and invited Jewish, Muslim and Christian masons to work together on his castle in Catania. They did so in peace. The pope in Rome took issue with Frederick’s open arms and exiled him from the sacrament. Frederick shrugged. To this day, Sicilians seem to shrug at the absolutist claims of whatever empire builder has them in his sights.


Right made by might leaves impressive monuments, but life goes on in spite of it. Today’s self-righteous and intolerant would do well to gaze upon the temple to Apollo at Siracusa and realize that a claim even grander than theirs is today an amusement for tourists.

DEA END EHRICH

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