Self-Deception
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but
only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” Mt. 7:21
Time and time again, Jesus makes it crystal clear that to be his disciple requires more than lip service. It requires action -- moral and ethical behavior grounded in love of God and neighbor. That’s why in today gospel from Matthew, he says: “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” By these words, Jesus warns us against self-deception; deluding ourselves into thinking we’re doing God’s will, when, in fact, we’re doing quite the opposite.
Last month on May 1st, Gloria and I drove to
Walking through the museum, which chronicles the unprecedented tragedy that happened, less than seventy years ago, during the dark days of Nazi Germany was a most sobering experience. The Holocaust, as we all know, was the systematic, state sponsored persecution and murder of approximately 6 million Jews from 21 European countries, including 1.5 million children.
Although Jews were the primary victims of Nazi tyranny, other groups were targeted as well, including Gypsies, people with disabilities, Poles, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners-of-war, political dissidents… totaling another 5 million people intentionally murdered for racial, ethnic, or nationalistic reasons.
According to its Visitors’ Guide, the
A moral and spiritual question that has troubled me and lots
of others for a long time is this: how could the worst catastrophe in
human history have happened in one of the most Christian countries in
In the 1930’s and 40’s,
Hitler and many of his top henchmen like Heinrich Himmler (SS
chief and overseer of death camps in the East), Joseph Goebbels (Nazi propaganda
chief), Reinhard Heydrich (principle planner of the “Final Solution”) and Rudolf
Hoess (architect and SS Commandant of Auschwitz), were baptized Catholics, as
were large numbers of the Third Reich’s security forces, military, civil
servants, judiciary, concentration camp personnel and ordinary citizens, like
you and me. Those who weren’t Catholic were Protestant.
Catholic and Protestant churches remained official state
churches throughout the Nazi regime, which meant that the state collected a
church tax and funded church expenses. Religious education remained part of the
state education system; chaplains served in the military; and theological
faculties remained active within state universities. Article 24 in the Nazi
Party Program professed "positive Christianity" as the foundation of the German
state.
People in Nazi Germany and, indeed, throughout Europe went
about their lives attending religious services, receiving communion, reciting
creeds, saying the rosary, wearing crucifixes around their necks, celebrating
Christmas and Easter, while huge numbers of their neighbors were being forcibly
rounded up, herded off in cattle cars to concentration camps as smoke stacks
from crematoria were belching out thick, black smoke. The first
concentration camp,
Hitler’s rise to dictatorial power from total obscurity
(within a republic, no less) was by no means a foregone conclusion. There
were plenty of opportunities to stop him along the way, if more people of
conscience had been willing to do so. In his autobiography, Mein Kampf,
(“My Struggle”) published in 1925, eight years before becoming German chancellor
in 1933 and nine years before his death camps were at full killing capacity in
1942, Hitler clearly set forth his vision for the Third Reich, including his
plan for territorial expansion and the creation of a “racially pure” European
society, dominated by a Teutonic “master race.” In Mein Kampf, he minces
no words in calling for the elimination of Jews from
How can history not conclude that Christian self-deception of
monumental proportion was taking place in Nazi Germany and
Obviously, not all Christians of the time were practicing
self-deception, as there are many documented cases of people acting heroically,
following their consciences, even to risking their lives to protest and protect
targeted victims of Nazi terrorism. And it is imperative to recognize and
commemorate their deeds …..the type of moral and ethical behavior that Jesus has
in mind in today’s gospel.
George Santayana said: “Those who do not remember the past are
condemned to relive it,” which is why I was pleased to see so many visitors at
the museum on that day in May, most of them school age children. We certainly
need to teach our children about the Holocaust and we adults need to learn more
about it ourselves as well.
If there’s any doubt about the need for such education,
consider this. There are those living today, including
Today, more that 60 years after the Holocaust ended,
anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history, it is a current event.
U.S. embassies worldwide have noted an increase in anti-Semitic
incidents, attacks on Jewish people, property, cemetaries, community
institutions, and synogogues. Discredited myths about Jews, like their
need for the blood of Christian children in religious rituals or a Jewish plot
to take over the world, persist, particularly in Middle Eastern countries.
And neo-Nazi groups continue to spring up throughout the world.
Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, Russian novelist and Nobel Prize winner wrote: “The line
separating good and evil passes through every human heart…and even in the best
hearts there remains an unuprooted small corner of evil.” That’s another
reason Jesus reminds us in today’s gospel to be vigilant about our behavior, so
as not to fall into the trap of self-deception. Obviously, the
consequences can be lethal.
Deacon Anthony Sciolino
Church of the Transfiguration
Romans 3:21-25, 28
Matthew
9th Sunday in Ordinary Time