We Are Not Numbers

Today, today you will be with me in paradise..

I am re-reading a book that changed my life

many years ago when I first read it.

It is Viktor Frankl's book The Man's Search for Meaning.

It is a profound read and in re-reading it

I find myself going through another conversion experience. 

Viktor Frankl was a young psychiatrist in Vienna, 

when the Nazis invaded Austria.

In 1942 he, his parents, his pregnant wife, and his brother

were shipped off to the concentration camps, the extermination camps. 

Over those three years he was in four different camps

and ended his time in the notorious death camp of Auschwitz. 

When they arrived at the concentration camps,

they were stripped of everything.

They took away their clothes,

they took away their papers, their passports,

and they deliberately burnt their passports in front of them.

They even took away their name.

They took away their body hair, shaved them from head to toe.

They literally had nothing but their naked bodies.

They were given numbers

because they were never allowed to be called

by their name ever again.

Viktor Frankl's number was 119104.

That was all he was ever allowed to be called.

They literally tried to wipe out their identity.

In the midst of this, Frankl reflected on it,

and obviously wrote this book after

having eventually been freed from there.

He talked about not only the human depravity

and what humans can do to one another.

That was insightful to him.

It was the mental torture of having your identity been removed,

to be completely reduced to a number.

In this he realized that they took away your clothes, took away your papers, took away your identity,

took away your freedom,

but there was one thing they could not take away.

His choice with how to respond to their depravity.

That was the one thing that you had to give them

that they could not take away.

He held onto that.

He maintained that in the midst of all this,

it became clear to him the ones

who survived the concentration camps

were not the healthiest or the strongest.

It was the ones who found meaning in their life. Meaning.

And what is extraordinary about this is

"How could you find meaning in the midst

of that absolute cruelty and torture?"

But there were two things that they could not take away.

They could not take away how they respond.

That was one.

The other thing was that gave him meaning was the love

that he shared with his wife.

Now his wife was in another camp,

but he held onto that love and

could picture her face,

hear her voice, and

replay the voice and that love over and over again.

Now, he did not realize until after he left the camp

that she had already been exterminated

in the very camp that he was in.

Just a few hundred yards from where he was at that point.

And yet, that love, that love sustained him

and gave him meaning.

He says in the end, the thing that sustains us in our life is love.

Ultimately love alone is what gives our life meaning,

to be loved and to love.

It sounds a whole lot like Christ Jesus in the Scriptures.

What he came to understand was

that is the ultimate meaning for life.

That he could choose no matter what happened in his life.

The reason, I bring all this up is that today

we celebrate the Feast Day of Christ the King

and the readings bring us back to the foot of the cross.

It seems like an odd place to bring us back

as we enter into the end of our liturgy year

and now enter into to the Advent season

as we prepare for Christmas.

Yet, that is where it does brings us, to the foot of the cross.

Here is what is interesting about this place. 

It is here on the feast of Christ the King of the Universe.

There is no crown of gold.

There is no throne.

There is no royal court.

There are no armies to defend Him.

There is just Him hung on a cross between two criminals.

And yet, that is what Christ allows to happen.

It is from here that we need to seek our meaning,

because here is where it comes and unfolds for us. Powerful.

Because what Christ chooses to do

in the face of all this ugliness,

in the face of all this hatred and bitterness and war and hate,

what does He do?

He chooses to love.

He chooses to forgive.

He chooses to be vulnerable.

He does not have power over;

He gives power from within.

You see, in the end, it is Christ who shows us how to choose

in the midst of the worst of our moments of humanity.

He chooses love.

Even though they are sneering and jeering at Him,

even the criminals.

One criminal jeers at Him and says,

"Look, if you are the Christ, save yourself,

oh, and save us, too."

Even in the last moment.

But there is another key moment that is super important.

The second criminal, who we call the good thief,

turns to him and says,

"Stop jeering. We have been judged rightly

because we have been sinners.

He has done nothing wrong."

And then turns to Christ and asks Him,

"Remember me when you come into your kingdom."

Now here where the nexus point is most important.

Jesus does not turn and lecture this man

who was a criminal all his life.

He does not scold him.

He does not demand that he do some act of penance.

He does not require him to have some testimony to the world.

He says, "Today, you will be with me in paradise."

Now here is what is most important, my friends.

If Jesus is willing to do that for a criminal

who has spent their entire life doing things that are wrong,

and he has this last-minute conversion,

how much more mercy and love will He show us

who are trying to live the life of a Christian?

Admittedly, imperfectly.

We do not always get it right, but we are trying.

We are trying.

We are here, and we are trying our best to be that Christian.

That is what Christ promises to give to us.

So, what are we to do with all this?

Here is the challenge for us.

Our world is indeed full of hatred and cruelty and violence. 

That is, in fact, a constant condition of humanity.

All you have to do is watch any news

and it is horrifing to see what we are doing to people,

humans today across the world, even in our own country.

How we are treating each other.

And so what are we to do?

They cannot take away our choice of response.

That is up to you and me to respond in this moment.

We are called to respond,

and we must never give in to those categorizations,

to take away people's identity and call them.

They may not be numbers,

but when we call people different things and group them,

we are removing their identity.

We are removing their sense of dignity.

When we call them Republicans or Democrats

or Blue or Red

or we call them immigrants

or illegal immigrants

or we call them gay

or we call them this

or that, you name the category.

When we do that, we are removing their dignity.

And we have no right to do it,

and we are called to stop.

You and I must choose to stop it.

It is up to us to not give that freedom away.

That they cannot take it from us.

That they shall not take from us.

My friends, I ask you to do three things this week.

The first is never allow other people to take away their dignity.

If you are in the company of people who are doing that,

then gently, firmly, and calmly give them their names back.

Give them their dignity back.

Tell them that they are men and women

with stories, with lives, with children, with parents.

They deserve dignity, number one.

Number two is when we go to the store and we see a barista,

look at their name. Call them by their name.

If you go to the cash desk, see if they have a name badge.

Ask them their name, if they do not,

and call them their name.

Bring down the barriers.

Recognize their humanity and

they are not anything less than our brother or sister.

That includes if you meet a homeless person.

Ask them their name.

They probably have not heard their name for months.

Recognize their dignity. Choose well.

The last one is we are going to be around Thanksgiving.

We are going to have a lot of people and friends and family over.

Let us put down our cellphones.

Let us put down our newspapers and

let us be present to one another.

Let us look at each other.

Let us use each other's names.

Let us give them the dignity of our presence,

whether that it be our elderly and

we honor them by listening to their stories

or whether that be our young ones who are still a story to unfold.

We are called to be present to one another.

It is today, not tomorrow, today we are offered that.

It is today that we are called to stand up,

to call and hold people accountable,

and it is today that we are called to call each other by our names.

Today, today you will be with me in paradise..