I was working on a sermon today for the third Sunday of Advent, the theme is Love. In reading I came across this beautiful illustration of the meaning of sacrificial love.
Jack Kelley, a reporter from USA Today tells the story of a trip to East Africa in which he was taught a very valuable lesson. He was in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, to cover a terrible famine. It was so bad that as he walked toward the village he saw many people already lying on the ground dead. In his retelling of the story he recalls how the smell of death is something that gets into your hair, onto your skin, onto your clothes, and can’t be washed off.
As he made his way down the road he came across a little boy. He could tell that the boy had worms and was malnourished; his stomach was protruding. His hair had turned a reddish color and his skin had wrinkled as if he were 100 years old, both signs of malnourishment. The photographer who was traveling with the reporter had a grapefruit which he gave to the boy.
But the boy was so weak that he couldn’t hold the whole grapefruit for himself. And so they cut the grapefruit in half and gave it to him. He took the grapefruit, looked up at the two men as if to say “thank you” and began to walk back towards his village. What the little boy didn’t realize was that the photographer and reporter were following at a distance.
As he entered the village, there was another little boy who looked to be dead. His eyes were completely glazed over. As it turned out, this was his younger brother.
The older brother kneeled down next to his younger brother, bit off a piece of the grapefruit and chewed it. Then he opened up his younger brother’s mouth, put the grapefruit in, and worked his brother’s jaw up and down. The reporter and photographer later learned that the older brother had been doing that for the younger brother for two weeks.
A couple days later the older brother died of malnutrition, and the younger brother lived.
Beautiful story, if it were true. On January 6, 2004 the author of the story, Pulitzer Prize winner, Jack Kelley resigned in disgrace from USA Today. Part of his admission was that he fabricated this and many other stories in his tenure as a top writer at the paper. Read an account here.
While I would love to share the story this Sunday, of course I cannot. But the story about the fabricated story has me considering another question, not of sacrificial love, but of why is it wrong to make up a good story to spur people to do the right thing?
Of course I am assuming that Mr. Kelley was making up the story to move people to alleviate famine in Somalia, big stretch I know but I want to give him the benefit of the doubt here for a moment.
People who are motivated to help others are not angels and are still prone to blurring the lines, even when they think they are doing it to benefit others. I will readily admit that one of the greatest temptations in preaching is not to out and out lie about something, but to embellish a story to make what I believe is an important point. The illustration Mr. Kelley created would be a powerful one to help people consider the sacrificial love of Christ and also call each of us to care for those who are in need – two things I feel very passionately about. I want people to know the sacrifice of Christ. I want people to care for the hungry and needy. But lying to make that happen is not the best way to go about it.
In Genesis 12 and 20 Father Abraham lies about his relationship with Sarah. Some might say he tells half of the truth. He explains in Genesis 20:11-13 “But indeed she is truly my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother”.
It is interesting that he lies twice in similar situations, telling a story which sounds good and has some truth to it, but in the end leads to a pitiful outcome.
We learn from this that some of the hardest places to trust God are in the places we have failed before. We also see in the pattern of Abraham’s life that he is constantly trying to “help God” along with the great plan he has for Abraham. (see Hagar and Ishmael as a perfect example).
Maybe Mr. Kelley wanted to help the plight of starving Somalians. It is certainly plausible for a brother to do what he describes to help a brother. You and I would probably hope that we would do the same if such a situation existed. But it wasn’t the case, it just didn’t happen and helping God along does not work.
Many people who have the best of intentions face this dilemma regularly. When is it appropriate to lie or worse to try to save someone. Two examples of this question play themselves out in the Sound of Music where the nuns disable the Nazi’s automobile and in a much graver reality in the life of Deitrich Bonhoffer.
There are so many decisions we make where we find a strong temptation to say, the ends justify the means. But this is a dangerous road.
I am going to keep praying and looking for that perfect illustration for Sunday, but this story reminded me of a wholly unanticipated lesson.
Prayer: God help me to trust you enough today to tell the truth and let you handle the consequences. Amen.
