The following is a reflection I had the honor to present at St. Clement Church in Lincoln Park on Tuesday, July 18, 2017.
Like many of you, I have had thousands of conversations about religion in my life- perhaps tens of thousands. But today, for the first time in my 58 years, I am asked to lead a reflection for an educated and spiritually developed group of men on a passage from the Bible. I guess there is a first time for everything so- deep breath- here goes.
I had some thoughts on what I wanted to say, but it seemed prudent to find out what could be learned from a more experienced and insightful mind. Thanks to the suggestion of my friend, Paul Link, I decided to begin by searching the homilies of Bishop Robert Baron.
I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Bishop Baron’s focus was very similar to mine. I don’t know if that means “great minds think alike” or “even a blind squirrel finds an acorn on occasion”. In either case, let me begin by sharing some of what the Bishop had to say.
Bishop Baron delivered a sermon on this passage from Matthew on July 20th, 2014. He focused on the existence of evil, the interdependent relationship between good and evil and God’s preference that the enemy is reformed, rather than destroyed whenever possible.
Discussing the interdependence of good and evil, the Bishop quotes Saint Thomas Acquinas who stated:
“There is no survival of the lion without the death of the antelope” and
“There is no virtue of the Martyr without the cruelty of the tyrant”
He used the virtue demonstrated by Saints Edith Stien and Maximilian Kolbe during the tyranny of Hitler as examples of acts of goodness rising from an expression of evil.
Bishop Baron sees the devil as preoccupied with sowing corruption. He finds it no surprise that at EXACTLY the times we make effort to be closest to God, we often face our greatest temptations.
The devil’s children: Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth and Wrath. The seven deadly sins are ever present and can tempt us whenever our guard is down. We are all created in the image and likeness of God, and our free will allows us to accept or reject these destructive forces.
When we are able to use His grace to overcome, Barron states “God rejoices in our cooperation, using our freedom, intelligence, creativity, and enthusiasm to CULTIVATE the seeds he has planted”. Our work is to aid ourselves and others in battling the enemy.
God loves his Enemies. His objective is not to destroy an enemy, but to change it. He seeks as few burning bundles of weeds as possible come judgment day. He uses us and his grace in that pursuit.
Barron states “the Enemy is best defeated by subterfuge and infiltration, rather than direct confrontation”. He cites Moses as an example of undermining and transforming from within, just as kneading yeast into dough transforms the flour and water into bread.
Transformation by its nature takes time. Like the growth of a mustard seed, through grace and the passage of time we are prepared and strengthened for our eventual work.
While patience is certainly not a virtue of mine, Baron sites Franklin Deleno Roosevelt as an example of a man who’s strengths developed over the passage of time. Most historians cite FDR’s long battle with polio as the genesis of not only his compassion but most of what we admire in him as a politician. Had FDR prayed for and been instantly cured of his affliction, we may never have seen the results he was ultimately able to obtain.
My personal perspective on these parables is influenced by a transformative occurrence during my earlier professional career. I was serving as CFO of a nonprofit Community Development Corporation in East Los Angeles on April 29,1992 when the nearby community of South Central LA reached a tipping point. A jury on that day acquitted four LA police officers of assault and excessive force charges related to the beating of Rodney King.
Five years ago, as a segment of a 20-year anniversary series on the LA Riots, I watched an interview of Titus Murphy by KNBC TV in Los Angeles. That interview brought the emotions of those days back to me. I was able to retrieve the interview, thanks to the magic of the internet.
I quote:
“It is one of the most unforgettable and horrifying images from the LA riots: a truck driver is randomly pulled from his truck and beaten nearly to death.
Reginald Denny had been driving for the Transit Mixed Concrete Company when he arrived at the crossroads of the mayhem at Florence and Normandie. The beating was broadcast live on television. Four men pummeled Denny, at one point hurling a brick at his head. Moments later, Denny is on his knees, drenched in his own blood and struggling to get up, when a rioter runs over and kicks him in the head.
By the end of the attack, Denny’s skull was busted into more than 90 pieces.
But how Reginald Denny was saved and how he arrived at the hospital is another legacy from the riots – one of human courage and kindness.
Four strangers ran into the chaos, into certain danger, to rescue a man they didn’t even know.
Titus Murphy was watching the violence unfold on TV a few blocks away. After the brick was thrown at Denny, Murphy could no longer just watch.
“Something inside me said, ‘Get up; you have to do something,” Murphy said.
When Murphy and his girlfriend Terri Barnett arrived at Denny’s truck, Lei Yuille was already in the cab comforting Denny.
Murphy then found himself facing off with a large stranger on a day when every stranger posed a threat. He said they were looking at each other through the truck window.
“We both asked each other, ‘What are you going to do?’ He goes, ‘What are you going to do?’ And I say, ‘What are you going to do?'” Murphy said.
At first, Murphy thought the man could be a rioter who had come to “finish off” Denny. He thought he may have to “take him on” and “if I did that, whatever I had to do I had to do it very fast.”
Then came a moment of relief for Murphy.
“He said to me at that moment that he was a truck driver. I was like cool,”
That man was Bobby Green, the fourth person that came to help Denny that day.
Murphy said the four never introduced themselves, never discussed a game plan. They just went into action.
“It was like we were meant to do that. It’s like we were on a mission. Everything just fell in place, just like it was supposed to,”
The windshield of Denny’s truck was shattered, so Murphy hung off the side of the truck and directed Green as he drove the 80,000 pound truck three long miles to Daniel Freeman Hospital.
“The journey seemed like it took forever,”
Murphy was only concerned about Denny’s welfare. The victim was inside the truck, bleeding profusely.
Murphy said he did have one moment when he was scared: a car load of people carrying guns and sticks approached. He worried that they would go after Denny, so he made a strategic decision to act like a rioter himself.
He said he began beating on the hood of the truck “claiming” it as his own so that the rioters would think “he’s got that” and would go find somewhere else to be destructive.
Shortly after, Murphy saw a patrol car and several officers. He had a moment of hope that help had finally arrived. Murphy said he made eye contact with the officers, and they just continued on.
“We were on our own,” he said.
Source: http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/A-Good-Samaritan-Remembers–148613585.html#ixzz4kyVuhYPu
Reginald Denny is alive today because of these four people. Had Wrath not spread like wildfire through Los Angeles that fateful afternoon, we would never have known how brave those souls truly were.
55 people died, thousands were injured and 1,100 buildings were damaged or destroyed leaving a repair bill of close to a billion dollars for those three fateful days.
In the aftermath of the Riots, I was involved in several projects aimed at revitalizing the more disadvantaged parts of Los Angeles. The high profile projects like ReBuild LA headed by Peter Uberroth ultimately had little effect. They did not create the supermarkets, Minority Business Enterprises or jobs they promised.
Our little non-profit, like the mustard seed, did achieve measurable results over the next five years. As an example, we grew a profitable community bank to 300 million in assets by making loans exclusively in redlined areas. We also converted an abandoned furniture factory into the first grocery supermarket to locate in East LA in thirty years. No doubt the attention caused by the riots aided our efforts.
I do not know what kind of a seed I am. I’m Italian, so it is probably garlic or tomato or basil. What I do know is that I, like each of you, was planted by the finger of God. He placed us in fertile ground and gave us the ability to use his grace to create change.
We are unlikely to encounter anything as dramatic as the Rodney King riots on this day, but each of us will come across some way to do His will. Let us pray that we recognize the opportunity and that we use his grace to cause actions that bring results that are pleasing to Him.
