The "highly civilized human beings" flying over London, trying to kill George Orwell and thousands of others were, of course, the Nazis, according to us, the bad guys.

Some 20 years ago the New York Times carried a book review about a man whose search for his real name symbolized his search for himself, and describes us!

When World War II ended, he was an 8-year-old French Catholic boy who suddenly discovered he was not really an 8-year-old French Catholic boy, but an 8-year-old Jewish boy. His parents had placed him with a Christian family for protection when they were deported to a German death camp.

He discovered his name was not Cojot, but Goldberg. He grew up confused about who he was and to whom he belonged. His confusion of names was part of the whole scenario. Some days he was angry at his original parents for leaving him behind. Some days he felt guilty at having survived them. As a teenager, he hated the Jewish part of himself because Jews were victims. Jews were weak. Jews were unpopular. Jews were somehow to blame for the Nazi atrocities!

He developed a remarkable symptom which doctors could not explain. His right hand became painfully swollen. It was as tho he had called down upon himself the Biblical curse, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill." (Psalm 137:5)

Like many confused, self-hating persons, he drove himself to succeed, in his case as a banker. He made a fortune, but it was never enough. He needed one success after another to fill the emptiness where his identity should have been.

One year he found himself in La Paz, Bolivia as the manager of a large bank. He discovered that living openly in that country was Klaus Barbie, former head of the Nazi operation in France. Barbie was the man who had sent his parents to Auschwitz. Ah, this was his chance to avenge his parents.

He bought a gun and learned to fire it accurately. Pretending to be a reporter, he interviewed Barbie to be sure there was no mistake. Then, one day he sat on a park bench a few yards behind Barbie. He felt the loaded gun in his pocket and was on the verge of realizing the fulfillment of his plan.

Suddenly he decided he could not shoot an unarmed, pathetic old man in the back, not even this Nazi war criminal.

He went back home, expecting to feel like a coward. Instead, he felt an amazingly strange calm. And he realized why. He had indeed killed a Nazi that day. Not the war criminal who deserved to be punished, but the Nazi within his own soul.

Had he shot Barbie he would have been a murderer, the very thing he despised in Barbie. As it was, he had killed the Nazi part of himself, the part who hated Jews and was ashamed of Jewish weakness. He had put to death that part of himself that wanted to shoot, to kill, to destroy in an effort to solve its own problems, to fill its own emotional emptiness, to satisfy its own desire for revenge, retaliation.

Then - a miracle! His right hand stopped hurting! The swelling subsided. The Nazi within had been executed. Healing was almost immediate.

Ten days from today, we (I say we because it is our government about to commit the murder) plan to execute Timothy McVeigh. He didn't murder as many people as Klaus Barbie murdered, but his motives were much the same. He bombed the Oklahoma City federal building as an act of war. He felt justified - he apparently still feels justified - because of the Waco fiasco, where the federal agents behaved in a manner not befitting law enforcement professionals. And the situation in Ruby Ridge, Idaho where the Feds tried to coerce Randy Weaver to be an undercover informant; then when he did not cooperate, they were responsible for killing his wife and baby in an unnecessary shoot-out. It's enough to make one burn with anger.

The Michigan Militia blamed our "evil government," the government they believe is planning to herd us into concentration camps! Incredible. How can anyone's mind be so twisted as to believe such outlandish things? But that is their mentality, as with Timothy McVeigh.

And that was the mentality that motivated the Nazis. The Jews were tho't to be responsible for inequities, iniquities, which mandated their extinction. That distorted mentality is precisely the mindset of perverts - Timothy McVeigh, Klaus Barbie, Jim Jones, David Koresh . . . and the minister who killed the abortion doctor, and the Klu Klux Klansman who killed those four black girls, and, if you please, those who are clamoring for the execution of Timothy McVeigh and others guilty of ugly, revolting crimes.

When bigots, miscreants, evil persons carry out such atrocious deeds, the outrage of the entire country is understandable. You are angry. I am angry. God must be angry. At such times we must take seriously the task of trying to understand why they do the things they do. It isn't easy!

Why do people do things like that? What can possibly influence them? What motivated Saul to hunt down Christians? Suppose he was right, that Christians were heretics, unfaithful Jews. Suppose they were theologically misguided, and doctrinally mistaken. Does that excuse their extinction? Does that really purify the synagogue?

That is the mentality responsible for the Inquisitions, the Salem witch hunts, for all persecutions. We are here describing Saul before the Damascus Road. And we are describing Muslim fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists. In fact, all triumphalists, people who are so sure they have the correct view of God and of truth that they feel a mandate to remove the blemish from the chosen people of God!

If Timothy McVeigh had not got caught, might he have had a Damascus Road experience? Might Jesus have shown himself to McVeigh and explained to him that he was going the wrong way?

Was Saul a Timothy McVeigh who got caught, not by police, but by Jesus? Two questions intrigue me: (1) Why didn't God strike Saul dead instead of giving him a second chance? (2) Was Jesus describing Saul, and Timothy McVeigh, and their ilk, when he prayed from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for do not know what they are doing"? When Jesus looked down from his place at the right hand of God and saw Saul rushing to Damascus, did he say, "Father, he doesn't know what he is doing, let's give him a second chance"?

You may have noticed that we are using the same Epistle we had last week. Stories with a chronological plot usually describe before-and-after scenarios. This time we have reversed that. Last week we looked at Paul, the after-Damascus Road man of God. Today we are looking at Saul, the before-Damascus Road man of God.

Man of God? Saul, the persecutor of Christians, a man of God? Well, you noticed that Jesus did not condemn Saul. He made himself known to him. He didn't scold him. He showed him the better way. He made clear to Saul that he was going the wrong direction. He gave Saul a second chance. First, he gave Saul an education, an explanation of motives, goals, and their impact on behavior. Saul was a brilliant man. He understood what Jesus was teaching. And Saul was a humble man, willing to change.

The whole Saul-to-Paul experience was possible only because Saul had an open mind, only because he was willing to change. That is so important, dear saints, that I am going to repeat it: The whole Saul-to-Paul experience was possible only because Saul had an open mind, only because he was willing to change.

That is a significant theological and psychological verity.

So why did the twisted minds of those who planted the Oklahoma City bomb develop, or rather fail to develop, as they did? We don't know.

When we hear people say, "Now justice has been served" after an execution, what do they really mean? I submit they are not concerned for justice. They want retaliation, revenge. Such an attitude is not Christian. That certainly is not the mature, enlightened mindset of a man like Saul/Paul.

Let's think about it: Why do some people become brilliant achievers, and others from the same family, reared in the very same environment, become societal drop-outs? What happens to a human mind to turn it from a possible benefactor to a terrorist? We don't know.

Why do some students become great scholars, while other students, with similar intellectual acumen, who attend the same schools and study under the same teachers, find it hard to function in society? Why do some people become active Christians while their brothers or sisters, reared in the same homes, have no interest in Christ or his church? We don't know!

However, and this is crucial, we do know that by the law of averages, one who has a good education is more likely to become successful than is one who does not have a good education. We do know that the values and morals and mores of society have an impact on us all. Studies have identified the negative influence of television violence, video games, sports violence in the development of most of those who become criminals.

It is wrong to shout "Fire" in a crowd when there is no fire. People react to frenetic rhetoric, just as they react to every kind of rhetoric. When so-called conservative radio and TV preachers use harsh, caustic, sarcastic language - and you don't have to listen very long to hear that kind of talk - they appeal to unstable minds. It does not take much of that kind of talk to incite impressionable, susceptible personalities to violence.

A minister shoots a physician, a priest says the minister did the right thing, a local religious radio host justifies it, a politician publically hopes he is acquitted . . . So what do we expect?

When we lit the candles in memory of the bombing victims, I reminded you that more children died in the few days of public outcry, as a result of child abuse, children killed by their caregivers, than died in that tragedy! And more women were murdered by husbands or their boyfriends in the same few days after the bombing, than died in that tragedy.

Are we as outraged about those who are murdered by parents and lovers and other close people as we are about those who are victims of the likes of Timothy McVeigh?

Another thing: do you remember how quickly after the bombing was reported, we were told that the men who were sought "appeared to be of middle-eastern descent"?

How grateful I am that it was not true. Here in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights we have more people of "middle-eastern descent" than anywhere other than the Middle East. Some of my Muslim brothers were quite angry about those first reports. Timothy looks about as much like someone of "middle-eastern descent" as I look like a kangaroo!

The Nazi within each of us is a dangerous villain, who can and often does demonize anyone different from us. And it is sometimes done softly in a gentle voice. But it is no less harmful and sinful than when done in a massive violent act.

Because we humans tend to be extremists, someone is sure to say I am suggesting a "soft on crime" attitude, that I advocate a slap on the wrist for McVeigh.

Someone with a killer mentality like McVeigh needs to be locked up. We must not give him an opportunity to do something like that again. But if Saul could become Paul, maybe McVeigh could become McRight. Whether he would or not, I don't know. But I do know that killing him to prove that killing people is wrong is about as logical as beating a 4th-grader because he does not yet understand the law of gravity.

Capital punishment is nothing more nor less than premeditated murder. And since we are the people of the land, we are in a way, responsible! For murder!

And I do know that the mentality of revenge is patently unchristian. In the play The Visit, by Durrenmatt, a very rich woman goes back to her hometown. In return for a significant bequest to the town, she demands the execution of an old man who, in his youth, had been her lover, and had jilted her. (To tell the truth, I don't remember how the story ends, which is really irrelevant)

It was the Nazi within - the classic One-day-one-day-just-you-wait mentality. As Christians, we are not at liberty to entertain such tho'ts.

Jesus was denied by Peter. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But the very first thing Jesus said when he arose was, "Go tell my disciples I am alive. And be sure to tell Peter."

Given the right circumstances, (right=advantageous, not righteous!) the right weapons, and the right motivation, the most civilized of us can be reduced to the Nazi mentality, the inquisition mentality, the self-righteous judgmental mentality, the evil mentality.

A health officer spoke to a group of workers in a factory. "Suppose you were bitten by a rabid dog and were infected, what is the first thing you would do?"

One worker promptly replied, "I would bite my supervisor." You may have to think that thru!

Please, dear friends, open your mind to God's truth and your heart to God's love. Recognize the traits that made Saul what he was, and compare them with the traits that made Jesus what he was.

Saul was exclusive - we are God's chosen people. We have the true way to serve God. Those who don't agree - in this case, Christians, people of The Way - must be excluded in some way. In the case of Saul, in a violent way!

Jesus, on the other hand, included people, people of other cultures - Samaritans, Romans, outcasts, sinners - in his circle of concern. If we take the Sermon on the Mount and the parables seriously, we will surely never lack convictions, even absolutes. But not condemnation!

Religious intolerance motivated Saul to persecute. Compassion and empathy motivated Jesus to serve. Saul was proud of his heritage, his position in society, his religious traditions. Jesus didn't even covet the title Rabbi. He forbad his disciples to reveal his messiahship for two years.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of both sides of the religious struggles of our day: Muslims fighting Hindus in India, Catholics fighting Protestants in Ireland, Jews fighting Palestinians in the Holy Land. (That land is not really so "holy" is it?) Conservatives fighting liberals.

They say no non-smoker is quite so intolerant of smokers as an ex-smoker. So I believe no liberal is quite so intolerant of triumphalists as an ex-triumphalist. There are times my exasperation with the know-all-the-answers triumphalists gets out of hand. When that happens, I stop and remember how black-and-white my theology was, how intolerant I felt about the liberals. They had no morals, no real faith-based scruples. They didn't believe what I believed, so they were wrong!

Mitsuo Fuchida was commander of the Japanese fleet that rained destruction on Pearl Harbor. He was a proud warrior who was dedicated to his emperor and his country and his religion. Like Saul, he was on a mission to purify the world.

Later, he met Christ. He did not gain passion as something new. He just discovered that his passion was in the wrong direction.

One of his compatriots, Kamikazi pilot Sakai Kobayashi, returned home and found his city in ruins from U.S. bombs. He was furious.

Confused and embittered, he wandered into a church that stood as a skeleton, also from American bombs. He heard the Japanese minister quote Jesus, "I say to you, 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.'"

It was the same blinding light that Saul saw on the Damascus Road. He gave his heart to Christ and became a minister. The risen Christ is still in the business of confronting good people who are on the wrong road. He is still in the business of showing us a better way. The Holy Spirit is still in the business of showering us with power, empowering us with truth, directing us in the way.

He can only do that if we are willing. Willing to receive him. Willing to change when it is called for. The same man who said, "It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me" also said, "The good I want to do I don't do, and the evil I don't want to do is what I do . . ."

Obviously, Saul-become-Paul still had progress to make, changes to enact in his experience. So do you. So do I.

Let us pray . . .

Dear Father of us all, grant us the grace to see you in others, to realize that others have different mindsets, different frames of reference, different preconceptions, and therefore different behavior patterns. We pray that you will empower us to show them a better way by our example of love and patience and forgiveness.

To the extent we have experienced the conversion that Saul experienced, we praise and thank you. To the extent we still harbor ill-will toward those who are different, make us enthusiastic evangelists of truth, patient lovers of truth, examples of true Jesus-followers.

Spirit of the living God, fill us with the fullness of the spirit of Jesus.