The Reverend Ted was a large, formidable-looking fellow. Six feet four and then some, he was not quite muscular, but certainly not fat, either; he was pale, and his close-cropped black hair matched his black-rimmed glasses and plain black suit. The only specks of color on his otherwise monochrome frame were an assortment of gold rings, a cross of the same color pinned to his lapel, and a nose that was nearly always red in hue, summer or winter. He kept a handkerchief in his suit pocket and was sometimes known to pause even during sermons to blow his nose lustily, the sound echoing through the large, old church.
Even his eyes were gray, and when coupled with his large nose, black hair and black wardrobe the overall effect was that of a huge bird of prey perched over the simple wooden podium, his piercing eyes surveying the room as if looking to make meal of someone. When he spoke his eyes flickered around the room, from person to person, never quite as gentle a stare as one might expect from a man of God. He was on the hunt, in his sermons. He was an eagle of justice, and a falcon of righteousness. Outside of the church, he was an intimidating presence, but when preaching he seemed to grow larger still, as if the words of God were having a physical effect on his very being.
On this day he seemed in an especially good mood. This made him no less intimidating, mind you, but it was still a relief to his captive audience, who to a person knew that Reverend Ted in a bad mood was a much more frightening presence than Reverend Ted in a good mood. In a good mood, Reverend Ted would talk about the kind and loving God; when he was feeling more foul, the sermons would be of the wrathful and vengeful God, the words vivid in their depiction of fire and brimstone and eternal chaos waiting around every corner, for any unfortunate soul that wandered out of his church without learning the week's lesson in full. Whether the words of his sermons made him feel foul or whether his own mood came first and set the words loose afterwards was never quite clear, on those occasions, but what was more evident was that both mood and sermon seemed nearly always to match the weather. During sunny days, the sermon was sunnier; during rain or snow, the talk of hellfires would rise to the fore, and the bitterly cold congregation would close their eyes and feel slightly warmer just from those rhetorical flames.
Today, however, was a glorious late-summer day, hot but not too hot, breezy but not windy, and just the right amount of clouds to give the sky a proper postcard look without daring to cast their shadows anywhere near the old rural church. The Reverend Ted nearly beamed, behind his podium, as he addressed his congregation. Light streamed in through the eastern church windows, each beam highlighting every bright speck of dust in its path, creating captivating eddies of light.
"The sanctity of life," the Reverend Ted intoned, looking down on his congregation with those piercing gray eyes. "The sanctity. Of. Life." He paused for effect. "What do these words mean?"
It was a rhetorical question: he did not expect an answer from his captive audience. If he wanted a true answer, the tone was different. The tone was not different.
"To sum it completely, it means that all human life is sacred, from the oldest to the youngest, from the richest to the poorest. The great gift that God has bestowed on each of us is non other than life itself. An existence. An awareness. A purpose."
He touched the frame of his glasses with his right hand, a sign that what he was saying was something of deep import. If it was of very deepest import, such as when talking about the dangerously close fires of Hell, he would have taken the glasses off in a sweeping, dramatic gesture; he did not.
"Nothing the Lord grants a person can compare to that. No amount of money, or fame, or good fortune. Not finding a fine wife, or raising a child, or immersing yourself in the passions of a job well done. All these are secondary. No matter what travails you may face, know that your very existence itself is God's gift to you. Your ability to praise Him—no, your very ability to think at all—hinged on the Lord's eternal grace. He created this entire existence for you, and placed you in it. Nothing can compare, my children. Nothing."
He did a passable impression of a happy person, as he said each of these things. He was smiling, at least, and even though a wide majority of his congregation suspected that he was incapable of a sincere smile, and that those occasions where he did smile were merely out of a sense of social obligation, it looked something close to legitimate. Now the smile faded, and his tone turned more serious.
"It stands to reason, then, that the vilest crime that can be perpetrated on someone is to take that life from them. That God-given life, that holiest of all gifts. To destroy that gift, to kill that gift, is the worst of all possible sins. You are taking that which is God's greatest accomplishment, a single human life, and casting it to the ground." He made the motion with his hand, as he was saying the words casting it to the ground, for emphasis.
"What a monstrous act. What a vile, vile sin. If you steal money, money can be returned. If you were to punch someone in the face, you might break their nose, but it will at least heal. If you covet your neighbor's wife, you can atone for your sins. But there is no redemption that can be made for someone's very life. It cannot be taken back. Amends cannot be made."
The sunlit eddies of dust continued to swirl before each tall window. During each pause in the sermon, birds could be heard chirping in the trees outside. Sparrows, mostly, but here and there a nearby jay would chime in with a loud, proud-sounding squawk.
"Amends can not be made," the Reverend repeated. "Every last soul is a sacred thing, no matter how old, or how young. God treats rich and poor the same; God considers us all equal in His eyes, from the lowliest sinner to the greatest saint; God demands that we hold our gift of life sacred, and the lives of all those around us. Once God has created a life, He has spoken. He has said, let this soul live, for I have declared it to be so. Meddle with God's most Holy Gift, and you have blasphemed Him abominably. Do you think yourself God? Do you think your own judgment is above that of the Almighty Lord?" He took his glasses off in a sweeping, dramatic gesture, so that his eyes could better pierce the very souls of his congregation. He surveyed the room, then slowly replaced his glasses using both hands.
"And yet there are those who believe that they are above the will of God. I am talking of course about the birth controllers and the abortionists. In the latter case, you snuff out a life that God has already declared should exist. In the former case, you are preventing a new soul from even being formed in the first place, no matter what God Himself may have planned for that soul. That may be even worse. It may be worse. No, there are killers among us, my friends, and I fear for our great nation, for we have lost our way, and our government has lost touch with our church, and gone in a separate and un-Christian direction. There are those around us who do not value the sanctity of life. They do not understand that Thou Shall Not Kill even applies when that other God-granted life may be inconvenient to you. Inconvenient! As if mere humans were allowed to declare when another human was to inconvenient to live!" As he talked his voice became louder and louder, and he spit out the last words as if they were actually bitter on the tongue.
Now he spoke softly again, and sadly. "My children, to think that we live in such times. To think that we would not know this most basic of lessons, that life is a sacred thing. That no one, not one person, has the right to harm the life of another. No matter how innocent, or how guilty. No matter how young, or how old. You must not take an act of God and thwart it via your own sins. There is no excuse. There is no atonement. If life is sacred, then life is sacred, and it is not up to you nor I to decide who lives or who dies. That is for God to decide. I tell you, God shall damn all those that put themselves in judgment over another life!"
The jay outside the window gave a mighty screech, momentarily silencing all the other birds. It was an unabashed sound, not a small, pretty chirp. A jay values volume over beauty, and the sound twinkled with self-satisfaction.
"So I ask you, my children. If life is sacred, what possible reason could any person give for taking a life? For playing the role of God Himself, and ending a life? Preventing, for the poor murdered soul, all future chances at happiness, and more importantly, all future chances to celebrate in the glory of the Lord, and to praise Him? If you take a life, there is no chance of redemption for the murdered person: there is no opportunity for them to make amends with God for their sins, or to learn to know God and, in doing, achieve a place in His Kingdom. Who are you to make such a decision for them?"
His voice was almost conversational; here he was playing the role of the Lord's advocate, not the Lord's fiery preacher. "I ask you this, then. If human life is a sacred thing, than what possible justification could any member of humanity have for taking a life?" This time his tone was different, meaning he expected an answer from his audience.
There was a long pause.
"If they are a murderer themselves." A man's voice from the fifth or sixth pew echoed through the old church. It was a quiet but confident assessment.
The Reverend Ted smiled, a genuine but somewhat frightening smile, the sort of smile he had on when he talked about brimstone and the like.
"Yes, my children. If human life is sacred, then it stands to reason that the only irredeemable crime is to kill. If you are a murderer, than you are both a menace and a blasphemer, for you have undone the one thing that should never be undone, and ended a life." He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, gave a soft, gentle blow, refolded it and replaced it where it came from. This made his pause exceptionally long and dramatic, and when he resumed it was with an air of certain authority, the Reverend Ted at his best and surest.
"To this day in our nation, we have one crime that may be met with a sentence of death: to kill another. That is because of the ultimate severity of the crime. There is no redemption, at least not in this world. That person has forfeited their own life. A person who kills another should be sent straight to God outright, to come face to face with our Lord, and face his judgment."
"But what of the executioner," a young voice said from the fourth pew on the other side of the church, near the eastern windows. "Since they killed, would God not also consider them murderers?"
The Reverend Ted smiled again. "No, my child. It is a common question, I assure you, but the task of that person is a noble one, for their actions are for the protection of others. They are merely carrying out the judgment of society. By ending the life of the killer, they will ensure the killer never takes another life, and will send a message to the rest of God's enemies as to the severity of the crime."
"But what if they executed an innocent person by mistake? Then it would be murder, because the person they killed had committed no crime."
The preacher furrowed his brows slightly. "From a technical sense, yes, but remember: it was not their fault an innocent man was sent to them. The same goes for all involved. If there is certainty among the authorities, or among the jury, God can hardly fault them for exercising their best judgment. I acknowledge your true heart, my child, for it is a fine question to ask, but God is clever, and knows the intent of those that may have reached their best judgment even if the evidence later turned out to be misleading. I ask you, let us suppose that innocent people are among those sentence to death. Let us just say that is the case: what would be worse? To execute an innocent person, perhaps one in a hundred, or one in a thousand, in attempting to execute the truly guilty, or to execute no one, allowing all of those other criminals to live?" His tone indicated he wanted no answer.
"It may be the case that sometimes the innocent are killed, and truly that is a sorrow to God. But the alternative is impossible, for mere men: we cannot say with one hundred percent certainty who is guilty and who is innocent, because we are imperfect beings. Think of the chaos that would ensue, if we attempted to decide each case with an absolute certainty. What is absolute? How absolute is it? We most certainly do the best we can, but how many appeals should each man be granted, and how long should it take before we say enough already? Already, these things take too long, drawing out the suffering of all involved. Think of the chaos and the expense; we would waste millions of dollars, all for the sake of a mere possibility that someone was innocent. And even then, the odds are not good that any of the criminals would be."
"If life is sacred, though, than who are we to kill even the truly guilty?" the smaller voice said. "Could they not perhaps find redemption themselves someday, even within their prison?"
"Perhaps," the Reverend Ted said, still gently. He was enjoying his role as teacher and as scholar of God. "Perhaps they could, my kind child. But they would find it only at the expense of the rest of us, as we fed them, and clothed them, and housed them, and how cruel it is already for the righteous to care for the unrighteous. We are continually asked to coddle the sinners among us. We pay for their meals, we pay to have them guarded, and as often as not it seems they do not learn their lessons and keep up their sinful ways. At some point we must refuse to shoulder the burden for all these sinners." He made a dismissive gesture, and let out a small sigh. "Always, the righteous are asked to suffer for the sinful. There must be a balance in all these things."
The jay outside was putting up a momentary ruckus, which somewhat detracted from the solemnity of the moment. The Reverend Ted gazed sorrowfully at his congregation. "I can say this, however. Whether they are all guilty, or whether a single one is innocent, or ten or twenty, I can assure you that God most certainly recognizes the burden put upon us, in these situations, and I say to you, surely he will bless those that face the difficult task of putting themselves in judgment over another life."
The church was silent, except for the continuing sound of birds outside. The Reverend continued on. "So aside from punishing the condemned, I ask you again: if life is truly sacred, and each soul is just as precious as all others, than who among us has the right to kill? What could cause any of us to take on the role of the Lord and decide affirmatively upon the death of another? How can it possibly be justified?"
After a long pause, a woman's voice spoke up from near the back of the church. "Heathens," she said. "War that protects us from the heathens."
"Very good, very good. War. Against the heathens." He emphasized each word as he said it. "By this we mean primarily the Muslims, of course, but there are plenty of others out there as well, the Hindu and the dark religions of Asia, and even some of the lesser branches of Christianity, if you can call them that. The Bible is full, absolutely full, of example after example of the Lord leading armies of the righteous to drive out the heathens and the sinners. The great kings of the Old Testament each fought valiantly for the sake of the Lord, and He in turn rewarded them and their subjects. Surely then, our Bible tells us it is acceptable to kill if it is for the greater glory of our Lord. God has granted our nation prosperity, and in return we are asked to bring God's prosperity to the heathen peoples of the world. The means, in this case, can be forgiven because of the greater resulting good. They are violent peoples, and we are not. They use their religion as excuse for monstrous acts, and we do not. We know of the inherent God-given sanctity of life, and that is the difference between us."
The same small voice spoke up again, though hesitantly this time. It was not clear if this was one of those pauses that was meant for a question or simply for dramatic effect. "But in wars, lots of innocent people are killed, and children. If those lives are sacred, too, then—"
"Oh, they are, my child. The lives of children are especially sacred, in the eyes of the Lord, for they are innocent, and for them to die is truly a tremendous sorrow to Him. That is why war should be waged only by the righteous, and only for righteous reasons, because the costs are high, and so many sacred lives are lost. Yes, even the heathen children God cares greatly for, and He blesses them especially upon their deaths, for those deaths were for a higher purpose. Those deaths were to secure peace and freedom for their own countrymen and ours, and that is a noble sacrifice indeed, even if they did not themselves intend to commit it. Not as noble as that of our own soldiers, of course—it is obvious, our sacrifice is greater, because our souls are greater—but it is still a noble thing, and I am sure the Lord acknowledges it as such."
He paused. The Reverend Ted's sermons were always full of pauses, small ones and large ones, calculated ones and casual ones, and this was a great, weighty pause indeed, full of import and purpose. Even the birds outside had stopped their chirping; whether the previously rambunctious jay had driven them all off, or whether they had simply all fallen together into a momentary silence was impossible to say. The slanted beams of light shining through the windows continued to highlight the swirling specks of dust in the old church, and he seemed himself to stare at them for a while before returning to his lecture.
"Of course, these are of course very difficult questions to contemplate. It is impossible to deny the ultimate preciousness—nay, the ultimate sacredness—of human life, but at the same time, the world is full of death, is it not? Every person will eventually die, every last man and woman and child will, eventually, go to join our Lord. Our time here is meant only as preparation for that great day, for while life is sacred, it would be meaningless, utterly and completely without any value at all, without the even more sacred sacrament of death that leads us into the afterlife eternal. No, God does not mean to torment us here in this life, but He does mean to test us. To test our mettle, so to speak, and judge the strength of our souls.
"I will tell you first and foremost who decides who lives and who is to die, and it is God. If you are prosperous, it is due to your faith in His almighty plan; if you suffer misfortune, it is because you lack that faith. God is not fickle, after all. If something is to happen, then it will happen. He will be sure of it, that I can promise you. And that, in turn, leads us to our next question. Who among us is closest to death? I mean it in the most general case. Which groups of people hold onto their precious and fragile God-given lives most tenuously?"
"The sick," said a man's voice in one of the first pews. "The old," said a woman a dozen rows back.
"The sick, and the old. The sick, and the old, and I will add the poor. Especially in other countries of course, but even here in our own, there are families with nothing to eat, and people who are sick but lack any form of payment for their treatment, or people who have lived their lives well and fully, but who now find themselves aged, and infirm, and can no longer provide for their own support. Yes, the world is full of people in poverty. The world is full of the infirm, and those that suffer from afflictions of all sorts. The world is full to the brim with death. Let us presume, out of Christian kindness, that it is not the fault of the persons involved. It may simply be God's divine plan. A test for them, or for those around them, or perhaps merely an unfortunate single fate that is necessary in order for God's plan to move forward, to move forward to its final conclusion."
He took his glasses off with one hand, and wiped their lenses with another small handkerchief he produced from the pocket of his coat. "A pity, to be sure. Life is so precious, so sacred, and yet so fragile. And that is our task, my children. That is the task given to us by the Lord. To comfort the afflicted, and to provide some meager assistance to the poor. Each of you here today is called upon to perform your own acts of grace. Charity and noble deeds, that is the entire point of both. That is why acts of charity are so important, because they affirm the giver in the eyes of the Lord. It is charity that demonstrates, for each of us, that we truly understand the preciousness of life even for those whom God has decided to punish with illness, hunger, or frailty. It affirms us!"
His audience murmured with approval, in the form of a series of quiet amens that rippled through the old church. One did not say hallelujah in the Reverend Ted's church, because it smacked too much of joy, and the Reverend Ted was not keen on expressions of joy during his sermons, but an amen was allowed as expression of general approval, when he had made an particularly impressive point.
"That is why the Lord will bless you, if you help care for the poor or the sick. That is why we pass the collection plate during each service, and why the Lord asks that you give a tithe of ten percent to the church, so that, collectively, we may do good deeds for those in need.
"Even in our own nation, there are people mired in poverty. There are sick people who cannot afford the treatment that could save them. A family may suffer the tremendous blow of losing a father, and be unable to fend without him. A father may lose his job, a family may lose their home, a child may lose their education, even their very future. But we as Christians can at least provide comfort, in those times of need. We can do small things. We are the vessels for our Lord's own grace, and he acts through our deeds. Name them, my children. Name some of the things we can do to help those who are sick or hungry, and in our need."
"Give them a meal."
"Hold a food drive, or a clothing drive."
"A fundraiser, to help pay their bills."
"Pray for them."
"Help to prevent them from becoming poor or sick in the first place, but provide for them if they are."
The last of these was said by the same young questioner who had spoken earlier. The Reverend Ted's face flickered with an indescribable momentary expression before returning to a more gentle visage.
He spoke gently, addressing his remarks to the general area where the youthful voice had come from, somewhere near the eastern windows. "Truly, that would be a wondrous thing, if we could simply wave our hands and prevent the sick from becoming sick, or prevent the poor from becoming poor. But if it is God's plan, we cannot interfere, nor could we truly make a difference if God did not will it. It is a very noble thought, a very ambitious one, indeed, but perhaps too ambitious—and remember, ambition is itself a sin, if it presumes too much. Who are we to judge God's divine plan? If we were not merely to comfort, but to prevent these tragic circumstances, would we not be playing the role of God, as surely as the abortionists or the birth controllers?"
The voice spoke up again. "But if life is sacred, and if we are vessels of God's will, surely God would want us to work to protect every life, and do our best to prevent poverty or sickness wherever it might appear, so that suffering does not take hold of those lives."
This was bold, on the part of the questioner, for the Reverend Ted had not paused in his speaking, and had not used the special tone of voice that indicated he wished to hear from his audience. The congregation was visibly uncomfortable at the outburst, and to a person stared at the Reverend, wondering what reaction it might elicit.
The Reverend Ted gave a short dramatic pause, but if he was angered he did not show it. Instead he let loose a small sigh, a sound of grace and sorrow mixed with a twinge of disappointment, before answering.
"Yes, we should work to reduce suffering, my child. Of course. But reducing it is one thing, and eliminating it is another. One is charity, and is a moral absolute; the other is, to be blunt about it, a path towards something akin to collectivism, and is far more ambiguous and dangerous a thing." He touched his glasses for effect.
"You may know it as socialism, or even as communism in its most wicked form, and it carries with it a great moral hazard, not to mention the taint of many past tyrants and atheists. To prevent sickness en masse, or to truly banish poverty in a nation, it sounds well and good, but to do so would require the righteous and the hardworking to act as nursemaids for the entire population. Imagine—even the shiftless, the lazy, even the heathen may benefit. Is it God's plan to give aide and comfort even to the undeserving, or the wicked? If a man is poor because he is wretched in the eyes of the Lord, then to comfort him is one thing, but preventing that wretched state, thwarting that suffering ordained by God, and at the expense of the Christian and the righteous, no less—no, that does not sound like God's divine plan to me."
The Reverend Ted's voice grew louder, which meant that he was both sure of himself and sure that what he was about to impart was particularly inspired and important. A brief, sudden gust of wind outside shook the eastern windows ever so slightly, which added additional drama; the same persistent jay could be heard again now as well, but its chattering had grown considerably more distant than before. "That is critical, my children, for all human life is sacred, but that does not mean that every human life is equally sacred. Are the lives of sinners as sacred as those of the righteous? Are the lives of the poor truly as sacred, in the eyes of the Lord, as the rest of us? If it is so, then why has he punished them? If the lives of the sick or infirm are equally sacred to the life of the healthy, then why has God assigned them the worse fate?"
There was not a sound in the old church. No sound inside, and no sound without. No birds, not even a breeze to rustle the trees.
"I will admit to you, my children, I fear for us all. I fear for our very nation, for our nation suffers greatly from the vanities of believing we can thwart God's will. With each passing year, our times get darker still, and we drift farther and farther, as a nation, from God's own purposes." As he said darker still, the sky seemed to darken in sympathy with the statement; a lone cloud must have broken free from the Reverend Ted's imposed banishment, and the light streaming through the eastern windows dimmed as it passed overhead. This in turn wiped clean the slanted columns of visible, swirling dust, and time in the old church seemed to halt with their absence, for nothing moved. No person, no speck of dust, no wayward fly, and certainly not the Reverend Ted himself, who had halted, bolt-upright, upon completion of his sentence.
"I fear that our nation has been captured, my children, by the twisted morality of the atheist and the socialist. Too often now, the roles of church and government are made to overlap, and too often, government presumes the role of morality and charity where that role should rightly be left to the church, and to the children of God. No, too often the government decides to undertake charity themselves. They are entirely unsuited for it, and are indiscriminate in allocating their supposed generosity, with health care programs, or food programs, or unemployment programs scattered about even to the undeserving or to those who may have never set foot in a church in their lives."
His voice boomed, and any murmured amens were lost in the echoes.
"But it is worse than even that, because that money that they use comes straight from our own pockets, straight from the wallets we use to conduct our own charitable efforts, does it not? The more money they take from us, the less we have to give to the deserving ourselves, is that not correct? And for what? A government concerned about charity—it would be like the church deciding to issue parking tickets!"
An appreciative chuckle spread through the crowd. This was the Reverend Ted in fine form, now, combative and thundering and full of excellent points.
"I ask you, if the government feeds all the poor, will the government go to heaven? If the government cares for the sick, does that mean that the government will reap the heavenly benefits of the act, instead of members of our great church? No, it is one thing to be charitable, my children, but it is quite another thing to have charity forced upon you by an outside force, so that you cannot control it, or dispense it properly, or properly gain grace from it. Here we ask you to give a small stipend of ten percent to our church, so that we may do the Lord's work, but the government asks you for much more than that, and how much of that, precisely, is the Lord's work? Not very much, I assure you." A few amens rose from the crowd, here, but he did not wait for them to abate before continuing.
"No, I fear for our nation, my children. I ache, my children, for a truly Christian nation, a nation formed in His image and dedicated towards His great plan, and not one that will steal the acts of grace from its Christians in an attempt to gain an empty grace for itself. We are here today to discuss the sanctity of human life and the inviolate commandment to honor and protect that sanctity, but outside those doors, my children, we are led by a government that seeks to coddle the worst of sinners rather than efficiently execute them, and that seeks to make peace with our enemies, rather than destroy them. It seeks to feed even the undeserving hungry, and care for even the undeserving sick, and provide for even the undeserving old, and that does not sound like a Christian nation to me."
His audience erupted with a chorus of amens, and the whole church was filled with bouncing echoes. The cloud outside had passed, and light burst back into the old, dusty church, and the church seemed to rejoin the world as a newly invigorated presence, full of joy and peace.
With that the Reverend Ted's sermon was over. There were hymns next, and the passing of the collection plate, and the congregation gave freely and with a sense of good Christian purpose. Then the audience filed out of the old church doors and into the sunlight, content if a little exhausted from the experience, sated in their needs for the Word of God for the coming week. The Reverend Ted attempted to catch a glimpse of his young questioner, as his congregation filed out the tall wooden doors, but it was not to be.
On the top of the old church steeple, on the weathered beams of the large white wooden cross, the loud jay perched, cockeyed and proud against the vast, unending sky. The bird looked nearly colorless in competition with the fierce summer blue that surrounded it: it looked merely gray, or even very nearly white, and perched so high above the old church it seemed for all the world like a wayward albatross that had set down on the mast of a lonely ship.