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This
past Saturday
Krešo was murdered. He was a casual friend, a young Bosnian on holiday
in the Croatian town of Split. A gang of locals figured out his nationality,
slit his throat, and stabbed him in the heart. He died six hours
later in the local hospital. No doubt his murderers justified their crime
by reminding themselves that Krešo was the "enemy." It happens every
day here in the Balkans. "Good people," (anyone you happen to be talking
to), pour out their vengeance on "bad" people - anyone different from
themselves. It’s a culture of finger-pointing. If you ask the average
Bosnian what the problem is he’ll likely point a finger across the street to his
neighbor. So the whole conundrum is perpetrated in an endless cycle of
prejudice and revenge until the last "good person" is left standing. (Or
was that a "bad person"?) I find myself asking, "How in the name of
Heaven, can so many "good people" live like
hell?
It’s the
destiny of a culture that denies the sinfulness of man. Having thrown off
God’s pronouncement that "all have sinned" we’ve advanced to the enlightened
view that all are good - except of course for those who have gone
rotten along the way. But if you’re talking about me - I’m a "good person,"
thank you. The only problem with "good people" is that they’re a
notch above the rest. We’ve forgotten that the tree of the human race has
it’s roots in sin, and that I, as a part of that tree cannot be anything but
a sinner. That wormy leaf across the way? It’s a sinful leaf, just like
me. And that twisted branch under me springs from the same sinful roots
that I bore me. It might look a little differenton the outside, but we
share the same sap and we produce the same rotten
fruit.
A number of years ago the London Times published a series of editorial
thoughts by some of the greatest thinkers of the day. The topic was,
"What’s wrong with the world?" Each person was asked to expound his
opinion of what the problem was. G.K. Chesterton penned both the shortest
and most succinct of the responses: "Dear sirs, I am."
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on
everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to
pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up
and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men--
robbers, evildoers, adulterers-- or even like this tax collector. I fast
twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' "But the tax collector stood
at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast
and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man,
rather than the other, went home justified before God. Luke
18:9-14
What is
the problem in the Balkans? in America, in the world? It’s us “good
people.” We simply refuse to believe that “I am like other men.” I am a murderer, a liar, a
hypocrite in need of God’s incredible mercy. Those Croatian teenagers who
killed my friend? I’m just like they are. And without Jesus my heart would
be just as full of the same venom. When that truth begins to sink into our
hearts, then perhaps the humility of the cross will flood our cities and
bring healing to the nations.
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