This is the text of a sermon preached at Bath Road Methodist Church Swindon on Remembrance Sunday 13th November 2022
Last year I was introduced
to the writings of a Dutch woman called Etty Hillesum
Esther (Etty) Hillesum was born on 15
January 1914 in the town of Middelburg, the oldest of the three children. After
completing school in 1932, she moved to Amsterdam to study law and
Slavic languages at university.
Etty Hillesum began writing her diary
in March 1941, possibly at the suggestion of her analyst Julius Spier. Although
his patient, Etty also became his secretary, friend, and, eventually, his
lover. His influence on her spiritual development is apparent in her diaries;
as well as teaching her how to deal with her depressive episodes Spier
introduced her to the Bible and the writings of St.
Augustine
When roundups of Jews intensified in
July 1942, she took on administrative duties for the Jewish Council,
voluntarily transferring to a department of "Social Welfare for People
in Transit" at Westerbork transit camp. Westerbork was a holding
camp for Dutch Jews prior to their transportation to the death camps. By June
1943, Ettie had refused offers to go into hiding in the belief that her duty
was to support others scheduled to be transported from Westerbork to the
concentration camps. On 5 July 1943, her personal status was suddenly revoked,
and she became a camp internee along with her father, mother, and brother
Mischa.
On 7 September 1943, the family were
deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz.
Etty Hillesum’ s parents are recorded
as having died on 10 September 1943, suggesting they died in transit or were
murdered immediately upon their arrival. Her two brothers also died in the
camps. Etty was murdered in Auschwitz on 30 November 1943.
Her diaries record the increasing anti-Jewish
measures imposed by the occupying German army, and the growing uncertainty
about the fate of fellow Jews who had been deported by them. But as well as
forming a record of oppression, her diaries describe her spiritual development
and deepening faith in God.
It was quite an unconventional faith. It is a
faith clearly based on Christian influences and values but whether Christian in
the conventional sense is debatable. Nonetheless in the 18-month year period
covered by the diaries we see a quite remarkable conversion from agnostic Jew
through to deeply spiritual, questioning Christian who came to faith by
kneeling on the floor of the bathroom in her flat and praying.
The reason I am speaking of Ettie today is
because of a thread that runs throughout her diary. And that thread is her
refusal to hate.
Ettie’s diary starts with everyday accounts of
friendships and life under occupation. But within a few entries she tackles the
issue of hatred.
It is the problem of our age: hatred against
the Germans poisons everyone's mind.
In a diary entry of September 1942, she
indicates just how ingrained hatred had become in the mind of the Jewish
population. Ettie recounts a conversation with a student acquaintance. Ettie
relates how the acquaintance thought
“… that all 80 million Germans must be
exterminated. Not a single one must be kept alive. … I could not live with the
kind of hatred so many people nowadays force upon themselves against their
better nature.”
That’s not to say that Ettie
was a saint. She admits that from time to time when she hears of something the
Nazis have done, she does feel hatred. But a few weeks later her diary records
how she rejects the sickness of hatred.
Nazi barbarism evokes the
same kind of barbarism in ourselves. We have to reject that barbarism within
us, we must not fan the hatred within us, because if we do, the world will not
be able to pull itself one inch further out of the mire.
While at the beginning she
merely says hatred does not lie in my nature and we have to reject
the barbarism within us, later she goes further saying hatred is something
which for her is simply impossible. I cannot hate. It's no longer that
she just thinks that hatred is wrong and degrading. She feels hatred cannot be
part of her nature.
This deeper conviction dawns
on her after a particular incident one morning when Jews have been gathered
together in a hall, in order to be registered. During this process she was shouted
at and threatened by an aggressive young Gestapo officer. After describing this
incident, she writes:
“something else about this morning
happened. Despite all the suffering and injustice, I cannot hate others.”
It is a conviction which she
holds right it to the end when she is put on the train to Auschwitz.
It is a quite remarkable
story.
From what we know of Ettie’s
life in that 18-month period she clearly was introduced to the New Testament by
Julius Spier and the Gospels in particular. And I think we can assume that at
some point she would have read the passage of Matthew we heard earlier.
We are all familiar with it.
We all know Jesus’ teaching I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you, Matthew 5:44
When we study this passage,
we have to try and discover what Jesus was saying. And our understanding hinges
on a single word – Love.
Matthew was writing in
Greek. And as the great New Testament scholar William Barclay put it “Greek
often has shades of meaning that English does not possess”. The word “Love”
is a prime example. In Greek there are four different words for love. And depending
on which Greek word is used “Love” can mean different things.
Here Matthew wrote “Agape”.
Agape is love which we could think of as benevolence or goodwill. William Barclay
goes on to say that if we regard someone with agape love then it means
“that no matter what that
person does to us, no matter how they treat us, no matter if they insult us or
injure us or grieve us, we will never allow any bitterness against them to
invade our hearts. We will regard them with that unconquerable benevolence and
goodwill which will seek nothing but their highest good.”
This is a great undertaking. How
can it be possible to love our enemies in this way?
Very often our notions of love can be associated with the heart.
With romantic love. Or great affection. It is almost a natural thing. But to
love our enemy is different. In order to love our enemy is an act of will. It
is something we have to work at.
Agape
is a determination of the mind. Agape is consciously working at unconquerable
goodwill even to those who hate and hurt us.
Agape is the power to love those we do not like including those
who don’t like us. And I suggest it is only by completely surrendering to Jesus
that such Agape can come about.
Whilst Ettie Hillesum might not have expressed it that way, that
is what she was doing. She completely surrendered to Jesus and in so doing made
herself avoid hatred. From what I’ve read she doesn’t specifically talk of
loving her enemies. But the absence of hatred amounts to the same thing.
We have to reject that barbarism within
us, we must not fan the hatred within us,
Despite all the suffering and injustice,
I cannot hate others.
Practising Agape is a big ask. But
practising Agape is a way of hatred growing.
Thank
goodness most of us I hope will never be in a position like Ettie Hillesum. We
will never be confronted by such evil. And hopefully none of us will never be
in a position where we hate someone. Nevertheless, from time to time all of us
may encounter a person who we really dislike. Perhaps in the workplace. Perhaps
in your street. Perhaps those who hold a different political view to us. These
are our “enemies”. How do we react to them? How do we work on that change of
mind to enable us to show them Agape love instead of dislike turning into hate?
The
American Trappist monk Thomas Merton said this:
“Do not be too quick,” he wrote, “to assume that your enemy
is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy because he
thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels you
are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you were capable of loving him,
he would no longer be your enemy.
He went on
"Do not be too quick to assume that your enemy is an enemy
of God just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy precisely
because he can find nothing in you that gives glory to God. Perhaps he fears
you because he can find nothing in you of God's love and God's kindness and
God's patience and mercy and understanding of the weakness of men.
In other
words, who I label as enemy may say more about me than about them. Thinking of
someone as an enemy is down to our mindset.
Finally, and most importantly, Jesus said we are to pray for our
enemies. As difficult as it may seem, if we pray for another then it makes it
far more difficult to hate them. When we take ourselves, and the person whom we
are tempted to hate, to God, something happens. We cannot go on hating another
person in the presence of God. The surest way of killing hatred is to pray for
the person we are tempted to hate.
I have drawn heavily from Patrick Woodhouse's book "Etty Hillesum a life transformed" 2009 Continuum London. I recommend it.
