Sunday, 16 September 2018

THE FOCUS OF MY LIFE


THE FOCUS OF MY LIFE
“People should not be ambivalent themselves just because everything else is. … Do people exist today who never tire of undividedly focusing all their thoughts and desires on a single objective?”  These are the words of a 21 year old girl to her boyfriend, a soldier in the German army during the early years of the Second World War.  Sophie Scholl was writing to Fritz Hartnagel who was beginning to question his own involvement in Hitler’s objectives.
Sophie was part of a group of students in Munich University who realised what was happening –as many in Germany did at the time - and decided to protest.  Secretly they composed leaflets denouncing the Nazis’ aims and deeds, and circulated them in many of the cities of Germany.  It was extremely dangerous and eventually they were caught, “tried” and executed by guillotine.  Sophie never flinched throughout her trial and up to the moment of her death she spoke to all of the evil and disastrous consequences of supporting Hitler’s aims.
We too live in an ambivalent world, though not as cruel as it as then.  I have just been to Europe; where I stayed, rapid trains run to the centre of London every three minutes and nearly everywhere  multiple and varied services are available. 
And yet, despite the abundance of choices, there is a deep felt desire for something that satisfies the heart: a thirst for relationship and yet an inability to achieve it.  There is a desire for community together with a desire to pursue individual goals and it seems often impossible to join these two together.  In Zimbabwe today we want the common good: we want to see justice for all the people.  But often we only want these things so long as they do not interfere with my own goals, my own programme.  Sophis’s words, “People should not be ambivalent themselves just because everything else is”, are a direct call to us today to focus our lives.  What do I really want? Sophie backs up her words with the witness of her life. She died for these words.  She could not tolerate ambivalence in herself and she wanted passionately to convey this message to Fritz and to others. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be too.”
16 September 2018                 Sunday 24 B
Isaiah 50:5-9                            James 2:14-18                         Mark 8:27-35   

No comments:

Post a Comment