A Fable About the Fifth Commandment or An Anti-Abortion Zealot Approaches Heaven

Recently a man walked into a church and killed one of the ushers in cold blood. He did it because the usher was also a prominent doctor who performed late-term abortions. By killing the doctor, he believed that he was protecting the unborn. Thus, in a very twisted sense, he killed to enforce the commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill. He will probably spend the rest of his life in prison and die there as an old man.

Let's imagine what happens when he appears at the gate of heaven. The man walks up to St. Peter and says, "I have done God's will and I am here to claim my heavenly reward." St. Peter asks him, "Do you repent the sins you committed in your life on earth?" The man honestly answers yes, because he did not consider killing an abortionist to be a sin. St. Peter tells him, "Based on your heart-felt confession, you ware welcome to enter heaven, my son."

However, as the man enters heaven, he is confused. Although heaven is packed with billions of souls, he immediately notices a teen prostitute who died of AIDS, a liberal politician and the very same abortion doctor who he had killed. In a rage of righteous indignation, he seeks out Jesus and demands that he be given a sword to drive the hated sinners to Hell. Jesus sadly shakes his head and says, "When I ate with tax collectors and sinners, it was to save them, not to condemn them. Why are you unhappy that I have succeeded?"

The man spits in Jesus's face and storms out of heaven to find a more righteous place.

Apologies to C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.

According to a recent article in the newspaper, a majority of people now consider themselves pro-life, although they do not all oppose abortion in all circumstances. The man who slew the abortion doctor was not pro-life. His friends said that he had been consumed with an Old Testament eye for an eye mentality.

The problem with commandments is that we are so used to seeing them as negative that we fail to see them as a call to do good. In church this morning, the pastor said that he urges his confirmands to learn the ten commandments, but also reminds them that the commandments boil down to two things: love and relationships. Mind you, this was coming from the conservative church that I attend, not the liberal one.

I don't remember reading Luther's Small Cathecism when I was growing up. It may be that I wasn't paying attention or that our church was too modern to use such a dated text. However, when I read Luther today, I am amazed at how well he captures the paradoxical nature of Christianity. In Luther, the commandments are not just stop signs setting forth boundaries which may not be crossed, but beacons summoning us to a place where we can love God and love our neighbor. Here is what Luther had to say about the Fifth Commandment:

The Fifth Commandment.

Thou shalt not kill.

What does this mean?

We should fear and love God that we may not hurt nor harm our neighbor in his body, but help and befriend him in every bodily need in every need and danger of life and body.

In the Large Cathecism, Luther expands on this theme. It is a long passage, but worth reading.

189] (U)nder this commandment not only he is guilty who does evil to his neighbor, but he also who can do him good, prevent, resist evil, defend and save him, so that no bodily harm or hurt happen to him, and yet does not do it. 190] If, therefore, you send away one that is naked when you could clothe him, you have caused him to freeze to death; if you see one suffer hunger and do not give him food, you have caused him to starve. So also, if you see any one innocently sentenced to death or in like distress, and do not save him, although you know ways and means to do so, you have killed him. And it will not avail you to make the pretext that you did not afford any help, counsel, or aid thereto, for you have withheld your love from him and deprived him of the benefit whereby his life would have been saved.

191] Therefore God also rightly calls all those murderers who do not afford counsel and help in distress and danger of body and life, and will pass a most terrible sentence upon them in the last day, as Christ Himself has announced when He shall say, Matt. 25:42f : I was an hungred, and ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in; naked, and ye clothed Me not; sick and in prison, and ye visited Me not. That is: You would have suffered Me and Mine to die of hunger, thirst, and cold, would have suffered the wild beasts to tear us to pieces, or left us to rot in prison or perish in distress. What else is that but to reproach them 192] as murderers and bloodhounds? For although you have not actually done all this, you have nevertheless, so far as you were concerned, suffered him to pine and perish in misfortune.

It is just as if I saw some one navigating and laboring in deep water [and struggling against adverse winds] or one fallen into fire, and could extend to him the hand to pull him out and save him, and yet refused to do it. What else would I appear, even in the eyes of the world, than as a murderer and a criminal?

193] Therefore it is God's ultimate purpose that we suffer harm to befall no man, but show him all good and love; 194] and, as we have said, it is specially directed toward those who are our enemies. For to do good to our friends is but an ordinary heathen virtue, as Christ says in Matt. 5:46.

The man who shot the abortion doctor was a murderer. He may have been anti-abortion, but he was not pro-life. As Luther clearly explains, Christians are called upon to be pro-life in all respects.