April 25, 1999 - LESSON: Ephesians 4:20-24, NRSV

SERMON TITLE: Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. Littleton, Colo. -- Working around bodies still lying where they had fallen more than a day earlier, bomb squad officers checked lockers and backpacks for booby traps Wednesday as investigators tried to piece together the deadliest school massacre in U.S. history. Hurling bombs and blasting away with guns, two students in black trench coats killed 12 schoolmates and a teacher Tuesday at Columbine High School, most of them in the library. The gunmen, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, then apparently killed themselves. Officials were trying to determine whether others were involved, and they questioned other members of the boys' dark group of outcasts, the "Trench Coat Mafia."
    1. Tragedies, like this one, raise a host of questions.
    2. We may not have an answer to "Why?"
      1. In the April 25, Sunday Edition of the Milwaukee journal there was a small article on a survey which asked people to answer the "why question."
        1. They answered:
          1. Parents
          2. Television
          3. Rock music
          4. Internet
          5. The two young men, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were not mentioned.
        2. The best parents may have violent children.

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      2. One of the truths which we need to accept is that we live in a dangerous and violent world.
        1. From a biblical perspective this has always been true.
        2. It was early in our history that Cain murdered Abel.
    3. The question that deeply troubles me is, "How could they do what was done?"
      1. Not the means which were used; this is one form of "How?"
      2. The "How," which confronts us is, "How could they do this with to their classmates and teachers.
      3. What kind of understanding drives this kind of action.
      4. What kinds of life-view contributes to violence and destruction of persons and property.
    4. This is the same kind of question that is raised with the atrocities committed against the Kosovar's

MAIN BODY:

  1. There is one answer to the "How?" question that begs for exploration.
    1. In the "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1886), a novel by Robert L. Stevenson, is the disturbing tale of the dual personality of Dr. Jekyll, a physician.
      1. Dr. Jekyll is a generous and philanthropic man
        1. He is preoccupied with the problems of good and evil
        2. He is exploring the possibility of separating them into two distinct personalities.
      2. He develops a drug that transforms him
        1. He is transformed into the demonic Mr. Hyde
        2. In this persona he exhausts all the latent evil in his nature.

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      3. He also creates an antidote that will restore him to his respectable existence as Dr. Jekyll.
        1. Gradually, however, the unmitigated evil of his darker self predominates, until finally he performs an atrocious murder.
        2. His saner self determines to curtail these alternations of personality, but he discovers that he is losing control over his transformations, that he slips with increasing frequency into the world of evil.
      4. Finally, unable to procure one of the ingredients for the mixture of redemption, and on the verge of being discovered, he commits suicide.
      5. The novel is of great psychological perception and strongly concerned with ethical problems.
    2. We do not need a potion to enable us to experience humanities dark side.
      1. We are all part darkness and part light.
      2. Some are more dark than light.
      3. Human beings do terrible, and despicable things to other human beings.
    3. We are all concerned with ethical problems.
  2. What we need, in my humble assessment, is to understand that the world in which we live is a very dangerous place.
    1. Human beings have a need for
      1. sound morals and
      2. clear ethics

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    2. We have a spiritual problem.
      1. We can contend with the influence of the external influences.
      2. More importantly is the condition of the human spirit.
        1. Jesus was confronted by those who complained that his disciples ate with unwashed hands.
        2. His response is found in Matthew 15:18-20, NRSV
          1. But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.
          2. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile."
  3. The world is populated with people who, as the Apostle Paul, describes them in Ephesians 4:18-19 are:
    1. "darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.
    2. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
  4. Another "How?" questions then arises and pleads for an answer.
    1. How are we going to meet this spiritual need?
    2. What resources do we have that can be utilized to bring about the changes necessary to resolve a destructive world-view?
    3. In his novel, "Brave New World," Aldous Huxley expresses his concern for the ethical moral and communal values and problems and how they will be resolved.
      1. Written in 1932
      2. A savage criticism of the scientific future.
      3. The key words are Community, Identity and Stability.
      4. Scientific development will lead to a perfect world.
        1. Does this sound familiar?
        2. Is it not a method that we are also attempting to use?
          1. We are victims.
          2. There is a medicine.

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      5. The inhabitants of this brave new world have lost the right to be unhappy.
        1. To help the people be happy they can take soma.
        2. Soma is an intoxicating plant juice of ancient India, used as an offering to the gods.
        3. It's name has been given to a drug which makes people happy and carefree.
      6. In the Brave New World people have no family, marriage doesn't exist.
      7. People are taught to serve the production, to reach the state's motto: "Community, Identity and Stability"
      8. One of the main characters in this novel is John Savage.
      9. There is a conversation on page 163 which illustrates the thinking of the author.
      10. It is a conversation between John Savage and the Controller
        1. "But I like the inconveniences."
        2. "We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."
        3. "But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin".
        4. "In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy.
        5. "All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."
        6. "Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind. "There was a long silence."
        7. "I claim them all, " said the Savage at last.
        8. Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. "You're welcome, " he said.

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      11. "Brave New World" is how John calls the new modern world in which nobody is unhappy.
        1. But unhappiness exists.
        2. It is covered up and controlled with Soma.
  5. There is another way to achieve Community, Identity and Stability.
    1. This is the way of transformation.
      1. Not of the world, for it will not be transformed by human wisdom or skill.
      2. Transformation can only come is small communities, in the community known as the church.
    2. Paul in the Letter to the Ephesians 4:20-24, is also concerned with the ethical and moral problems that are being faced by human beings.
      1. 20 That is not the way you learned Christ!
      2. 21 For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus.
      3. 22 You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts,
      4. 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
      5. 24 and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
    3. To be renewed in the spirit (pneuma = stands for the whole self.) of your minds.
      1. Spirit = pneuma = The whole self.
      2. The self needs a new spirit.
        1. A spirit conceived in love and born of love.
        2. A spirit which sees through the aura of love.
        3. God has promised through the Holy Spirit to put God's spirit within those who are willing to receive it.
        4. God has promised through the Holy Spirit to put God's spirit within those who are willing to work with it.

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    4. To clothe yourselves with the new self.
      1. Created according to the likeness of God
      2. In true righteousness and holiness.
        1. This is the likeness of God which we see exemplified in Jesus.
        2. He is our model for happiness in a dangerous and threatening world.

CONCLUSION:

  1. To achieve this transformation, to reduce the capacity to be Mr. or Mrs. Hyde, we choose to learn, to live in, and to apply love.
    1. A man needed an ironed shirt.
      1. The man's wife was in the hospital.
      2. He would not iron his shirts.
      3. Rather, he went out and bought new ones.
    2. You cannot buy a new life.
    3. You can only, with God's help create it.
  2. This morning cry for the victims of Eric Harris, and Dylan Klebold.
    1. Mourn their loss.
    2. Mourn with greater intensity those who do not recognize the spiritual vacuum in which we live.
    3. Rejoice with those who do and are seeking the transformation of life made possible by the God whom we love and serve.

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