"Pandemonium: The Van Maur Sermon"
April 12 & 13, 2008
Bruce Davis
St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church
Omaha, Nebraska
©2007 Bruce R. Davis
Revelation 6:1-8
Then I saw the Lamb open one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures call out, as with a voice of thunder, “Come.” I looked, and there was a white horse! Its rider had a bow; a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer.
When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature call out, “Come!” And out came another horse, bright red; its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another; and he was given a great sword.
When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature call out, “Come!” I looked, and there was a black horse! His rider held a pair of scales in his hand, and I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s pay, and three quarts of barley for a day’s pay, but do not damage the olive oil and the wine.”
When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature call out, “Come!” I looked and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him; they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, famine and pestilence, and by the wild animals of the earth.
This is the Word of the Lord.
SO BE IT. AMEN
We’ll be hearing from five witnesses this morning, each of their accounts read by Nancy. We start with Karen Bradshaw:
I was at the Westroads Mall when the shootings were happening. I was walking out the food court exit which is at a 90 degree angle from the west Von Maur exit. As I was walking out of the food court door, people started to run out of the west Von Maur exit. I remember just stopping and looking at them wondering what was going on. I remember a young man bending over with his hands on his knees and just saying, "Oh my God. Oh my God, " over and over again. I asked what was going on and the man just said there was a guy in Von Maur with a gun. What I remember the most is a mother running with her little boy, who looked to be about 2 or 3 years old, and picking him up and hugging and kissing him when she got near me.
At this point I still did not have a full grasp of the situation. Was it a robbery? A crime of passion? Just some jerk walking around waving a gun? But my fight or flight instinct kicked in and I headed straight for my car. That was the first time I ever really experienced "fight or flight" for real. It was like someone flipped a switch in my body and my heart instantaneously sped up to a drum roll pace and my whole body was shaking. I had not really witnessed any danger, but I was aware that I was in a potentially very dangerous situation. And my only thought was, get out, get out, get out. I jumped in my car and began to drive through the parking lot and drove right past the south Von Maur exit. At this point I saw two Von Maur employees calmly helping an elderly woman down the steps who seemed to be in shock, one on either side of her, supporting her. Other people were walking through the parking lot oblivious to what was happening, approaching the store like it was an ordinary day.
As I pulled onto the West Dodge Rd/Regency clover leaf, I saw the first police car heading to the mall. By the time I got back to work only a few minutes later it was already all over the news and I began to realize how deeply serious the situation was and
I was pretty shaken up. I also began to realize how lucky I was.
I had parked right next to the Von Maur exit. Had I parked even one more row over, I would have entered and exited the mall through Von Maur. But instead, I entered and exited through the food court. The store I went to was on the second floor. Which means I would have been going down the Von Maur escalator to exit to my car at the precise time when the shooter was firing at people from the top of the escalator. I got to thinking how something as random as a parking space could mean the difference between life and death.
Last September, Nancy and I were given tickets to see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Omaha’s Orpheum Theatre. It was a delightful show, lots of laughs, no small amount of pathos.
One of the running themes was the arbitrary nature of a spelling bee--the luck of the draw. Some of the contestants get relatively easy words; while others draw words that are all but impossible to pronounce, let alone spell. The element of chance is lamented in a song called Pandemonium. Let’s give a short listen; the words will be on the screen…
Play CD from :00 to :50
· Judge: Please spell telephone
· Spellers: What! Telephone? C’mon
My oh my, that word’s so moronic
I could cry, I want words as lame
· Judge: Mr. Coneybear
· Coneybear: Simplify, I feel supersonic
· Judge: Spell hospital
· Spellers: Aw, c’mon! What?
· That is why I despise this game
· Coneybear: H-o-s-p-i-t-a-l. Hospital
· Judge: That is correct. Mr. Tolentino.
· Spellers: Life is random & unfair.
Life is Pandemonium.
· Judge: Staphylococcus.
· Tolentino: Awwww!
· Spellers: That’s the reason we despair.
Life is pandemonium
Life is pandemonium.
Interesting word, Pandemonium. It comes from the conjoining
of the Greek term “pan”--as in widespread--with a Latin word for the
dwelling of demons--deaemonium. When John Milton wrote his epic
poem, Paradise Lost (as in the Garden of Eden and the fall of
man), Milton wrote of a city in hell he called Pandemonium. In fact,
Milton seems have invented the word.
In our time, pandemonium is commonly associated with chaos. Surely, last December, someone used it in this context: This afternoon, Westroads Mall in Omaha was a place of pandemonium….
Our second witness is Alexandra Allbery,
I’m a seventh grader at Brownell-Talbot and I was one of the many at the Von Maur shooting. December 5, 2007 is a day that
I will never forget. My sister, Whitney, her friend, Brittany, and me were shopping for Christmas presents. We stopped by the Clinique make-up counter, on the first floor of Von Maur, looking for my mom’s present when we all heard a loud bang. It seemed like a maintenance problem, like a light falling, until more loud sounds were heard. The moment when I realized the sounds were gun shots felt surreal. We three girls dove under a Clinique counter, hiding with a young woman who worked there. I remember being separated from my sister. Her and Brittany were on one side of the glass display case and myself and the Clinique lady were on the other. As the shots fired down from two floors above us, I felt like I was in a movie. I thought it wasn’t real. The floor was spinning and I felt like I was going to pass out.
Pandemonium, in the Milton sense of the term, is the chaos of hell come to earth. The imagery from the sixth chapter of Revelation, read earlier, seems appropriate: Four horsemen from the bowels of hell are let loose on the world, reigning chaos and death. It may seem like overkill to compare the damage done by a pimply-faced teenager to the horsemen of the apocalypse, but then again, the four horsemen didn’t have access to automatic weapons.
In the wake of the Von Maur killings, the Omaha Police Department, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, and United States Department of Justice held a response seminar for law enforcement. St. Andrew’s was invited to host the event and we were pleased to open our doors to a gathering that packed the sanctuary. I was surprised to learn the speaker was Lt. Col. Dave Grossman.
A year or so ago, one of our great members, Air Force officer Todd Schug, recommended I read Grossman’s book, “On Killing: The Psychological Cost Of Learning To Kill In War And Society.”
The author spoke to an issue that has puzzled me over the years, but that I’d never heard addressed before.
I’m something of battlefield junkie. I go to places like the great Civil War battlefields, and Waterloo, where by all accounts densely packed ranks of men stood just yards from each other, firing their guns at point blank range, and what’s surprising is NOT that thousands upon thousands died, but rather that anyone survived.
Grossman explains that many of the triggers simply weren’t pulled in the first place, or were deliberately fired over the heads of the enemy, into the air instead of straight ahead. This is more than hunch; it’s confirmed by the astonishing percentage of weapons collected on the fields after the battle, found fully loaded, often with multiple loads, indicating the hand that held them had ample opportunity to shoot-to-kill, but never did.
Grossman’s bottom line: “The obvious conclusion is that most soldiers were not trying to kill the enemy.” He attributes this to a deep, built-in human aversion to killing others of our own species, no matter uniform they’re wearing.
We heard from Karen Bradshaw, about her fight-or-flight instinct kicking into flight. Grossman says soldiers of another era had the same instinct. What kept them from flight, running away, was their responsibility to the soldier next to them, but that did not mean they were going to fire their weapon at another human being.
Grossman sites statistics to the effect that only 15% of the soldiers on a given field did any actual shooting with the intent to kill.
According to Grossman, this phenomena was recognized and addressed in the aftermath of World War II. What Grossman terms “revolutionary corrective measures and training methods” were introduced, expressly designed to overcome the aversion to killing. What amounted to the rewiring of the soldier-psyche was an astounding success. In the Korean War, the percentage of soldiers shooting-to-kill went up to 55%. By Vietnam, the shoot-to-kill ratio was 90-95%.
Grossman cautions the reader about the downside in terms of the effect on our military personnel, hence the subtitle: “The Psychological Cost Of Learning To Kill In War And Society.” We can teach young men and women to kill, says Grossman, but the cost will often entail deep long-term psychological scaring.
You may be wondering: Okay, but how is this relevant to this morning’s discussion? According to the Lieutenant Colonel, the violent video games so popular among many of America’s children, particularly our boys, borrow from the same training techniques the military uses to overcome the aversion to killing other human beings. Some of our children are spending countless hours in front of programming originally designed to systemically desensitize and destigmatize the effects of taking human life. Should we therefore be at all surprised that some of these young ones come to understand the rest of the human race as targets instead of real people?
Let’s hear now from Jane Whitsett, who was shopping at Westroads:
At the time it really did not seem like it was happening. In my mind someone had come to hurt their girlfriend/boyfriend and that was it. I was hiding in a store room and when I was in there we were all huddled together and saying prayers. When we got out we saw things that I hoped I would never see in my lifetime. Still in my mind (at that point) this was not a random act. It really did not hit me until I got home and discovered that 9 innocent people were killed. I could not believe my ears. It was then that I realized how lucky I was. I talked to Nancy a few days after the shootings and wanted her to tell me why I was so lucky and wanted to know what God had planned for me. Of course, she could not answer these questions as I hoped. I thought that might help me feel better and understand the why me, or why not me. Why was I so lucky to be alive. Nancy told me to just pray and be thankful for being safe. She told me not to be scared and offered to go shopping with me at Von Maur when it reopened. I did go back to the store and will continue to shop there. When I go to the store now I feel sad and angry, why did this boy have to kill so many innocent people, I still don't understand but pray for strength everyday.
Why? Why me? Why not me? Back to the lyric of the song from the Spelling Bee: Life is random and unfair. “Random” has become a big word in youth culture. Our Youth Director back in Springfield, Missouri, used to have what she called Random Nights. The appeal to the youth was they didn’t know what to expect from the evening.
I was raised in a culture that was big on cause-and-effect: if you do this, then you can expect that. Fair enough. The young people of the post-9/11 generation seem to live with a different set of expectations. Things happen and fairness has little to do with it.
The people of Jesus’ generation were wired to cause-and-effect. If something bad happened, it must have been caused by something. Sin was a popular explanation. If bad things happen, individually or collectively, it was likely divine retribution for sin.
You get a sense of this in the 9th chapter of John, verse 2. Jesus and the disciples are walking along and pass by a man who had been blind from birth. The disciples ask the why question: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind.” There’s got to be some reason for this misfortune!
Jesus’ answer: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned…”
The disciples’ way of seeing things is comforting in this sense: IF the fellow was blind because of someone’s fault--his sin, the sin of his parents, the sins of whoever--THEN if we don’t make the same mistakes, bad things won’t happen to us, or to our children. No, no, no, says Jesus. It doesn’t work that way. Turn to the 13th chapter of Luke, verses 1-5:
At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
This is, of course, the same Pontius Pilate who would later
sentence Jesus to death. Pilate had a lot of blood on his hands before he tried to wash his hands of Jesus.
Job 1 for any Roman governor in Judea was to keep the peace and quash dissent. We can fairly assume that these Galileans--people from the north of Israel, Jesus’ own home turf--had gone to the temple in Jerusalem to offer sacrifice and had created some kind of disturbance in order to make a political point. Pilate had reacted with a mixture of irony and cruelty, not only killing the Galileans, but mixing their blood with the blood of the animals they had sacrificed at the temple.
We have no way of knowing what those who reported this to Jesus expected in the way of response. Were they of a rival political faction, sort of a Shia/Sunni thing, suggesting the Galileans got what they deserved? Whatever they were expecting from Jesus, I doubt it was this:
He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish, just as they did.”
This tower of Siloam intrigued me long before 9/11/01: You can
be living your life, going into your office one day, taking the elevator up the tower, or maybe just walking by the tower, and without so much as a moment’s warning, next thing you know, an airplane has flown into the building, the tower collapsing, people screaming, people dying.
In this teaching, I see Jesus acknowledging that life is indeed full of unforeseeable variables, X factors beyond human control. What I hear Jesus saying is that we should live in such a way that no matter what happens next; if even the worst befalls us and we die, our perishable bodies crushed beneath the rubble; that which is imperishable—call it the soul--will dwell forever with the Lord in the temple not made with human hands, eternal in the heavens.
Taking us to the witness of Roxanne Philp:
I was talking on the phone with my son from Chicago when the first shots were heard. I didn't recognize the popping sound until someone screamed that there was someone with a gun. I briefly told my son what was happening and he later said he heard the shots. I hung up the phone and immediately ran to an adjoining room. I assumed my co-workers had fled with me but thought my boss may have stayed behind. I was afraid of being trapped in the back room with no exit so I decided to hide.
I crawled inside a gift wrap table just to the side of the customer service area. I curled in a ball, covering my mouth so he couldn't hear me breathe. The shots reached customer service within seconds and judging by the number of shots I knew someone was still in the area.
I reached out to God and prayed continuously for the thirty minutes I was in the cabinet, which seemed like forever. I prayed that he would spare my life as well as the lives of my friends. At the same time, I realized that this day may be my last and I had so many regrets. If only I had one more day. I wished I had told my son I loved him before I hung up the phone.
I wanted to tell my
family and friends how much I loved them and how they had touched my
life. As I laid there listening to my wounded boss and co-workers
crying for help just a few feet from where I was hiding, I asked God
what I should do. Should I reveal myself and risk death or should I
wait for help and possibly save my family from the pain resulting in my
own death? I never really got the answer I was waiting for, but the fact
that I was unable to move or breathe was maybe God's way of telling me
to stay hidden. The end result was worse than I had ever imagined. I
lost 6 co-workers, including 2 that were standing beside me moments
before. I thank God for sparing the lives of two of my badly wounded
co-workers and can only hope the others are with him.
Roxanne’s “hope” that those who died are with the Lord takes us to the core of the Christian message and this promise: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish but have eternal life.” I don’t pretend to know what that looks like; for lack of better words to describe the promise, I turn to Paul in his letter to the Romans:
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is about to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18)
The author himself knew something about danger and suffering—up close and personal. As an ambassador for one who had been crucified dead and buried, Paul well knew his own life was in jeopardy each and every day. But he wrote the Romans:
We know that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord. (Romans 8:28)
We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.
(Romans 14:8)
Let’s say that last line together: WHETHER WE LIVE, OR
WHETHER WE DIE, WE ARE THE LORD’S. Reading on:
What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? (Romans 8:31)
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (Romans 8:35)
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-38)
I don’t care if a killer with an assault weapon comes
riding at you on a pale green horse, says Paul: NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST AND WHETHER WE LIVE, OR WHETHER WE DIE, WE ARE THE LORD’S AND THOSE WHO BELIEVE SHALL LIVE FOREVER WITH THE LORD!
Our fifth and final witness is Mickey Vickroy. Nancy and I were watching the news accounts of the Von Maur massacre. We saw a lady I was sure I recognized, then realized it was Mickey but I’d never seen her without a hat on.
I can truthfully say “I was never afraid that day.” From the first pop pops to Renee coming through the door hollering “Gun” my only concern was where is Catherine (she had gone on a break ten minutes before), and where were the others I worked with? Thirteen women ran for their life’s, hid in Housekeeping storage, barely breathed and each prayed in their own way. The dead silence except for Christmas music on the intercom; then Omaha Police--come out with your hands up; the walk past the wounded; Fred with his eyes open, hand reaching up to us, and the dead--Robbie so slight, dressed in all black and devoid of all color. My thoughts still were “where is Catherine?” When I found her I was relieved- she needed me to cling unto and we stayed together until released. No phones, no way to notify family until 2 ½ hours later when a policeman loaned me his cell phone to call my daughter. When I came out of Penney’s, Lynn was waiting, arms open and visibly shaken and cold and crying hysterically. All my children were either at Westroads or on their way. Many days later it dawned on me-I knew I was safe-but my kids and grandkids-what agony the wait must have been for them. Friends, strangers, people in stores recognized me-hugged me and said how glad they were I wasn’t shot. About four hours after the shooting both Pastor Nancy and Pastor Charlotte called to check on me. When I told Pastor Nancy I must not have been afraid because I was either too old or I didn’t believe it really had happened at VonMaur’s. And she said “no it was because you were not thinking of yourself but your friend”.
I went back to work-there were lots of hugs-even from employees in other department; many stories-people willing to remember and finding comfort in talking about the shooting. All of us thankful we were safe and remembering the ones injured and dead. Visitation-funerals (some of us went together) prayers for all of them. But for me I still have not prayed for Robbie-if this is unchristian I’m sorry. My seven year old grandson asked me “Grandma, do you think God is waiting for Robbie? He was very bad and you shouldn’t kill people.”
Ah, yes: Robbie. The killer.
The only thing worse than the idea that mass murder is
random and unfair is the possibility there might be some cosmic design—with your own self somehow part of the web.
The past three mass killings in America have all been in places I’ve called home. Omaha, of course. The February murders on the campus of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb; my first job out of college was in DeKalb, where I spent two years working with a phone company.
A week before NIU, in Kirkwood, Missouri, an angry man with a gun opened fire at a City Council meeting, killing three council members and two police officers, wounding two others, including the mayor, before himself being gunned down by police. The Kirkwood killing was atypical in this respect; instead of a white teenager at the trigger, the killer was a prominent member of Kirkwood’s minority community.
Once upon a time, I spent seven years at Kirkwood United Methodist Church. I was surprised to read that the funeral for the slayer had been held at Kirkwood Methodist, though the killer, himself, was not a member of the congregation. From the accounts
I read, there was some controversy about that.
This naturally led me to contemplate: What if someone had come up with the idea of holding a memorial service for Robbie Hawkins here at St. Andrew’s? Nancy and I bounced that one back and forth. Nancy, who has a softer heart than I do, thought she might call church leadership together and discuss the possibility.
I came out at a flat “no.” I might do a private graveside service with the family, if asked, or perhaps something in a funeral home chapel, but having the service here would strike me as an insult to the families of the slain. I’m not saying I’m necessarily right on that, or that anyone else is wrong; it’s just where I’d come out, I think.
A passage that strikes me as relevant is Luke 17:1, words of Jesus:
“It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come.”
I read that as: Stuff happens, bad stuff. But woe to those who
are the cause of it.
I don’t know what possesses people to do the kinds of things
that have been under discussion this morning—and I do not use the word “possess” lightly. I image a Robbie Hawkins as a werewolf. Werewolves have always struck me as tragic figures, in that they didn’t necessarily choose to be monsters, but were bitten by other monsters, so that they were powerless when the moon came out. When the werewolf has itself taken a silver bullet, the dead body reverts back to the figure of the person it was before the evil took over. Sad, sad, sad.
I am nobody’s judge. I don’t begin understand the cause-and-effect in the life of a Robbie Hawkins. If the Lord chooses to pardon and forgive, that’s more than okay with me. I’m counting on a lot of pardon and forgiveness, myself. I am of the opinion that the best thing to do with a werewolf is bury the remains in the ground as fast as possible and move on.
But this needs to be said: the passage just read, concerning offenses and woe to those by whom offenses come, is given in the context of doing harm to young people and children, and is followed immediately by this:
Luke 17:2
“It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”
I don’t if Robbie Hawkins falls into the “little ones” category or
not; I do know that in a culture that bombards young people with violent, pornographic messages and then professes shock when some go off the deep end, the Jesus people have no higher calling than ministry to youth.
When we were looking for a new youth pastor, two years ago, the first criteria I had was someone with experience in dealing with at-risk youth and families. We hit the proverbial jackpot. Behind Bob Davis’ pleasant, even sometimes goofy demeanor, is a very serious Christian man who in his previous life at Boys and Girls Town and Lutheran Family Service has dealt with some of the most at-risk situations imaginable—including, at one point, Robbie Hawkins.
Youth ministry is anything but kid’s stuff. In a world that seems random and unfair, St. Andrew’s wants to communicate the great constant, the unshakable given: Each of us has been created in the image of God, and no matter what happens, God will be with us, with you. Your life matters. Other lives matter. Value your own selves and the selves of others. And, for Christ’s sake, don’t hurt yourselves and don’t hurt anybody else. Jesus loves you and so do we.
BILL GOES INTO DRUM BEAT…
Like so many others in our community, in the days after December 5, I made pilgrimage to Von Maur. My heart was deeply touched by the various tributes. Here’s ours….
KUM BA YAH/The 23rd Psalm
BRD 4/12&13/08