The woman then replies quietly, "There is only love." And as he dies, Billy begins to repeat the words of the only prayer he knows, "Our Father, who art in heaven...."

Remember Martin Luther, the Augustinian monk who had found the God of justice, the God whose judgements are infallible and unbending. What he wanted, needed was a God of grace, a God who forgives and restores. Like Billy, we don't want justice. We want love. Because if God is just, only just, then nobody has a chance. It's only God's mercy that promises us new life.

The Biblical story of Naboth's vineyard with its account of the framed charges against the victim and Elijah's denunciation of King Ahab for Naboth's murder could be said to have provided the substance from which St. Paul deduced the principle: "whatever a person sows, that person shall also reap."

If we sow the seeds of injustice, we cannot reap the harvest of justice. If we hate, we cannot expect to be loved and respected. If we look down on others and judge them, then we can expect people to view us in the same way—because there's always somebody who thinks he's better than you. I had lunch with a woman the other day who gossiped about every one of our mutual friends and colleagues. I kept my mouth shut, because I knew that when she next has lunch with one of them, she will say the same kind of spiteful things about me. Life's sad fact is that if you base your modus operandi on justice without love, you will find some strange and troubling chickens coming home to roost.

The story of Naboth and Ahab is simple; it's too cruel and evil. Filled with greed, petulance, a grown man who is nothing but a spoiled child, his evil wife who misuses the power of politics and economics and an isolated individual who has the courage to stand against the system. Any of this sound contemporary, familiar?

At first glance, it seems to be a simple matter that could be resolved by negotiations: Naboth's vineyard is adjacent to the king's property and Ahab makes a generous offer for it, either a better vineyard or the value in money. The Chicago land developer wants a piece of property so he can build a high-rise in the Loop, perhaps the world's tallest building at the corner of Dearborn and Madison, so we can regain our pride from those folks in Kuala Lumpur.

But Naboth refuses; it's his property, "the inheritance of my ancestors." Ahab, the secular developer doesn't understand Naboth's reasoning. But it's obvious in the words, "The Lord forbid." Naboth regards the family property as a gift from God. According to his faith, one does not treat such gifts as capital investment or real estate. (Now, I know at this point I have lost almost all my viewers, because we understand Ahab's point of view much more easily than we do Naboth's. "Why not take the offer?" you are saying. "It's generous. He can have an entirely new start. What's the problem? What's this business about the ‘Lord forbid'?")

So, Naboth's refusal sets the story's tension into motion. Ahab is childish, weak, immature. He does not quarrel with Naboth, but returns home and pouts. Puts his face to the wall and won't speak to anybody because he didn't get his way (verse 4). Then the strong character enters the story and plays her part. Jezebel considers Ahab's passivity to be ridiculous. She's the take charge, aggressive one in our story; she knows how to get things done. "You're the king. Make it happen."

But her view of the powers of kingship clashes with Israel's traditional understanding. Her perspective is political, economic. I've got the money; I can do what I want. So, she conspires, colludes, gets two men to kill Naboth. Ahab gets his vineyard. All is well. "Go, take possession of the vineyard." she says to her husband, "You don't even have to pay for it now." Fade out. End of story.

But that's not the end of the story. It is, in fact, only an episode in a more important sequence of events. History moves in response to the Word of God through prophets. That's the belief of the writers of the Deuteronomic tradition—as well as the faith of the Church today. George Wallace and Bull Conner didn't have the last word in Selma or Birmingham. God raised up a prophet named Martin King. Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon didn't define Vietnam according to their neat geopolitical calculations. People of faith began like Daniel and Philip Berrigan began to declare that if the church's traditional position of just wars is correct, then there must certainly be unjust wars.

Without transition the scene changes. Elijah appears. He's like a character from a Joseph Conrad novel. Beyond the pale. Beginning in a state of passionlessness, barely existing, unconcerned, indifferent to the evil around him. It's amazing how God centers so much power to change circumstances, to awaken people in the hands of such outcasts.

In his new book, Life Sentences, the irrepressible Joseph Epstein points out how Conrad, a Polish seafarer who became one of the greatest storytellers in the English language (his third language, not his first), was especially sensitive to this condition of being outcast. A condition that is endemic to us. V.S. Pritchett has noted that "before anyone else...Conrad the exile foresaw that in half a century [after he wrote] we should all become exiles, in a sense."

The solitariness, the absolutely devastating aloneness sends a shudder through one's soul. To be an outcast means, in the root sense, to be cast out from the wider community. In good measure, the sadness at the heart of so much of our existence is that the surrounding community comes itself to resemble an abyss of self-deception and self-seeking.

Just as Ahab is getting ready to take possession of Naboth's land, Elijah, the outcast, the prophet, the truth-teller confronts the king and queen. His accusation moves the issue beyond the courts, beyond precedent, beyond the realm of civil or criminal law. Into the religious, covenantal stipulations. Into God's commandments about right and wrong. "You have sold yourself"—that is, for the price of a vineyard—"to do evil in the sight of God"—that is, murder and the appropriation of a person's inheritance. And those are not matters for human courts; they are violations of God's will.

"You have sold yourself"—that's the most damaging accusation of all, isn't it? Because that one strikes at our own twenty-first century hearts. We talk a lot about the true self, coming to one's self, finding one's self. So to be accused of selling one's self—that is the sale we have made many times. For popularity when we were in high school or college, for the love at whatever price of virtue or integrity when we were in our twenties and thirties, for money and success any time it was offered. Oh, we stand before Elijah or whatever prophet God calls before us, because we know that we have sold ourselves.

At the heart of the story lies the most basic theme of prophetic literature: God's response to injustice. Ahab and Jezebel violate procedural justice by manipulating the system. They violate distributive justice by taking more than they need. But more than that, they violate the substance of justice, which rests on the character of God's people and the character of their God being just.

Martin Niemoller was a German submarine captain during the Great War of 1914-18. After being ordained a Lutheran minister, Niemoller tried to live the quiet life of a parish pastor. But then came the Barmen Declaration of 1938 which compelled a number of German Christians to form the Confessing Church. Niemoller was later imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, from which he wrote that famous statement:

When Hitler attacked the Jews, I was not a Jew, therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. When he attacked the homosexuals and lesbians, they were on society's margins, and I was not concerned. Then, Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church—and there was nobody left to be concerned.

What's your life worth anyway? What's mine worth? You go to a funeral and you hear all those wonderful testimonies about a person's life, and you remember how much gets left out, how much is forgotten or "disremembered" on such an occasion. And you wonder, "What will people say about me when I die? What will my life have amounted to?"

Or, even more compelling, what will God think? Will I have to depend fully on mercy and little on justice when I stand before my Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, and in Studderdt-Kennedy's devastating portrait, God will simply look at me and ask, "Well?"?

We have to pay attention to the voices through whom God speaks, the Elijahs and the poets and novelists and preachers, the visionaries and the victims who tell us that life amounts to more than what we acquire, more than whom we know, more than the places we go and the food we eat.

Floyd Brown: I truly enjoyed the message that you presented to us and was challenged somewhat when you talked about love. "We all need love" was your statement. Is there a particular segment or group of people today that need more maybe than others?

Eugene Winkler: I talked in the sermon about people on the margins. The most marginalized people in our society right now are the homeless. I was reflecting on this in terms of the shooting last month in our nation's capitol in which the security guards were killed by Rusty Weston, that poor, paranoid-schizophrenic young man from downstate Illinois, who has now been locked away and virtually forgotten as we very often do in those cases. But we have so many homeless people, so many of those people who are like Rusty Weston. They are mentally ill. In the 80s we closed mental hospitals. We dumped those people out on the streets on the theory that we would provide mental health centers, we would provide places for them to go and have their medication checked. It didn't happen. I experience these people everyday on the streets of Chicago. It's just tragic, Floyd, because these are people who are in the margins, living in the alleys, living in their cars, without any hope. We've got to do something in terms of advocacy for the poor and the homeless. The church is the voice for those people. We speak for the people who do not have a voice. And we've got to minister to them. They are at our very door. When our Lord said, "In as much as ye do it to one of the least of these, you do it to me." Those are people who are looking at us everyday and those are the ones through whom God comes to us.

Brown: I told you a story earlier and I would like to repeat it here. I saw a young man when we were waiting in a line one time and this guy came up to him begging. He stopped and he gave him money. The store owner said, "Why did you give him money? You know what he's going to do with it." The young man said, "I really don't know what he's going to do with it, but you never know where your blessings are going to come from the Lord." You don't know how He's going to appear. What you "do to the least of these" is just what you were talking about. You have a wonderfully diverse church. How did you attain this?

Winkler: I think it's through the grace of God, Floyd. Our church is right in the heart of Chicago's loop and historically we have ministered to every segment of the city. We try to meet the needs of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, young people, etc. It's just a wonderful privilege. For example, to serve Holy Communion in that church and to have all of these people from all over the world coming down to receive the sacrament, it's just a marvelous privilege to be in a church that truly embraces all of God's people.

Brown: Tell me a little bit about the ancillary benefits that you get from this. It must be a wonderful experience—outside of giving communion—to learn about from each other and backgrounds and their thoughts and hopes.

Winkler: Everyday is something new and exciting. I tell people that it's the hardest work I have ever done and the most fun I've ever had.

Brown: And it's a growing thing, obviously. You not only attract a diversity of nationalities but also geographically from all areas of the city. I want you to challenge us as Christians. Where should we be focusing today? What should we be doing in stepping out and saying we are Christians?

Winkler: Back to what we were saying earlier, I think the church and we as individual Christians have to look at the people who are thrust out to the margins. You and I have so many blessings and we can take care of ourselves. If there is an emergency, a crisis, we can go to someone. We have resources, but there are so many people in our society who have no resources unless we give them help.

Brown: It's a wonderful challenge and I think it's something that we can all walk away with and truly enjoy. You are a wonderful man. We really appreciate having you as a part of our program and it's a privilege for me to know you.