THE BIBLE IS A STORY OF STRUGGLE

Everyone has their own understanding of what the Christian religion is. Some people have a realistic grasp and others use religion as a shield against bad things happening to them. The story of the Bible is much more realistic, but upsetting to many people who are ‘born Christians.’

 

God bursts into human history. God has chosen to live with us. It is like family life: there a times of joy and commitments, there are arguments and there are seasons of a cold winter’s blast. The good and the bad are all part of each and every family. 

 

We have the same experiences with the history of God’s activity with his people.

 

Our foundation story is with Moses and the Hebrew slaves. God hears the cries of the Hebrews who are oppressed and exploited by Pharaoh and his government. Moses is sent to free a suffering people. The poles are opposite here. One person, Moses, confronts all the powers that can destroy Moses and the Hebrew slaves. This Pharaoh can be very destructive. This is not a polite tea party. This is a struggle unto death.

 

The ten plagues that God sends down on the Egyptians and the final drowning of the Egyptian army are all very violent acts. But the power of God to deliver the slaves triumphans over the political power of the Pharaoh. But at the end of the page, this is a violent story.

 

Several centuries later the Jewish people ( mostly their educated and economically productive people) are hauled off in slavery to Babylon. There in their seventy years of oppression the prophets rebirth their religion. The Jewish people are suffering because they have fallen away from God’s directives. They have forgotten the poor, their sisters and brothers.

 

During these seventy years there are many laments and songs of suffering. In all their tears they cry out for deliverance from their slavery. They cry out for salvation.

 

I want to parallel the struggles and the sufferings of the Hebrew peoples throughout the centuries to what is happening today in our world.

 

We are confronted with great evil by the invasion of the Ukraine by V. Putin. Hospitals, schools and countless dwellings are being bombed and destroyed. Over three million people (mostly women and children) have fled for safety to neighboring countries. We lament: is there no stop to such evil? 

 

We cry out in our prayer for the cessation to this bombing, and destruction. We are feeling in our bones the suffering of the Ukraine people who are being attacked, wounded and killed. The prayer of lament and struggles from the Old Testament is fresh in our souls. These are not the struggles of people on dusty historical pages. This is our story. We suffer with the Ukrainian people. We cry out for deliverance. 

 

Our prayer is based on deep trust. God strengthened the people of old. He will strengthen us. In our struggles with the Ukrainian people we will not be abandoned by God.  But our trust is tested by the horrific violence. 

 

This season is our Good Friday. We long for the day of resurrection in our world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ON QUITTING

           

 

No matter what group you belong to, family, school, church, country, you will always find people who will quit. There has been some scandalous news and they walk out. Sometimes they walk out quietly; sometimes they make a lot of noise in their departure.

 

We are human beings. We can be unbelievably generous and self-sacrificing; we can also be terribly evil and hurt and exploit other human beings. Within every human  being is the potential to do great things or become a scoundrel.

 

When people leave the church, political party or school community we have to ask: what are they trying to accomplish? Is this a protest against the scandalous behavior of some members  or are they just giving up on what the community/organization is trying to accomplish?  Is it a statement of principle or a cop-out?

 

When people leave the Church they should first ask, ‘do you have any issues that upset you and make want to walk away?’  Some of our members can be too narrow within themselves and feel that no one else has serious difficulties with school/church/government.

 

There are many things that make me want to quit. I am always upset by people who claim to believe in God and practice some sort of the Christian religion but can be so racist and violent towards people who are different from themselves.

 

I can be so upset by Christians who reject any concern for the survival of the earth. They are opposed to anything that challenge their over-consumptive lifestyle. They oppose countless number of scientists who warn humanity against climate warming. 

 

I should be angry that Orthodox Christians (Russian soldiers) are killing and destroying Ukrainian Christians. This invasion is a incredible black spot on our Christianity.

 

I should be upset by the slowness the official/international church has in dealing with the equality of women in the Church. 

 

The answer is not to quit and walk out. We all have serious issues with the manner in which we are living our Christianity. The only healthy approach is to work from within the Church to change its practice. No one should be naïve to think that this will not cause us a great deal of suffering. Change and improvement may not come in our lifetime. We are int his for the long haul.

 

As we survey the issues that cause us pain and grief, we need to be reminded of the piece of folk wisdom that will carry us through these difficult time: “Better to light one candle than to ever curse the darkness.” 

 

Jesus did not give up because he has such weak and incompetent disciples. 

 

Keep fighting. Keep working for change. 

 

 

 

CHRISTIANITY IS A RELIGION OF PEACE

     

A crisis forces you to become clear about your thinking. It is a course correction. 

 

As of Monday (nineteen days into the invasion of the Ukraine) we have been pushed to examine where our religious faith takes us. Does our religious teaching support this invasion/attempted take-over or does it name it as evil? What does our Christian religion say about war? 

 

With our European background we do not have a strong position to condemn warfare. When you look through the two thousand years of Christianity in Europe you add up countless numbers of wars, you may come to the conclusion that Christianity is a fellow warrior in warmaking . Often these wars were fought in the name of God! If we are honest, we have much to repent in our war making through the centuries.

 

How can you speak of peace when your history is soaked with blood?

 

The last two world wars and all the atrocities that were committed through these wars make it clear that we must never have war again. As one commentator observed: if you thought the millions that were killed, starved or displaced by disease was bad in the past world wars, try to imagine how many people will lose their lives if there is a third world war!

 

Christianity has always had a difficult time justifying war. Way back in the fifth century we had the great Augustine articulate the ‘just war’ theory. His theory gave the reasons you could justify entering a war. But after the nuclear bombs of the Second World War and the incredible power of today’s weapons to kill and destroy it is very difficult to justify ever making war. The consequences of war rejects any justification for war-making.

 

The first thing we must do is repent of all the lives lost that our wars have caused through bombing, tolerating conditions for starvation, and destruction of farms (food production) and factories, schools and hospitals (peoples’ livelihoods). Our ancestors have handed us a black and destructive legacy. Our repentance is soaked in incredible human suffering.

 

Our Christian faith moves us to work and build a more just world where the benefits of civilization are shared by all. Fighting so often begins because one group oppresses and exploits another group. The people on the bottom rise up in anger when they are kept down. Every conflict/war is rooted in oppression and exploitation. Remember the words of Pope John Paul II, “If you want peace, work for justice.”

 

This is where I receive energy. When there is evil around me or in the world, I am called upon to plant goodness, justice and respect. The small daily actions of respecting every human being that I come into contact with today as an equal is an effort to plant justice. 

 

And then in my daily prayer I find great encouragement from the Holy Spirit to plant peace and healing to our broken world. During the invasion of the Ukraine I place my morning prayer beside all the people fleeing the violence and all the people helping the refugees. 

 

My religious faith gives me strong courage in the time of insane suffering. I am supported by the wonderful insight about what I can do to change this situation into goodness by the insight: “Better to light one candle than to ever curse the darkness.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIVING IN GRAVE DANGER

                             

 

The invasion of the Ukraine has set the entire world on edge. We are living in a time of danger. We are not sure what the next hour will bring and how close we could be to war.

 

But the bombing of the nuclear station (last Friday) at Zaporizhzhi in the Ukraine tells us how dangerous this invasion actually is. Fortunately, the shells only destroyed a service building and did not hit the nuclear reactor itself. Humanity could have been hit with a much greater nuclear fall-out than the Chernobyl nuclear breakdown in 1986.

 

Humans have become so powerful. We have developed the power of the atom to provide us with energy. A large part of the country of the Ukraine receives its electricity from this nuclear reactor.

 

But the power we have achieved can also be used to destroy. War is no longer determined by the power of a soldier’s arm.  In the early days an army could attack only as far as a solider could hurl a spear or fire an arrow at the enemy. Ever since the First World War I we now fight industrial wars. We have sharper, stronger and deadlier weapons than mankind has ever experienced. The average citizen has no concept of the destructive power that is actually available to our militaries.

 

Now, just days away from an unbelievable nuclear disaster all humans must take deeper responsibility for humanity and its survival. 

 

In our daily prayer and our church prayer we must pound the doors of heaven asking for common sense and determination to end this invasion and rebuild peace and security. Make your prayer insistent. Ask the Holy Spirit to move the hearts and wills of leaders to bring an end to this carnage. 

 

Recognize the great good that so many people and government agencies are doing to help the two million refugees who have fled the Ukraine into neighboring countries like Poland. What good is being done in the face of so much evil! In the reality of so much evil, there are so many unrecognized people helping the refugees. Just think of finding a bed for the night, food, sanitation, health care and some entertainment to stave off the boredom of trying to survive in a different country.

 

Look toward our world leaders as they beef up international cooperation and defense strategies to prevent a world war. As we move into the future how do you prevent the invasion of one powerful country into a smaller neighbor? The Western countries have been much too complacent in working for security and harmony between nations.

 

We must think through what the consequences could mean if one of the nuclear power stations was destroyed by the bombs of war. The consequences could spill over for another ten to thirty thousand years. 

 

With greater power over the forces of nature must come a greater responsibility on the part of all humans – especially those who are invading another country.  This is a time to demand of Russia greater responsibility towards the well-being of humanity.

 

I am so grateful that my Christian faith spurs us on to care for all humans. This week our care focuses on the people of the Ukraine. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for moving us to care for our sister and brother who is being invaded.

 

 

 

 

PRAYING AT THE EDGE OF WAR

                  

 

We are living in a time of strong tension in our world. Mr. Putin has invaded the country of Ukraine. Are we at the edge of a Third World War?

 

Pope Francis has asked the Christian world to make the day of Ash Wednesday a day of prayer and fasting for peace in the Ukraine. This is very serious when the pope askes the entire Church to pray for peace in the Ukraine.

 

In our prayer life we must be aware that our prayer always embraces the entire world. Prayer must never be a closed circle with God on the top and myself at the other end. Rather, our prayer must be made with wide open arms that is ready to embrace the world in all its turmoil’s and confusion. We must pray in solidarity with the poor and suffering of this world. We pray as sisters and brothers to all the poor people of the world. Our prayer is always an embrace of all our fellow human beings, not only the ones whom we like.

 

I try to pray the morning and evening prayer standing beside the poor of the Ukraine. When I think of the poor, I think of the many people in the Ukraine who cannot leave and take refuge in Poland or another safe country. There are countless people who do not have the resources of the support to seek refuge in another country.

 

There will always be people in our churches who are  uncomfortable with praying with wide open arms and a wide open heart. They are often fearful and insular. Authentic prayer is always the opposite of this position. If I pray in solidarity with the poor and the suffering of the Ukraine I am being embraced by the great love of God for all peoples. The heart of God extends to everyone. To pray in the Spirit of God is to be extended in love and concern for the well-being of my fellow human being. 

 

Praying in solidarity with the poor of the world is always expansive. When we open our hearts to the heart of God we will always feel the walls of our heart pushed out and expanded. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer we are sharing in the great compassion and connection that the Trinity God has with each human being. These are not empty words. These are words that embrace our daily lives. We must pray these words with the consciousness that the Holy Spirit will move us to greater love and service to the poor; the poor with their many faces.

 

When people listen attentively to the sufferings and difficulties of others they will always discover that their lives are changed in some degree. When they might have been very judgmental about the drug addiction of a co-worker, but they listen to the struggles of this poor man to be rescued from his drug-addiction, they discover that instead of harsh judgments there arises a desire to help, beginning with sincere prayer for recovery from drug-addiction.

 

People have observed that their fellow Christians who are serious in the practice of their prayer life are also persons who have a strong sense of justice and compassion for the poor of this world. 

 

Prayer expands our hearts. If you join your prayer for the sufferings of the poor in the Ukraine this week do not surprised if the Holy Spirit expands your heart.