|
|
|
|
THE AWFUL GRACE OF GOD Scripture
Jeremiah 8 18-22My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. Hark the cry of my poor people `From far and wide in the land. “ The harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn and dismay has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people Not been restored? --Psalm 130 1-6 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, Lord hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications! If you O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, So that you may be revered. I wait for God, my soul waits, And in God’s word I hope; My soul waits for God more than those Who watch for the morning, More than those who watch for the morning. ----------------------------------- From Matthew 11:28-30Come to me, all you are
weary and are carrying heavy burdens, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be blessed in your sight, O God, Our Hope and Our Light. Amen.
The sun shone brightly along the hospital corridor of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit. The two brothers , both older men, had been escorted into a small meeting room. They were bereft. Their 86 yr. old mother’s death had just occurred only minutes ago. One brother waved his fist in huge punches, as the Psalmist of old must have done centuries ago, yelling all the while: “Why has God deserted me? Why did this terrible tragedy happen to our mother”? “ why O God, have you forsaken us”( Ps.22) The chaplain calmly tried to avoid the swinging fists , taking deep breaths while offering words of comfort. She knew well… The prophet, Isaiah’s words , “Comfort, comfort my people!”(Isaiah 40) Years later, a young father wept bitterly, crying,” do you think I can hate God, because I do! How could this happen to my child? Where was God? What about the God who protects, who guides, who cares for us? I want no more of God!” Lamenting and bitter tears hold these deep suffering questions, demanding an answer to why. Why has this happened to us? Why did our country suffer the earthquake? Why Haiti of all countries? … Do we, in fact, have a vindictive God? In times of crises, whether during personal devastating earthquakes within the family,( which many of us gathered here may know by heart), or at the time of world crisis- cries against God arise. Now during this hideous earthquake that has shaken the roots of Haiti, killing perhaps 100,000 residents, there are heart-wrenching voices crying out, wondering about an angry God, a horrible God, a God of retribution. The laments arise with spiteful bile amidst terrible pain. In the background, there are also hymns quietly being sung. How are we to face these terror filled cries? (What about our own doubts?) Where is the balm we can offer to those who scream out? At first, for those who suffer, we begin with only two words, I’m sorry. We stand with and are present to the heartbroken. We may weep. We have no instant answers, no cheap grace. We pray…eventually, though, we may also hold up words of life, and do the deeds of life and love which have saved us in the past. ”Out of the depths, we cry unto you, O God “we pray for and with our Haitian friends , and neighbors . Out of the depths, we cry! This psalm is a very familiar prayer in our famil,y maybe also in yours. Through the ages, theologians, as well as the rest of us, have raised the question of why human suffering occurs. This brings into dialog the whole quest for understanding the justice of God. The heart of the question arises, “If God is all good and all powerful, why do people suffer? (theodicy ,i.e. the justice of God.) We come face to face with life’s eternal puzzle, the “why” of life. We do no stay and wallow in inaction and indecision, nor do we puzzle too long. We come to know from our own storms and our own falling to pieces ,our own dark night of the soul that sooner or later, hopefully, we find God---in the midst of heart-wrenching suffering, and in the faces of those who have chosen to walk with us. Do you remember the Gospel scene when Luke drew for us a portrait of Jesus weeping over the destruction of Jerusalem?(Luke 19:41) It is that weeping we hear today. With the people of Haiti, our God weeps. Over and over in Scripture, throughout the writings of the Prophets whether in Jeremiah or Isaiah, we hear the pathos of God, the moaning, and the tears. God is crying with God’s people God is crying within the loss and the pain. Our God, the God of love and mercy whom we call Beloved does not cause evil or destruction. Our God weeps with us. And so, through community, connection, compassion and costly love, we come to bandage our wounds and the wounds of others in Haiti and the world. We respond with our lives to the basic call of following the love of God, the God who weeps. In our responses, we meet God in the other. A very long time ago, nearly a quarter of a century ago, gathering with a group of students in a Residency program for Pastoral Care, at the Hospital of St. Raphael in New Haven, we met and were taught by a humble man, Rabbi Mandellbaum. I can see him clearly this day as he spoke to us, passionately, “Each time you walk into a hospital room, you are not bringing God to the patient, rather you are already in the presence of God”, In the ancient Jewish tradition, God is with the ill one, or the broken one. the Rabbi continued: Please try to remember, in your heart as you approach a sick or a needy person: take off your shoes, you are on Holy Ground! Most of us are overwhelmed with the tragedy and the immensity of the pain and loss in Haiti. Together we begin to work, to donate, to pray, to be creative in our responses. From our own living day in and day out, We know this much is true: As we take each step, the way of response becomes clearer for us. None of this recovery work can be done alone. We are called to work together in partnership with God and one with another, in the mending of creation. Our personal connection and memories of Haiti are powerful. Both our oldest children, Laura and Rick while attending Boston College, in different years took an active parte in a college course called, Theology in the Marketplace Both visited Haiti on college breaks, as part of the course study. I recall Laura’s vivid stories from working in a shelter called, “The Home for the Destitute and Dying” One of the elderly women whom Laura saw on the street looked like the story from Luke’s gospel of the woman bent over for 15years the woman, WHO CAME BEFORE Jesus for healing According to Luke the gospel writer the woman was completely unable to walk upright. Now before her eyes, Laura was seeing this woman, a Haitian woman walk or rather the woman crawled on all four limbs. The scene was right out of Scripture. The sight was frightening and heartbreaking and unforgettable. Today during these days and nights of Haiti’s suffering, the country, seems to be like that paralyzed woman…”quite unable to stand upright!” Luke 13:11. Our son Rick emails from Germany, his home at this time, “I have travelled to over 75 countries in the world including many in the developing world and the poverty that we saw in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is worse than anything we have ever seen. The Haitians lives are already filled with misery, yet they are a holy people. This is so sad. So heart wrenching. WE will keep praying.” The email ends there. The famous Dietrich Bonhoeffer ,a German theologian, Lutheran pastor, spiritual writer and World War II martyr described our working together for good as an experience of a life of costly grace .Costly grace moves us to action as simple human beings as well as disciples of Christ.(Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.) The awful grace of God includes costly grace Biblical Scholar, Walter Brueggemann reminds us, “What God does first and best and most is to trust the people of God. (that would be all of us. ) with their moment,(our moment) in history. God trust us to do what must be done for the sake of the whole community.” Maybe you heard President Obama’s offering of comfort to the Haitian people poignantly saying: “We will not forsake you, we will not forget you.” These two vows are highlighted in Scripture. The God of compassion, the God of love and mercy whom we have come to know by heart, reminds us that we will never be forgotten. Now put those words beside the cruelties captured in film by the national networks. The sadness and the utter destitution and chaos do take our breath away! According to the prophets of old, directions of how to respond in crisis have been given through the ages. In the Book of Matthew the call of Jesus invites:” Come to me all you who labor and are heavy burdened!” What an invitation to us with our needy neighbors. And yet, to look more closely at costly grace, we realize Comfort is more than emotional reaching; it includes restitution and action on our part. God‘s hand stretches out to gather the remnants of broken hearted people and that is where our response shines forth. Over and over we have heard tell, we are the light of the world! Well,…we are called at this time of the destruction of a land only 600 miles from our border to respond, to offer a new way to those whose lives have been shattered, to allow the creativity and courage of God to author our actions. There are many places to begin. …many actions to begin with, and I know some of us are already involved. Our country, our troops and our churches are deep into the rescue efforts The amount of aid and machinery our country is sending is staggering. Through our church connection, the UCC, the United Church of Christ, with their commitment through “One Great Hour of Sharing”, we have had disaster aid already on the scene since day two. This is crisis caring representing all that is good about the human spirit. However, one wonders as some thoughtful editorials have raised: should we look down the crossroads to the terrible problems of infrastructure, governance, poverty, education, and disease, in an effort to understand the complexity of the assistance which will be also desperately needed? We who fight for freedom for the alien, need to work at this moment for the Haitians who may be deported to Haiti. I am neither a politician nor an aid worker but with you together, we can open our eyes and hearts and understand there is a huge commitment waiting for us to make for the future. One way to start our response is to write a letter asking for TPS- Temporary Protected Status for those Haitian living in the U.S. It might be possible then for these Haitians to secure work permits, stay here temporarily, and send money home to support relief efforts. (Copies of a sample letters are in Fellowship Hall for your perusal). Working together, we can trust that many more ideas or ways to respond will arise. Isn’t that what the prophet Isaiah means when the claim is made that God said, “I will never forget you, my people. I have inscribed you on the palm of my hand ”(Isaiah 49 :16). At this time, we may pick up our hands and begin the holy work of recovery. Otherwise, how do we confer dignity on a land and people brought so low? There is no way that I am a Greek Scholar, coming from the big city of Somerville, Mass., outside of Boston, and yet I have heard tell, that Robert Kennedy quoted the Greek Playwright, Aeschylus at Martin Luther King Junior’s funeral: from ancient writings, we learn,: “In our sleep, pain which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will comes wisdom through the awful grace of God” The anguish of God, the awful grace of God calls us together. The terror that has happened to God’s people is clear. There are almost not enough tears to equal the disaster these neighbors of ours are living through! Yet we as a community who partners with our neighbors can respond. Sadness and sorrowing are centuries old burdens that come from living in our world…
but this is our chance, our burden to respond to.
Our connection to Haiti gives us a chance together, to renew the face of the earth,
to bind up the wounds of our neighbors,
to change bitterness to hope
to prepare and mend
those whose work, homes ,churches, school, and bodies are broken,
To help a closed heart be healed and opened to God’s light of love.
Amen. So be it!
Elaine McNally Fitzpatrick
|
|
|
