Lent
April 3, 2019
Scripture Reading: Psalm 126
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
‘The Lord has done great things for them.’
The Lord has done great things for us,
and we rejoiced.
Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
like the watercourses in the Negeb.
May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves.
I am in the process of finishing the book We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter. It is a novel describing the real story of a Jewish family living in Poland at the outbreak of World War II. It traces the lives of the family members, parents and young adults, as they were scattered from Poland to Brazil, Siberia, Tahran, and Italy. The story provides new insights on what it truly must feel like to worship God after the horrors of being condemned refugees. They were the lucky ones. Around 6 million European Jews were killed*. I could not help imagining that family’s emotional response to reuniting as I read the above scripture.
One of my uncles served in Germany during that war. He and a few other soldiers had just crossed a bridge in Germany when it was blown up with the rest of his platoon on it. German soldiers came along shortly and shot all but my uncle and one other man all were defenseless and severely injured some already dead. When my uncle was flipped over by the butt of a rifle to see if he was alive, he said he played possum. I guess all those hours of hunting and observing wildlife had paid a dividend. He and his buddy were two of the lucky ones also. He lived the rest of his life with a metal plate replacing a bone in his head and another metal bar holding a shattered leg bone together. He did not tell me this. He did not talk about the war. My dad got the story probably from someone else when he visited him while he was in the hospital. After reading the book I wondered what other horrors my uncle had seen.
The Psalm above is a song of ascent sang by worshipers as they walked up the hill to the temple. It relates the story of celebration when Israel was freed from bondage. There were an estimated 68.5 million* refugees in our world in 2018 and the number is growing. These people were driven from their homelands to save themselves from certain death from violence, starvation, lack of drinkable water, and oppression. How is that possible in a world where many claim allegiances to the God of love who calls followers to love our neighbor as we love ourselves? God created a bountiful world with enough resources for all to live in their homelands and have adequate resources to not just survive but thrive. Too many people, some claiming to be God’s people worship at the feet of greed and lust after power resulting in even more mistreatment of those escaping violence. God’s call still echoes through this world, we need to listen for that still small voice and live God’s love.
Prayer: Lord, forgive us for turning blind eyes to the needs of refugees. Show us avenues of service where we can help meet their immediate needs and paths to justice to create a world ruled by love. Amen.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust