At Peace in a World on Fire

November 14, 2023
    
Beloved:

          To be at peace and full of joy in a world on fire . . . is easier to believe some days than others.  I forced myself to look at the war photos to which American newspapers will only refer, pictures too ghastly by the standards of such privileged readers.  Then I went for a walk and remembered some words by that ancient letter writer named Paul, a Roman-Jewish-Christian who got into trouble for suggesting that Gentile Christians were in all ways equal to his Jewish-Christian siblings, entitled to worship, eat and hang out with them as equal bearers of the Holy Spirit.  Big trouble.  For an idea people were not ready to hear.  Privileged people like himself, that is.
          In one letter he profiles his own privilege.  He highlights his birthplace and birthright, his lineage and education, his professional advance and moral acuity.  None have more reason to boast in their privilege than me, Paul says, and then the shocker, I regard it all as loss . . . as excrement in order to gain Christ.*  Yep, excrement – again, a translation mindful of readers’ tender sensibilities.  My Greek professor translated it as dog*#%t, a stronger excrement expletive.  Privilege is that stench clinging to our shoes, compared to the sweetness of moving through this world in the faith and with the eyes of Jesus.  Awful as these pictures are, what they reveal is the humanity of the other.  The video of Shifa Hospital in Gaza – a father carrying his lifeless toddler on his shoulder, rubbing his little back, petting his hair as if about to put him down for a nap – took my breath away.  As well it should, if I mean it when I pray to be the body of Christ in this time and place.
          As people with the capacity to recognize what is happening before our eyes, we see a slaughter being perpetrated and condoned by the most powerful and privileged constituents of humanity against the weakest, including children.  It is indecent, to say the least.  At worst, it is unapologetic evil conducted in broad daylight.  We are not free to look away nor pretend this nightmare has nothing to do with us.  As human beings - it has to do with us.  As believers in Jesus - it has to do with us. 

• If we have knees, we can pray for decency and restraint by leaders.
  
• If we have good health, we can fast in solidarity with those from whom everything necessary for life is being withheld.
  
• If we have hands, we can write letters to our government representatives asking them to join the international calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
  
• If we have money, we can send it to humanitarian agencies working to help the wounded and displaced.
  

          No one can do everything.  Everyone can do something.  These are the days God’s people step up, or not, to trade our privilege for the joy and the duty of being Christ’s, interrupting the injustice and trauma humans inflict and suffer in our midst.

          I am grateful to be about the work with the likes of you these days. 

~ peace & prayers, 
pastor annette

*Philippians 3:2-16

Email President Biden ~ https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Email Indiana Representative Erin Houchin ~ https://houchin.house.gov/contact
Email Indiana Senator Todd Young ~ https://www.young.senate.gov/contact
Email Indiana Senator Mike Braun ~ https://www.braun.senate.gov/contact/
Donate to Doctors Without Borders, a medical agency at work in Gaza, or one of the many other humanitarian agencies doing work with war victims around the world.