As of this morning's news, Myanmar continues to count the dead with the numbers already exceeding 28,000 even as the world waits to assist with the living, China's Sichuan province and extended territories are digging out from the effects of a 7.8 earthquake, sorting through the rubble of schools and hospitals, unsure of the total casualties and injured, as Seneca, Missouri, sorts through the remnants of a tornado that left at least 22 dead and many more severely injured. In taking in all of the related information on each of these world events, it made me wonder how God does it: how God can listen to the voices of all God's children in all these places in all these catastrophes; how God can respond to every prayer and every petition; how God can reach out in tenderness to the mourning while those seeking healing cry out in a loud voice still; how God strengthens the rescuer and gives peace to the caregiver; and, how God does it everyday.
I am hearkened back to the words of Exodus in the Hebrew scriptures as God speaks to Moses at the site of the burning bush with the words, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them . . . ." (Ex. 3.7-8a) The God we worship, the God of all creation, is not a God removed, but a God present, a God in the midst of our shared experience. What transpires in Egypt does not stay in Egypt, any more than what transpires in Vegas stays in Vegas: God observes, God hears, God responds. This cannot be lost on any of us today.
In the same way that the Egyptians had a choice in how to treat the resident alien among them, whether to enslave or to embrace, to execute justice or to execute for just us, to extend or withhold mercy, so the world community is in the position of expressing God's care and compassion in every situation. What happens in Myanmar happens to my sisters and brothers. What happens in Sichuan province happens to my sisters and brothers. What happens in Seneca, Missouri, happens to my sisters and brothers. Regardless of geographical boundaries, governmental figureheads, and physical and financial limitations, you and I are the hands of faith reaching out in healing, the balm in Gilead if you will, to our extended family in need, wherever they may be. It isn't some sort of test that God has devised to see how we will respond, it is the course of nature and our journey on this earth together . . . and we have the free will whether to pray or be silent, to extend assistance or withhold mercy, to love in spite of differences or to spite the differences with apathy. It is a faith choice whether or not we will live on common ground or die in our separate certainties.
God has already announced God's Good News in being present for those who are the most marginalized, the deepest in pain, the farthest from home, now it is ours as to how to live that Good News. God hears every cry and our ears hurt with the sound of all the voices. God sees the pain and we are tempted to avert our eyes in horror from the sight. Yet, God's community will only be built when life reaches out to life, transcending every barrier and living every prayer.
It is easy to wonder how God does it, for that makes everything God's issue, God's responsibility, God's worry. The more difficult question might be in whether we fully believe that God is God of all humankind. For, if that is what we truly believe, what answer will we give when asked why we did not share when others were in need. Truth be told, tomorrow may be our turn to cry out and what will be our hope then?
It is something to think about when pondering what God is doing in the midst of that which is both good and difficult in life. As Christ teaches: God is already giving God's answer, the question is not of how God responds, but how we choose to be in God in our response.
Your servant in Christ,
Pastor Don
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