lenten compassion (on Ukraine)
/To hear Brandi read the essay instead, click here: https://youtu.be/KsdKNSJ9W0Q
Volodymyr Zelensky is trying to save his country. This weekend he spoke directly to Israeli lawmakers, and begged them to intervene on Ukraine’s behalf. Israel, among other nations, has been brokering a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. In the nine minute speech, he asked a question that haunts me in an age where many American Christians live as if it is holy to ignore the pain of others: “Mediating without taking sides? You can mediate—but not between good and evil.”
Zelensky has a word for all of us. Many of us were rightly raised to compromise, to find middle ground, to keep the peace whenever possible. While these actions can create communities of belonging, they also provide cover for evil, destructive behavior. When we confuse peacemaking with peace keeping, we ignore abusers and call it healthy. For anyone who wants to follow Christ, mediating is necessary. We should do all we can take can to promote peace around us. However, there are times when calling for peace or health in a community requires calling out those who block access to peace and health for all. To not specifically name neglect or abuse—wherever it may be found—is to call the status quo good, ignoring the lives of hurting people.
Zelensky’s words hoped to remind Israel of how ugly evil becomes when people choose to look away. Hitler openly demonized Jews and others for most of his rise to power while the majority of the world acted as if apathy, or both sidesing, or handwringing passivity, or not-my-probleming were appropriate responses. When people with power keep the peace instead of actively making peace by speaking up in precise ways, vulnerable people get damaged.
This week our readings remind us that God’s word points us to a Beloved Community that actively values compassion. In this kin-dom, we trust that God takes our pain seriously, asking us to do the same. In the community of God, we can’t expect for ourselves what we won’t also claim for others. I’m not okay if you’re not okay, because we are tied together, bound by both our shared humanity and divinity. This week’s readings remind us that apathy is not a spiritual gift, that staying-out-of-it is not the way of Christ.
I hope you have time to think about how costly love and compassion often are this week. We expect it for ourselves, and there is an invitation here to imagine how we might offer it to each other. When God claims us, God invites us to belong to the Beloved Community in a way that wraps us up in the healing of each other. What a beautiful thing, to belong to each other.
Week Four: We belong to God and each other
“Isaiah was not rejected simply because he told Israel to worship Yahweh. He was rejected because Isaiah realized that true worship of Yahweh had implications for how one treated their neighbor.” –Esau McCaulley
“But how sobering, that I can bring forth out of my thought-world into the external world either that which leads to life, or that which produces death in other men…we must understand that the reality of communion with God, and loving God, must take place in the inward self.” -Francis Shaeffer
“Contemplative prayer deepens us in the knowledge that we are already free, that we have already found a place to dwell, that we already belong to God, even though everyone and everything around us keep suggesting the opposite.” -Henri Nouwen
3/23 Ps 103; 131
3/24 Isaiah 43:1-7
3/25 Ps 1:1-3; 23
3/26 Habb 3:17-19
3/27 Luke 9:46-48
3/28 Ps 106:1-8
3/29 Eccles 3:1-8; Ps 13
