January 17, 2010
This is the beginning of the week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and coming as it does in the wake of the tragedy of the earthquake in Haiti, there is an added poignancy to the idea of Christians putting aside their differences and working together in a spirit of solidarity to help their wounded sisters and brothers. All too often Christian unity seems like an improbable dream. Even with the best intentions in the world, something always comes up to rankle the hearts of different groups of Christians, whether it's a disagreement over the interpretation of scripture or a debate about who is or is not welcome at the Lord's table. Oh how theory and practice of unity differ! In theory, we know we all worship the same God, and believe in the same Lord. The early church teachings of insisted over and over that Christians needed to be unified. But our practices sometimes take us in a very different direction –instead of love and unity we offer each other anger and defensiveness. It's hard to be open hearted when we're afraid. It's hard to love our neighbour when we don't trust them. In the every day life of everyday Christians, unity doesn't seem very likely or often even very desirable.
This dis-unity is, all to often, the day to day expression of Christian communications. But then, something happens which shakes our day-to-day world. A disaster happens, one that's close to home, a disaster like the earthquake in Haiti. We find ourselves shaken out of our patterns. Since last Tuesday, every mundane thought or idea has been strangely derailed. It's been a week of pain and anguish for so many of us –some of us devastated by tragedy in our own circles of family and friends, --all of us touched by the images and stories of great suffering as well as great courage. It's been a week where each new day unveiled a new tragedy, where opening the paper in the morning or turning on the television or Internet to follow the news took a moment of courage. What next, we ask ourselves? How many stories and more photos and footage of people in extreme pain can we stand? When can we return to the comforting normality of last week?
But in this difficult time, we as Christians find ourselves unified at last, searching for a response to the horror, something we can do to make sense of this whole thing. We go beyond the theories, beyond the theology, unified by a force which brings us together to care for our neighbour. When we see the stricken faces of those dealing with this disaster, we feel our own emotions responding. We become aware that we have indeed been given hearts of flesh and not of stone.
But even as we find ourselves coming together, the task seems so insurmountable. Events transpire to keep is from acting. There's the frustration of knowing that the infrastructure in Haiti is so damaged, that the aid that is pouring into the area but can't get through, and that just makes it worse. We all have feelings of shock and horror. We're all galvanized by a desire to help, but apart from sending money and praying, there doesn't seem to be much we can do. We long to do something tangible, to reach out a hand of comfort to those who have lost so much. There's so much death, so much suffering. We are brought together, but even in our unity, we can't make the pain disappear. We find ourselves asking the difficult questions: Why, God? Why these people? Why now, after the country has been torn apart by poverty and violence and pain for so many years? There is no satisfactory answer to these questions, although a lot of people have tried to come up with one. We know innocent people didn't "deserve" this calamity, and we know God is not malevolent. How do we reconcile our knowledge of God with the devastation we've been witnessing over the past few days?
I was discussing the situation in Haiti with the women I do Bible study with in Tanguay prison. None of them were directly affected, thankfully, but they all had something to say. After much discussion, the point of view that I found most comforting came from a young woman who just shrugged and said "There was a fault in the earth's crust. Too much pressure built up. God didn't make it happen and God didn't prevent it from happening. It just happened. Things happen." That seems to me like a sensible response. One important thing to keep in mind when we meditate on Theodicy, which is the scholarly Greek term for "God's justice" is that our experiences over the centuries in the world has made it amply clear that God's justice is not a simple equation. It never seems to be a straightforward case of the good prospering and the evil being punished. Sometimes things just happen, and it's up to us to fashion a response that's based on our sense of community and solidarity with those who are in pain and in need.
The people who are in Haiti are faced with the need to respond immediately. Of course, there are those who respond out of their anger frustration and despair with violence. And here are those who quickly move forward to take advantage of the chaos to accumulate a power base, often criminal. But there are different responses. There are stories out there of the responses of a people who have gone through a horrifyingly traumatic experience, but who haven't despaired, who can still reach out their hands to help their neighbour, who come together for the common good.
There are also the responses of the rest of the world, including our own part. We are sending an outpouring of aid to the people of Haiti, people are sending money, volunteering, doing what they can to help. How heartening it is to see people connecting to each other --in spite of the frustrations and limitations-- working for the good of their neighbour, which is after all the common good of God's kingdom.
We don't all have to be doctors or aid workers. We don't have to give thousands of dollars to the relief efforts. No one is asking all of us to rush off and volunteer. As St Paul points out, we all have different spiritual gifts which may indeed translate to concrete and practical help, but of varied kinds. But the one thing we have is unity, Christian unity yes, but also human unity. We are united in our desire to help rebuild this stricken country.
In reading the Old Testament text for this morning, I found myself touched once more by the lines from the prophet Isaiah:
4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the LORD delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
5 For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.
What a beautiful vision for a tormented land! And how wonderful that we can come together to be a part of this renewal.
This is a kind of unity that goes beyond the theoretical, and it even goes beyond the confines of Christianity or even of theism. All manner of people are participating in this humanitarian effort. It's the true human unity that we have as our birthright, all of us, no matter what our beliefs are, given to us by our creator. It is our human nature that longs to heal the pain and right the wrongs. This universal sense of being united in a common cause has something to teach us when we look at the idea of Christian unity.
But we shouldn't need a horrible disaster to remind us that we have to care for each other. When we experience our own human responses to the pain of others, it serves to remind us that we have a role in the well-being of others, and we as Christians have promised to act out that role. No matter what "flavour" of Christian we are, no matter what our differences of practice or dogma, we are bound together by the love of neighbour which is manifested especially in such times as these, where a great disaster happens. When we humans put aside our fear and distrust, we are capable of great things. This knowledge should inform us, even when no acute danger threatens.
In the Gospel reading for today, we hear the familiar story of the miracle at Cana, where Jesus turned the water into wine. Some scholars have suggested that this can be read as a metaphor that Jesus opened the message of God to all people, rather than restricting it to the Jews: the water, which was used for the Jewish ceremonial cleaning ritual was transformed into the wine of the new covenant made with God through Jesus. It is seen as a call to a less exclusive relationship with God. We are moved into a universality. But it's important to realize that this opening up of the good news to all people still implies that there is a unity of purpose. We are all different, but we worship the same God. We are all called to love our neighbour as ourselves. At this difficult time, it's good to know that this same spirit is still working in us and brings us together in love. Amen.
