Ezekiel 33:7-11
Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20
I guess it didn’t hit me until this
past Wednesday. I spent last weekend in Michigan at a wedding and
didn’t watch the news or read a paper all weekend. For some reason, I
didn’t read the paper or watch TV on Monday or Tuesday either.
However, on Wednesday, I read the paper with the huge headlines, “The
Nightmare Worsens”. Later that day, I was listening to the radio in
my office and one of those songs came on that has the actual voice
overs of people talking. It was a song about the hurricane and the
people talking over the music were victims who were trying to recover
from Katrina’s devastation. I think it finally hit me about the third
time I heard this song because I finally paid attention to what the
man was saying. As the music softly played in the background, the man
says that he was hanging onto his wife’s hand as tight as he could and
she said to him, “You can’t hang on forever. Take care of the kids,
take care of the grandkids and know that I love you.” And then,
through sobs of grief, he says, “She was gone. I’m lost. That’s all
I had, that’s all I had.” When I finally understood the situation he
was describing, that is when the impact of this hurricane hit me.
I think subconsciously I didn’t want
to read the newspapers or watch the news and this disaster described.
I remember 4 years ago, right about this time, being glued to the
television for 2 straight days as we watched the fallout from 9-11. I
remember having that same feeling as we entered into wars in two
different countries within a year and a half, but I couldn’t bring
myself to watch the television as much as I did on 9-11. And then
over the Christmas break, as our world experienced one of the worst
disasters in recorded history – the tsunami – I couldn’t watch TV at
all and could only glance at the paper. 100,000 people dead was too
much for me. And now, just 8 months later, as our nation has
experienced our worst natural disaster in 100 years, I couldn’t even
bring myself to read the newspaper. It took a song played over the
radio for it to really hit home. Subconsciously, I think my mind was
protecting me because it is so sad and so overwhelming that I’m not
sure I could’ve handled it in those first couple days.
I’m sure that there are many of you
who have had similar reactions. Someone at Confirmation on Wednesday
told me they can’t watch TV without crying. Others have asked what
they can do. And some of you may still be in the state that I was
until Wednesday, trying your best to avoid any mention or sight of it
because it is too much to deal with. But the reality is here. New
Orleans will never be the same again. Thousands of people died
throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. For a few
thousand lucky ones, they will now be calling the Houston Astrodome
home for the next couple months.
As this all began to hit me, I turned
to the only place I could – the Bible. I began with our scripture
lessons for today to see if they offered any sort of guidance for us
in this time of national crisis. I began with the question, God, where
are you in all of this? And at first, I was very disappointed. If you
look at our lessons, they really don’t have anything to say about
natural disasters or crisis or healing. In Ezekiel, God is
admonishing Ezekiel to go tell the Israelites to turn from their
wicked ways. In Romans, Paul is talking about how to live a godly
life. And in Matthew, Jesus gives us the three step process to solve
any dispute with a fellow church member. Not much there in terms of
natural disasters, not even much there in terms of hope, and I was
tempted to scrap these lessons and come up with some of my own. At
least, that was until I started to look very closely at the underlying
assumption for all three of these passages.
The underlying message, the
foundation for all three of these passages is I think exactly what we
need to hear at a time like this. The one thing that ties all of
these lessons together is that God values relationships above all
else. God values relationships above all else. God commands Ezekiel
to tell the Israelites to turn from their wicked ways, not so that
they will follow the letter of the law, but only because, as God says,
“I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” God desires life and
relationship with all people, even the wicked. He takes no pleasure
in the death of the wicked and so I’m pretty sure he takes no pleasure
in death of any kind. It is safe to say that God’s heart is also
broken by all of this devastation and loss of life. I have admit, New
Orleans doesn’t exactly have the best reputation when it comes to
morality, especially around Mardi Gras time, but that doesn’t mean
that God is punishing them or enacting some kind of harsh discipline.
God takes no pleasure in the death of anyone. It hurts him because
death means broken relationships.
In Matthew, while Jesus is giving
instructions for how to handle disputes between church members, his
underlying desire is for all people to be in relationship with one
another. The passage just prior to this one talks about the great
lengths that a shepherd went to find one lost sheep and bring that one
back to the fold. His 3 step process is this same idea. When there
is a broken relationship between you and another person, Jesus wants
that relationship to be healed if at all possible.
And in Romans, Paul is talking about
living the godly life and it just so happens that everything he talks
about has to do with relationships with other people. Love one
another, do not commit adultery, murder, steal or covet. Love your
neighbor as yourself. God’s greatest desire for us is that we live in
relationship with him and in relationship with one another. The way
we please God is to love and to heal relationships.
So what do relationships have to do
with hurricanes? Absolutely nothing. But relationships have
everything to do with hurricane victims. In 1 Corinthians 12:26, Paul
writes, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it.” My
friends, we have a lot of suffering brothers and sisters in the world
today and like it or not, we cannot turn our backs on them because God
did not turn his back on us.
When the human race introduced sin
into the world. When people started killing other people, when they
started worshiping other gods, when they denied the existence of their
creator, whenever we decide that our will is more important than God’s
will, God did not and does not turn his back on us. He does not let
our relationship with him fall apart. God went to such great lengths
to maintain our relationship, that he sent his Son to die on the cross
so that each of us has access to an eternal relationship. God did not
allow death or sin to get in the way of maintaining our relationship
with him and now there is nothing that will ever be able to separate
us from his love – not death or life, nor angels nor rulers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor hurricanes or anything else in all creation. God has ensured that
we are loved and can have a relationship with him because he sent us
Jesus. And for doing that, we should be eternally grateful.
And because he did send us Jesus and
didn’t turn his back on us, nor can we turn our backs on our brothers
& sisters who are suffering now. Someone asked me this week, “What
can we do? What is the proper Christian response?” Here are just a
few suggestions and this list is by no means all inclusive. The first
thing we can do as Christians is to recognize and bear witness to what
God is already doing. God has been very active this past week helping
people recover. God has been active through our governments on all
levels – state, local, and federal. I’ll be the first to admit that I
have been less than pleased with some of our governor’s decisions this
past year, especially regarding Medicare and Medicaid cuts, but I
really think God has been active through Mr. Blunt to help aid these
people with some of Missouri’s resources – our National Guard and
helping to organize various truckloads of supplies. God has acted
through our military to help bring supplies and evacuate the
homeless. God has acted through hundreds of social agencies that are
responding with all the resources at their disposal. God has acted
through the kindness and generosity of total strangers who have opened
their homes and hotels to the victims. God has been very active and
our first job as Christians is to recognize that fact and to bear
witness to hope. God has not abandon his people or the world. Even
though people may be walking in dark, flooded valleys God is with
them.
Another thing Christians can do is
turn to Scripture and to pray. Use this as an opportunity to deepen
your faith. Don’t be afraid to ask God the tough questions. Read
through the psalms and cry and lament with the various psalmists.
Enter into the sorrow of the victims, with the hope and promise of
God’s eternal salvation.
And if you feel called to help in
some form or fashion, there are many different agencies to work
through, but perhaps one of the most effective is Lutheran Disaster
Response, which you can get to through the ELCA website. Through
loving and caring Christians, God is already there and will continue
to be there, active and working his miracles of healing and recovery.
When that man I mentioned at the
beginning of my sermon cried that he was lost because he had lost his
wife, he was absolutely correct. We are nothing without our
relationships. But we as Christians, also know something more – that
death is not the end of relationships because of Jesus Christ. God
refuses to let go of us, even when we experience death and the darkest
times that this world has to offer. Amen.
