This lament from Jesus, the first in our series for these midweek Wednesdays, feels like he could be sitting on a hill or a bridge or by the roadside somewhere in Kyev or Lviv, Ukraine, this morning.
“…your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you … hem you in on every side … they will crush you to the ground, you and your children with you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another…”
“If you had recognized this day the things that make for peace!”
But, “…you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”
Jesus’ lament is particular, of course, to the people of Israel in the First Century. He wasn’t in Ukraine. He was somewhere between the Mt. of Olives and Jerusalem. And the prediction which inspired his lament came to pass: Jerusalem was surrounded and besieged, the temple was toppled, lives were lost, families were destroyed, and more – all as part of the war between the occupying Romans who took what wasn’t theirs; occupied the land of another; laid waste to a people and a place as a show of power and in the name of empire-building.
It sounds familiar, right?
It’s familiar because it’s not unique to Rome and Russia, of course. If you spin a globe like a roulette table in Vegas and drop your finger blindly at any point thereon, you’re likely able, with a little research and some honest history, to find a time when that land once belonged to… was inhabited by… was called “home” to someone other than whoever is living there at the moment. And there was likely violence, bloodshed and war connected with that transfer of ownership.
This would be a good time to remind ourselves and each other about the indigenous, native peoples who lived on the land we call home at Cross of Grace, here in New Palestine, these days. As an expression of gratitude, repentance and lament, let’s acknowledge and give thanks for the Lenape tribe of Indians. Indiana means “the land of the Indians,” of course, and the Lenape lived in east central Indiana, in this neck of the woods, alongside the likes of the Shawnee, the Miami, and the Potawatomi, too. This was holy ground to those children of God, long before people who looked like me forced them to give up their homeland and migrate, like so many refugees, to places like Kansas, Oklahoma, and beyond.
Which is to say war is so much a part of the human condition, it touches every one of us in some way or another. Whether we read about the horrifying accounts of it in Scripture, do a deep dive into our nation’s history and origins, or research the leaves on our family tree, our connection to humanity’s “warring madness” – for better and for worse – impacts each of us personally, spiritually, cross-culturally, and more.
And that grieves the heart of God, as Jesus himself showed in his lament over Jerusalem way back when.
And I don’t have an answer to any of this tonight, of course. I’m a “beat your swords into plowshares” and “turn your spears into pruning hooks” kind of guy. I’d melt every gun down into a gardening tool, for that matter, if they’d let me, because I think that’s what Jesus would do. I’m a “turn the other cheek,” “love your enemy,” “blessed are the peacemakers” sort of soul, too, because … well … Jesus.
But none of that makes for a winning political platform for our kind of Christian nation these days and it is – sadly and shamefully – seemingly impractical in light of current events.
So what’s a believer to do?
As wars and rumors of wars rage... As nation rises up against nation… As widows and children become refugees and aliens… As brother rises up against brother… As neighbors destroy neighbors… As homes and hospitals are obliterated… As life after life is lost… As ego and pride and fear and greed rule the day where humility and faith and generosity should lead…
All I know to do sometimes is lament… to cry out… to grieve… like Jesus did – like the heart of God still does, I believe – for the state of things and for our inability to repair what is broken or restore what is lost...
…because we fail to recognize, this day … still … the things that make for peace.
Since yesterday was International Women’s Day – and since March has been deemed Women’s History Month – it seems appropriate to share what some of us learned in our study of Rachel Held Evans’ book, Inspired, recently. Rachel Held Evans struggled with the prevalence of war and violence in the Bible; with all of the bloodshed and genocide to be found there and very often claimed in the name of and at the pleasure of the God we worship. It challenged her faith mightily – as, maybe it should all of ours. But Rachel Held Evans learned not to just dismiss or condone, rationalize or ignore the ugliness of all the war in our faith’s story. She let it get her attention and make her uncomfortable enough to wonder more deeply about it.
Rachel Held Evans learned to pay attention to the people in the stories who didn’t behave “according to the script,” as she put it. And she specifically tells of the young women of Israel who publicly grieved the unjust sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter in the book of Judges. (Some of you will remember that the girl was sacrificed because her daddy won a war against the Ammonites.) Anyway, the young women of Israel made a public practice and display of lament for the murdered girl, which became an Israelite tradition for women to go out for four days every year thereafter to commemorate the death of Jephthah’s daughter.
Rachel Held Evans says, “While the men moved on to fight another battle, the women stopped to acknowledge that something terrible had happened … and with what little social and political power they had, they protested – every year for four days. They refused to let the nation forget what it had done in God’s name.” (Inspired, p. 74)
So, I decided that women of Israel are like that Ukrainian woman who so defiantly, bravely passed out sunflower seeds to Russian soldiers. The sunflower has long been a symbol of peace and unity for Ukraine and the woman told the soldiers to put the seeds in their pockets so that when they die in Ukraine, at least a sunflower will grow from their dead, buried bodies.
Or maybe the women of Israel are like that other Ukrainian grandmother who took down a Russian spy drone with a jar of pickled tomatoes.
I don’t know.
I just know it feels like there’s not much we can do sometimes, but plant seeds, throw tomatoes, and lament. But lament isn’t nothing … it’s a deliberate, faithful grief over what has been lost; a sadness for what we haven’t been able to change; a frustration over what is yet to come; and an expression of solidarity with the suffering, even in spite of our own apathy and complicity in it, just the same.
And I hope some measure of our “Lament for War” – past, present and future – will help us, not just recognize, but celebrate and engage the things that make for peace, instead … until we learn to work for and walk alongside and do the bidding of Jesus, the Prince of Peace; so that we will not learn war any longer; so that we will, indeed, lay down our weapons or turn them into gardening tools; so that we will love our neighbors – and our enemies – as ourselves.
Amen
