Image Source |
Psalm
91:1-6, 9-16
You who
live in the shelter of the Most High,
who
abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say
to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress;
my God,
in whom I trust.’
For he
will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
and from
the deadly pestilence;
he will
cover you with his pinions,
and
under his wings you will find refuge;
his
faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
You will
not fear the terror of the night,
or the
arrow that flies by day,
or the
pestilence that stalks in darkness,
or the
destruction that wastes at noonday.
Because
you have made the Lord your refuge,
the Most
High your dwelling-place,
no evil shall befall you,
no
scourge come near your tent.
For he
will command his angels concerning you
to guard
you in all your ways.
On their
hands they will bear you up,
so that
you will not dash your foot against a stone.
You will
tread on the lion and the adder,
the
young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.
Those
who love me, I will deliver;
I will
protect those who know my name.
When
they call to me, I will answer them;
I will
be with them in trouble,
I will
rescue them and honor them.
With
long life I will satisfy them,
and show
them my salvation.
Sermon:
“The God for Refugees”
We were all piled in a hot, rickety passenger van. The kids had their ipods and cameras,
snapping blurry pictures out of the windows as we sped along. Red dust swirled all around us, despite the
fact that the windows were up. When we
finally arrived into the parking lot, we all piled out, grateful for fresh
air. The conversation and laughter
died.
Down below, we looked upon the largest township in Pietermaritzburg,
South Africa. Smoke rose from open
fires, homes were made of mud, plywood or rusting tin. There was no sanitation. thousands of people, all of them black South
Africans moved there by the government during Apartheid, called that township
home.
The trip back in our rickety van was much quieter. One of the other leaders of our trip (which
was a reconciliation project for Protestant and Catholic teenagers from
Belfast), spoke up, her voice thick with emotion.
“You have a choice, you know,” she said. “You can either pretend you never saw this,
that you never saw that people live this way, and remain hard to it. Or, you can let it break your heart. God wants it to break your heart.”
And it did.
Suddenly, our ipods and digital cameras felt heavy with the weight of
injustice. In that township, children
were growing up in extreme poverty because their government decided that was
where they should have to live. The
elderly were forced to endure the extremes of weather, without adequate
shelter. And those who were able to work
struggled to find transportation from the sprawling township on the outskirts
of town to the places in the center where they could earn a living. Life in that township was at times monotonously
the same as conditions never improved, and at others, fearfully changeable as
violence, storms and hunger took their toll.
You who live in the shelter of
the Most High,
who abide in the shadow of the
Almighty,
will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge
and my fortress;
my God, in whom I trust.’
I sat at a traffic light in Aberdeen the other day. It was taking its sweet time to change, and
instead of switching the radio to a better station or thinking of which errands
I needed to run, I opened my eyes to see those around me (and no, I was not
driving with my eyes closed!). As people
turned in front of me, I looked at their faces: a middle-aged woman with an
absent expression on her face, eating a sandwich, clearly accustomed to
multitasking.
A child peering out of the back window of a car, trying
to spot something exciting or unexpected, while his Dad looked bored.
An older man in a button-up shirt, with a buttoned-up
solemn expression on his worried face.
Two people, presumably a couple, faces both tight with
irritation, one speaking emphatically to the other, clearly angry.
And in that moment, I had a choice. I could have pretended that my little red car
was an island in this world, that the lives of those passing me by had no
impact on my own. I could have hardened
myself to their exhaustion and pain, written right there on their faces when
they thought no one was looking. Or, I
could let it break my heart.
You will not fear the terror of
the night,
or the arrow that flies by day,
or the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
or the destruction that wastes at
noonday.
Because you have made the Lord
your refuge,
the Most High your
dwelling-place, no evil shall befall you.
They are
not that different, really, the people I saw in that massive township in South
Africa years ago, and the people who passed before my eyes in Aberdeen the
other day. Like us, they all seek
security and peace, and wonder if life will ever get easier. Like us, they all face the exhaustion of
endless days where we do not spot anything exciting or unexpected from our
windows. Like us, they know the fear
that comes when life changes too quickly with violent actions, violent words,
the violence illness does to our bodies and spirits.
For God will command his angels
concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear
you up,
so that you will not dash your
foot against a stone.
Those who love me, I will
deliver;
I will protect those who know my
name.
The
words of Psalm 91, when spoken in the midst of the injustice of systemic
poverty and the disillusioned sorrow of people we pass every day, sounds like
something of a fairy tale. How is God a
refuge to those who call a leaking piece of scrap metal a roof? Where is this promised dwelling place of God,
where the evils of apathy and busyness aren’t invited in? What does it mean that we are delivered by
God, when each day delivers more and more bad news?
Many
pastors would just say one little three-letter word, “sin” and leave it at
that. The sin of racism and greed is
why some are forced to live under leaky roofs.
The sin of worshipping our schedules is what keeps us from God’s
peace. The sin of environmental abuse,
increased selfishness and failure to help those struggling most, leads to bad
things happening with greater and greater frequency.
There is
some truth to each of these statements.
But each of these statements assumes something very wrong about
God: they assume that our sinfulness can
keep God from dwelling with us. That is
simply not true. Or, at least, that is
not the God I believe in.
You see,
the God I believe in wandered with a refugee people in the wilderness in a
pillar of cloud and fire to guide them.
That pillar of God’s presence wasn’t way up in the sky for those who
took the time to look for it. It was
right in front of their eyes, guiding them all the way, even when they grumbled
and gave up.
The God
I believe in promised shelter under wings of grace, not just as pretty poetry,
but as a present reality for those who felt most lost and unworthy.
The God
I believe in was born in a barn (perhaps with a leaking roof) and called that
dirty, smelly place the dwelling of the Most High, because he came to defeat
sin with love once and for all.
The God
I believe in sees us as we really are, and knows that we are all, in one way or
another, refugees in search of home:
The
intelligent child who must overcome incredible obstacles to be the first in her
family to go to college, because she lives in that township in
Pietermaritzburg.
The
Syrian family who must leave their country to survive, even if that survival
means an overcrowded camp full of strangers.
The busy
mother who doesn’t even have time to feel her own loneliness, much less open up
to someone else about it.
The
arguing couple who believe they always have to put up a brave face of being
happy and in love when they don’t even know how to talk to each other
anymore.
The
older man in a buttoned-up shirt who, deep down, in a place he never admits to
anyone, fears that he will become irrelevant or lose his independence.
The
young adult who feels he knows many people but that no one really knows, or
loves, him.
This
world is absolutely full of refugees – us included.
And the
God who made us has a choice. God could
just look past the suffering of us refugee people, pretending not to see
it. God could become hardened to our
hardships, and remain distant and disconnected from our lives.
But the
good news is this: God doesn’t. God sees
each of us fully, taking in all of our joy and pain, and God’s heart breaks for
us. And then, this broken-hearted God,
says, “Right there. That place of
suffering, of isolation, of fear, that is exactly where I will go.”
And
those places in our lives and this world we thought most desolate, most
deserted and desperate, become dwelling places of the divine.
Never
forget that this world is made up of refugees seeking home. Never let your heart grow hard to your own
suffering or the suffering of another.
And never lose hope in the God who wanders with us, promising,
When they call to me, I will
answer them;
I will be with them in
trouble,
I will rescue them and honor
them.
With long life I will satisfy
them,
and show them my salvation.
Thanks
be to God! Amen.