Steps and Steps Toward Home

I'm not preaching this coming Sunday--and it's been planned that way. We're celebrating Music Ministry Sunday in worship in our congregation; we're also celebrating and giving thanks for our congregation's 105 years of ministry; and—it’s Mother’s Day.  If I were preaching, it'd be harder than usual, I think. 

But mostly because I'm disheartened by the news this week of the nearly 300 young women who were taken captive and carried off in Nigeria, and the unfathomable lack of response to seek, find, and return those victims to their families.  I am angry and confused that the major news outlets could drone on and on day after day regarding the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370--going to great lengths to describe the safety features and the technology deployed to find the missing plane, even when we all presume all of the passengers must surely have perished early on.  Yet, as news trickles in of next to nothing being done to find these young women, it seems there’s little more than a collective “shrug of the shoulders” going on. 

It is almost unimaginable.  And yet, it’s what we do.  It’s who we are—though some of us fight back against this reality. 

Mother's Day is not a liturgical holiday. I say that to the worship team every year as we make plans for observing it without naming it as such. I struggle each year knowing that for many women, the idea of Mother's Day is difficult, painful, and challenging. I "get it" and I'm always trying to find ways to help my congregation "get it" that Mother's Day is more than roses and Hallmark cards. But as we come to this year's observance that has such deep roots in our American culture, we're now face to face with this traumatic happening in another part of the world.

Say what you will about mothers and Mother's Day. We have nearly 300 mothers grieving the loss of children--who haven't suffered from some disease or accident, but who have been unmistakably and intentionally stolen. While we wrangle over the appropriateness of honoring mothers in worship, knowing the traumas of infertility, abuse, or thinking that “every woman wants to be a mother;” here are those whose precious babies have been ripped from their arms--and there's seemingly been little effort to go get and bring the babies back. 

Our lectionary scripture lessons this week put us in the liturgical cross-hairs of this trauma, too.  The famous 23^rd Psalm—with it’s green pastures and still waters, fearing no evil in the valley of the shadow of death, and dining at the table prepared in the presence of mine enemies—leaves me wanting even though the opening verse would deny it!  And Jesus’ promise in the gospel from John 10--

“Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.  ⁸All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them.  ⁹I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.  ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

--seems only to serve to exacerbate my hopeless and helpless feelings.  THOSE WHO TOOK THE YOUNG WOMEN WERE THIEVES AND BANDITS!  AND JUST WHERE WAS THE GATE, TO PROTECT THEM, AND CALL THEM OUT/BACK JESUS? 

Aren’t we all now simply standing by as if these schoolgirls are just akin to the other schoolchildren who were victims of the ferry accident in South Korea?  As if they were lost by way of tragic accident and there’s no way we can get them back?  From which we now just have to “move on” and quit our whining! 

So—I have been heartened to know that this is never the only answer.  The writer of the Book of Acts points Christ-followers to this example:  “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

And so, as the names of the lost ones were revealed this week, Christ-followers responded with encouragement that all of us pick a name of one of these victimized schoolgirls and pray for that one’s safe return, and for her mother and father, her family and community. 

All of us as Christ-followers can take that first step.  And hopefully, in that step, we will also find the courage and the voice and the urging to move beyond that step.  That we would raise our voices and dis-contentedness to make a difference—to cajole those with the power and authority to do something other than just standing by and hoping this news cycle will pass. 

And that as we take our steps toward home—that is the way and the witness and the will of the Kingdom of God—the world might see our faithful witness, and see in us that which we are and shall be.  And in that dawning, the world will be resurrected and made new. 

It’s Easter.  Jesus lives again.  We live again.  Those lost must be found.