Can These Bones Live?

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Ezekiel wrote his prophesy to the people of Israel who were living in exile in Babylon, after being forcibly displaced by the Babylonian armies who swept across the region destroying whole cities (including Jerusalem) and killing tens of thousands.  In Ezekiel’s vision, these refugees are dry bones.  Lifeless.  Empty.   Hopeless.  As Ezekiel surveyed the great valley, filled with bones, the LORD asks him, “Mortal, can these bones live?”  The prophet responds, “O Lord God, you know.”  (37:3) 

 I spent Tuesday and Wednesday of this week at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Advocacy Days in Washington DC.  This is an annual event where the bishops of the ELCA are invited to Washington to learn about key issues of the day, and then visit with senators and representatives from our home districts around those issues.  This year, we met, along with the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) Leadership Summit, around the question of refugee resettlement and caring for the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors and their families coming to our southern boarders.  They were an intense and I think, worthwhile, couple of days.  I visited with both senators from Arkansas, and aides for the senators from Oklahoma (all Republicans).  The conversations were constructive.  We found common ground and areas of agreement as we spoke and listened to one another.  All four senators, as people of faith, believe that caring for migrants and refugees is important…  even if we didn’t fully agree on how best to do that.

Today, 65 million people wander the earth as refugees.  They have been displaced by war, famine, violence, persecution and political oppression.  The world has not seen this many refugees since the end of World War II.  At that time, the United States opened our hearts and our doors and led the way in caring for displaced persons.   LIRS was founded in 1939 to respond to that crisis and has been resettling refugees ever since.  Today’s refugees long for safe places to live their lives, just like those who were displaced by WW II, and the Babylonian armies of long ago.  Many will never be able to return to their homelands.   They are dry bones suffering and struggling and dying in refugee camps that stretch around the world.

God’s people continue to have a significant role in caring for those who wander homeless.  Today, the LORD still asks, “Can these dry bones live?”   Like Ezekiel before us, people of faith need to prophesy to these bones through study, prayer, and advocacy, so that they can feel the breath of God’s Spirit and experience new life.  Jesus tells us that when we welcome the stranger we are, in fact, welcoming him (Matthew 25).  Caring for migrants and refugees is holy work.

Can these dry bones live?  It is the Spirit of the Lord who gives us all life, but the Spirit works through us as we do God’s work with our hands, and proclaim God’s praise with our voices.   Join me as together we proclaim a word of hope and life to the migrants and refugees of our world in both word and in deed.

Peace,

Bishop Mike

Thank-you for reading.  You can find out more about the ELCA’s work with migrants and refugees at AMMPARO, and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.  

Complain, Complain, Complain!

Exodus 17:1-7

My father had a saying:  “Some people would complain if they were hung with a new rope.”  He would level this saying at us when we were whining about the unfairness of our childhood world, or exaggerating some petty slight perpetrated against us, or blaming one another rather than working things out between us.   I was never sure what his expression actually meant  but I got his point:  whining about something never solved anything.

As Moses led the Hebrew people out of Egypt and through forty long years of wandering in the wilderness, they whined and complained…   …a lot.  Life in the wilderness was not easy.  Challenges abounded.  The basics of life were often hard to come by.  Moses did his share of complaining too.  Leading is not easy either, especially when those you are trying to lead seem to be questioning everything.  Leadership can be lonely work.   The wilderness stories often follow a similar plot:  a challenge is encountered, the people complain to Moses, Moses complains to God and God responds.

Yes, God responds.

God never dismissed the people’s complaints.  God doesn’t blow off the people’s whining, pettiness or blaming.  God does not ignore Moses’ petitions for help.  Instead, God proved trustworthy again and again and again.  Water from a rock.  Quail from the heavens.  Bread like dew upon the morning grass.  Protection from enemies.  Guidance along the way.  God raised up elders and leaders to support Moses in his leadership, and gave them the courage, the strength and the wisdom they needed to lead God’s people together. 

In a way, God’s people always walk a wilderness road.  There have always been challenges, trials, struggles and troubles along the way.  There has always been plenty to whine about, and God’s people often have.  The scriptures and the history of the Church are full of stories about the faithlessness of God’s people.  We’re not an easy bunch.  And yet, God has always proved trustworthy.  God has never abandoned us, even when we have abandoned God.  Ultimately, God came among us, in the flesh, so that we might know that even death could not separate us from God’s deep and enduring love.  “While we were still weak,”  Paul tells the Romans, “at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” (5:6).  Yep. That’s us.

As we walk the wilderness road of our own time, God goes with us.  God still hears our complaints and God still proves trustworthy as we confront them and deal with them.  God still sends us companions who will walk with us along the way, and God still shows us the way to Jesus, the Rock, who can and does slake our thirst. 

Peace,

Bishop Mike.

Thank-you for reading.  Please keep praying for peace, with justice, for all God’s children throughout the world.

Abram Went

Genesis 12:1-4a

Sometime in the early 1800s, a brother and sister stowed away on a boat in a German port hoping to come to America.  When the boat arrived at the Port of New Orleans, they found their way ashore and settled near Natchez, MS.  It is a miracle they didn’t get thrown overboard when they were discovered!   I don’t know what motivated my Girlinghouse ancestors, or why they felt compelled to take such dangerous measures to leave their homeland.  But, they came.  No doubt, they came looking for a better life and to escape whatever troubles they faced in their old one.  I only live here because of their decision to come and I count that as a blessing.

When Abram, his wife Sarai and their clan heeded God’s call and immigrated from Haran to Canaan, they weren’t the only ones on the move.  We know that was a time of significant migration and change all across Asia.  We know, from the stories of Abram and Sarai in Genesis, that their immigration was fraught with challenges, dangers, perils and some unfriendly receptions.  And yet, God went with them.  God blessed them and ultimately, the whole world for their faithfulness.

The scriptures are full of stories about immigrants and immigration.  Joseph brought his family to Egypt during a time of severe famine.  Moses led the people for forty years in the wilderness before they finally returned to Canaan.  Joseph took his family to Egypt to escape the murderous King Herod after Jesus was born.  The prophet Jeremiah, reflecting a long history of justice for the alien, declares the word of the Lord, “…If you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will  dwell with you in this place…” (7:6-7)  Jesus says that when we welcome the stranger, we are, in fact, welcoming him. (Matthew 25:35).

Following this long biblical tradition, Christian churches have for centuries welcomed, settled and supported immigrants, refugees and displaced persons from around the world.  Lutheran Christians in the United States have been at the forefront of this ministry for more than a century through the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (lirs.org).  At this time, when so many people around the world are being displaced by war, violence, crime, poverty, famine and a host of other threats, this ministry is still critical.  Even more, I think welcoming the stranger still reflects both the heart and the compassion of our God.

So, Abram went, and God went with him and his family to a new land.   My Girlinghouse ancestors went, and I believe God went with them as well.  Who, I wonder, is God sending to bless us today? 

Peace,

Bishop Mike

Thank-you for reading.