In the worship bulletin I wrote and pieced together, the opening line was always THE PEOPLE GATHER ---- to gather, to come together, to be in shared space, in community with each other and all the other others. The recent gospel lesson referred to Jesus being like a “mother hen gathering her chicks.” It’s a good image of protection, huddling close and keeping safe from predators above and below.
Someone has said we live in the “age of identity and the age of the refugee.” A lot of truth is evidenced in the movement of persons proudly claiming their identity, how one understand one’s self, the pronoun one wants used; it is powerful and it is freeing. In some areas the quest for political power at any cost has this under attack.
Be it our southern border, the starving multitudes in Syria, climate change forcing massive movement, and, of course, the millions of persons fleeing the horrors of war in Ukraine. The age of the refugee continues to impact in size, scope and spirit.
The age of identity and the refugee demands a response. I long for the faithful to speak out, stand up and to be granted the wisdom and courage needed for the living of these days.
Central to crises is for the faithful to claim, live and extend a central tenet of our faith --- hospitality, that radical notion that we notice, we act, we protect, we gather. Are we, the faithful, about much more than just words printed in a bulletin or found in hymnal or highlighted in a book? A world has been waiting for the lived answer......
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