4 Easter Good Shepherd Sunday
25 Apr 2021
Yesterday marked the 106th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian genocide and the United States finally took the step of making it official, with Joe Biden calling a spade just that. 1.5 million Armenians are thought to have died in one of the worst ethnic cleansings of the 20th century; for years Turkey denied it ever happened at all and tried to doctor the records. But truth is truth and I am glad that it was at last declared for what it was.
This week saw a verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial, one which finally put a crack in the assumption that police given blanket authority to engage in excessive force, especially against Black and Brown people. Justice will finally be served when police serve public safety and not engage in perpetuating the racist caste system which they are currently charged with maintaining. When Black and Brown parents no longer need to have “the talk” with their sons and even their daughters, then and only then will justice be served.
I, as the white parent of a Black daughter, had “the talk” with her, warning her about driving while Black and have spent many nights worrying when she drives from our house back home what could happen is she were stopped.
Last week I bought a house for my her. It sounds so simple, but as anyone who has ever gone through the process knows the party stops when the bid is accepted. Given my hatred of paperwork, this is a daunting challenge for me. Every time I complete one piece of paperwork or provide a document, another request shows up. It feels just like playing whack-a-mole.
But we will get it done. Both of us at times wonder what our lives would have been without one another; we will never know and frankly it does not matter. This is the reality we have with one another. I am thankful for her and her sister and her biological family in Maryland who have shown me a new way of looking at the world. Through her and them and through and exploration of my own family history, steeped in slave holding and the genocide and forces relocation of native peoples, I have moved to a place of much deeper understanding.
The readings for this week help me as I steer my way through life as a parent. The 23rd Psalm, the one we likely have memorized in the King James version and the one that seems so comforting in times of illness or the loss of a loved one, offers me a way to make my journey in the here and now, day by day.
The psalm takes me on a journey. I am led to green pastures and beside still waters, but that is not the end. How often have I had a time when things were good, life was good, only to have it followed by sadness or tragedy? When I got the call that my mother was dying, even though her mind had been elsewhere for some time, I knew I was leaving a place of rest and comfort for one of those very dark valleys where I needed that shepherd to lead me and be with me. It was the same when my father, about two years later, had a heart attack and I knew it was going to be the end, I entered another dark valley.
We have all been in those dark valleys: personal struggles, family issues, events in our community and society and in the world at large all take us to those places where we feel we need God the most, yet we need God as much in the green pastures and the still waters. The full and abundant life is as much what the psalm extolls as walking in the dark places.
Goodness and mercy shall chase me, and I will continually return to the presence of God.
There is a communal nature to Christianity and the readings from the Gospel of John and the reading from 1 John articulate it. All of the readings shout out to me that God is love. Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
Love lays down its life for us and so must we lay down our own lives. I lay down my life when I work to care for friends and family; even more when I work to care for those I do not know or those whom I do not like. I lay down my life when I work to build a bridge rather than a fence.
Jesus says that there are other sheep. We cannot just limit our own care and concern to those who lives are familiar to us; we are all linked to one another. God made humankind as one. We have spent so much time and effort since trying to make it otherwise.
Life is a journey; one we can take with God or without. I much prefer the journey with someone I trust, even though I know I might walk through dark places more because I chose God as my shepherd, yet in him there is no darkness at all.
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