Proper 10C
(Post 2)
Today’s
Gospel lesson (Luke 10:25-37),
the Good Samaritan story, asks the question “Who is my neighbor?” The answer to that question gives us reason to
pay attention to the interconnections between ourselves and our sisters and
brothers all over the world, and being intentional about tending to those
interconnections so that we are good neighbors gives us reason to pay attention
to the interconnections between human beings and everything else in God’s
creation. (See yesterday’s post, Who
are our neighbors?)
Awareness of
these interconnections brings us to another question, though: If I am
interconnected with everyone and everything, then healing of any person or any
part of creation brings some degree of healing to me, too. If the Good
Samaritan and the injured man are interconnected, then the Good Samaritan’s
efforts to help the other man heal also brought some degree of healing to him.
People who care for others in need know this; oftentimes a hospital room prayer
for healing affects the person praying and others in the room as profoundly as
the person for whom they are praying. Who, then, has been healed?
On July 5
and 6, people gathered near the tar sands mining area in Alberta, for a healing walk. (See healingwalk.org for information about
the walk and pictures and stories from the event.) The walk was focused on
healing the environment in this area of tar sands extraction and on healing the
people who are suffering from the destruction and poisoning of the land, air,
and water around the tar sands extraction area.
This week
Caitlyn Vernon, the Coastal Campaigner from Sierra Club BC, wrote a post Heartbreak
at the Edge of Canada’s Tar Sands, about her experience of the healing
walk. After describing the environmental destruction she witnessed as she
walked, she writes this:
Here's what I realized as the healing
walk brought heart and hope to this bleak landscape: it's not just about
offering our solidarity and support to the First Nation communities most
impacted by the tar sands. The healing required goes much deeper than that.
Trees can grow back. Nature is
amazingly resilient, given thousands of years. But the real question is, how do
we heal ourselves, and our relationship to the world around us, so that we stop
inflicting such devastation in the first place? We are all in this together.
Working to
heal ourselves and our relationship to the world around us is a necessary piece
of bringing healing to other people and the earth that sustains us all. One of the
gifts people of faith can offer as we work to heal our planet is the gift of spiritual healing. We know something
about this on a deep level. That knowledge is a necessary tool to bring true
healing to the people and places nearest to the poison and destruction that
endanger life on this planet, and in the end to all of us.
Yesterday
evening brought news of the verdict in the Florida trial of George Zimmerman
for killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The trial has shown us again how far we
have to go in this country to heal ourselves of fear, of racism, of hatred.
Something we know from ecological work – that we are all in this together –
speaks to this situation as well. We don’t have to be residents of Florida or
African-Americans or members of any other discrete group of people to feel a
connection to this situation and to be in need of healing. We all recognize
familiar elements in this tragic killing. If we are honest, we recognize
ourselves someplace in the fear on all sides, in the racial and class divisions,
or in the discomfort with people different from ourselves. As Caitlyn Vernon
asked about the healing walk in Canada, we can ask ourselves after yesterday’s
verdict: How do we heal ourselves, and
our relationship to the world around us, so that we stop inflicting such
devastation in the first place?
The dots
between the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida and the destruction in Alberta
aren’t hard to connect when we think about fear, greed, power, and the
importance of loving our neighbors as ourselves. The Gospel’s power is that
Christ’s healing love is as live-giving and important in Alberta
and Florida in 2013 as it was in Jesus’ time and place.
Working for
a sustainable and healthy world for ourselves and our neighbors now and in
generations to come requires us to work to heal ourselves and to build
healthier and stronger relationships with other people and the rest of
creation. It requires us to do the joyful work of living into God’s kingdom,
the realm of Christ’s love. That joyful work is what makes the yoke easy and
the burden light even in the midst of death and destruction.
Good Samaritan window at St. Mark's Pro-Cathedral, Hastings, NE |
No comments:
Post a Comment