People of Hope:
As I write this on February 7, the death toll following Monday’s 7.8 magnitude earthquake and its many aftershocks–impacting Syria and Turkey—amounts to over 7,000 people. Tens of thousands of people are injured, and especially because of the political situation in Syria, millions of people require humanitarian aid. 3 million Syrian refugees within Turkey’s borders have been impacted by the earthquake as well as many within Syria. Though news coverage about the conflict in Syria has largely stopped, people continue to suffer. As well, we forget living in the desert: it’s winter. So now, suffering is intensified with hunger, housing shortages, cold, and the collapse of much infrastructure converging.
Especially when natural disasters befall particularly vulnerable people, we begin to wonder if God notices or if God exists or why God allows such suffering. I too wonder. And then I remember that I not only pray for God’s intervention; I remember that I am part of God’s intervention.
Sixteenth century mystic St. Teresa of Avila famously wrote:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are His body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Each Sunday, when we join in the Prayers of the People, we pray not just that God would mystically intervene in the affairs of the world. We open up to the ways God is calling us to love our neighbor. We, collectively, are the feet and the hands and the eyes of Christ, the very body of Christ.
Please give for the sake of our neighbors, God’s beloved people, in Turkey and Syria. Lutheran Disaster Response is on the ground providing humanitarian aid; here’s a link to the ELCA’s Lutheran Disaster Response Web page https://www.elca.org/Our-Work/Relief-and-Development/Lutheran-Disaster-Response and the direct link for donations https://community.elca.org/lutherandisasterresponse
With gratitude for you and praying (and acting) for the people of Syria and Turkey,
Pastor Sarah