Witness of the Saints and the

Love of a Compassionate God

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A few weeks ago, we read in the prophet Ezekiel of how children are not meant to suffer the consequences of their parents’ misdeeds. It is not fair, right, or just that children struggle as they do because those who brought them into the world are themselves struggling with poverty, violence, illness, or abuse.

Whether those children are Israeli, Arab, Palestinian, Black, German, Russian, Indigenous, Scandinavian, Irish, Zambian, Heathen, Suburban…they do not deserve to be punished for the systems that decide before they are even born whether or not they have the same rights as one another. But we know they do not all have the same chance at health, comfort, security, or even clean air and water, let alone the right to vote when they grow up.

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It is possible to support our Jewish cousins and our Palestinian family and our Muslim cousins without supporting the bombing or the rockets. It is possible to say to someone, "Hey, you’re hurting me," without telling them they’re a bad person because of it. It is possible to look at history and geography and recognize that oftentimes people disagree with their governments, and that calling something a "religious war" does not mean that all people who are of that faith group are in favor of siege warfare.

We need a deeper understanding of our historic hurts and harms in order to heal, and at the same time, we do not need to know all the ins and outs of the Holy Land to understand that killing children is wrong. 

When we mark All Saints Day on November 5th, it is one way that we remember our humanity, our shared mortality, our grief and hope and basic dignity. Some saints died far too soon, others were afforded time and resources to live well into their elder years. Some saints struggled with making the right decisions, others seemed to have only good things laid out for them along an easier path. Most have lived stories we may never know or understand.

As we yet live, we are surrounded by those saints, those witnesses to their own best and worst, witnesses to all our best and worst, witnesses now and always to the continuing struggle for following in the ways of peace, and now eternal witnesses to the continuing outpouring love of a compassionate God, whose mercies are new every morning. For we are all their children, too.

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Grace and Peace,

Pastor Andrew