During the last week, I have been in church every day of the week. That has actually been very good, as it has been a very impactful week, and I would have been tempted to make comments that would, perhaps, have not been appropriately Christian.
One of the things about a week-long stint as a “monk” is that it makes one pause and think. It makes one pause and relate to the Lord. It makes one pause and think about the City of God and the City of Man (Saint Augustine).
And so, I look back at the last week. And we see many events for which to pray and ask for God’s action:
1. The Japan Earthquake — the worst earthquake in Japan since they began recording earthquake intensity. No one knows how many were killed. Estimates range to over 10,000 people. Besides that, there are serious fears of a nuclear meltdown in one of their power plants. As Orthodox Christians, we are called to both pray and give to the relief efforts.
2. The Wisconsin anti-union vote — I was tempted to do a very angry post. But, suffice it to say that even Fox News ended up publishing a pro-union editorial. The reason is that unions did provide many of the benefits that you take for granted. An eight hour day, five days a week, is the result of union activity. So are many of the other benefits you take for granted. If laws really get rolled back to what existed before unions, you would be working from dawn to dusk, six days a week. Sadly, many Tea Party members have already so supported business owners that they have forgotten that Christians used to insist that the Sabbath took precedence over business owners. Nowadays, Tea Party members only support the right of business owners, regardless of what else Scripture might say.
3. The Congressional hearings about American Muslim radicals — fortunately, there is a Muslim representative in Congress. Here is the problem with many of the Tea Party arguments. One can see their objection to illegal adult immigrants. One is less likely to see the objection to children who were brought here as babies and, through no fault of their own, are now unable to return to their “home” culture with any expectation of being able to live in that culture after being raised most of their life in USA culture. Many can see no reason why hearings need to be held on only “Muslim” radicals with no hearings being held on home-grown terrorists of other backgrounds, for instance the militia movement. Timothy McVeigh was neither Muslim nor foreign, but notice that the Tea Party folk are not prepared to check out the really home-grown terrorists. In passing, there have been other non-Muslim related home-grown terrorist arrests that have made the news, however, the Congressional hearing is clearly avoiding any of those people.
But, in the midst of all this, I ask myself what the Orthodox position is. Remember that the Orthodox have a background of empire in any of several centuries in several countries. And, the Orthodox Church has a history of supporting pogroms in several countries. We also have a history of knowing what it means to be a minority religion in countries whose people belong to another religion. Sadly, this means that we have been guilty, in our own flesh, of the sin of racism and of xenophobia. At the same time, we are the victims of what it means to be subjugated under a majority religion.
However, it is that very experience of being both a sinful majority religion and an oppressed minority religion that helps to inform us in the USA. All too many people in the USA have only their small experience of this country and of the reported experience of those who experienced persecution under the Roman Catholics or the Anglican or the Lutheran or the Calvinist churches. Sadly, that experience is of a country that held on to slavery way too many years and which held onto legal discrimination into my lifetime. But, the Orthodox experience can speak into the USA experience to say that discrimination against other religions and peoples never leads to a good end. Also, the Orthodox experience as a suppressed minority religion can inform us that this type of suppression is never an appropriate thing to do, even if it appears to be the “logical” thing to do.
So, I urge you this Lent that those of you who are Orthodox reflect deeply upon our shared experience of both oppression and being oppressed. And, then I urge you to look deeply into what is happening into in the USA at this time to ask yourselves whether what you are seeing echoes any of our historical experiences.
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