God dwells in our Care for Others - March 8
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 80; PM Psalm 77, [79] ; Jer. 7:1-15; Rom. 4:1-12; John 7:14-36
Ten years ago, I was in seminary, and I fell in love with the beautiful country and people of Myanmar/Burma. I was part of a group of several students who spent a month visiting different Christian communities in the majestic country located between Thailand, China, and India. The country has especially been on my mind lately as some of the Christians that we met, and became friends with on Facebook, have been sharing their pain and suffering in light of the military coup and the violence that has ensued.
At the end of our journey, we visited the tourist town of Bagan, the ancient city where at one time, over 10,000 temples or pagodas covered the landscape. Today, there are still over 2200 pagodas that paint the landscape with shimmers of gold. It is absolutely breathtaking to climb one of the temples and to watch the sunset reflecting off the other temples emerging from the ground. In the Burmese culture, these temples have an interesting purpose. Many were built as a way of doing something good as a form of atonement in life. Similar to the idea of indulgences, one could build a pagoda as a way of giving back towards the end of life.
One of the more well-known stories that take place in Myanmar/Burma is George Orwell’s Burmese Days. In Orwell’s fictional novel, one of the main characters is a corrupt Burmese police officer named U Po Kyin. Kyin spends his days oppressing his people, destroying their livelihoods, and even murdering the people who get in his way for achieving his own prosperity. This is all with the motivation of one day being able to join the British Country Club, something he believes will be the greatest satisfaction in life. If he can join the club, he will finally have achieved purpose, fame, and status. And while Orwell does a good job of depicting Kyin as a despicable human being, you have to wonder if there is some goodness underneath. Maybe, when he finally joins the British Country Club, he will finally be able to help his own people out. There are certainly other stories out there where people do wrong things with the hope one day of doing something greater than all their evil deeds.
In the story, Kyin’s wife finds herself increasingly frightened by his behavior, and she urges him to changes his evil ways. Kyin insists that all will be well, and promises that before he dies, he will repent of all that he has done and spend his hard-earned money to construct one of the glorious pagodas, thus also helping him to prepare for the next world. Orwell says, “But unfortunately, this was the very point at which his plans went wrong. Only three days after the Governor’s durbar, before so much as a brick of those atoning pagodas had been laid, U Po Kyin was stricken with apoplexy and died without speaking again. There is no armour against fate.”[1]
Jeremiah could have been written with Orwell in mind. Jeremiah is flabbergasted that there exists a beautiful temple, but the people are not cared for. Jeremiah promises that God will dwell with them in the Temple if “they do not oppress the alien, the orphan, or the widow, or shed innocent blood… or go after other gods to [their] own hurt.” I am struck by those last words: ‘other gods to their own hurt.’ I think Jeremiah is claiming that the things we worship that are not God, ultimately lead to our own downfall. Jeremiah believes that how we care for each other impacts our ability to see God in our midst.
And while I wholeheartedly disagree with Orwell as I believe that God’s grace is “armour against fate,” I am struck by Jeremiah’s word, that God dwells where we care for other human beings. Sure, God is everywhere, but maybe we experience God when we care for others – the alien, the orphan, the widow, the addict, the brokenhearted, the person in need.
There are things that are out of our control. Maybe that is fate. Which leads me to my favorite blessing that we often leave church with: “Life is short. We don't have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk this way with us. So, be swift to love and make haste to be kind.” And maybe we will find God in the midst of it.
John+
Questions for Self-Reflection: Have you ever done something wrong to achieve something good? Did you regret it?
Daily Challenge: We often come up with a bucket list in life. Create a list of five things you would like to do in your life that are entirely about caring, supporting, and lifting up other people. Could you begin living into that vision now?
[1] George Orwell, Burmese Days, (New York: Penguin Books, 1944), 299.