What We Can Do

SCRIPTURE  (trans. NRSVUE)

James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a, 10-12  

Who is wise and knowledgeable among you? Show by your good life that your works are  done with gentleness born of wisdom.  

But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be arrogant and lie  about the truth. This is not wisdom that comes down from above but is earthly, unspiritual,  devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and  wickedness of every kind.  

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy  and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is  sown in peace by those who make peace.  

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from  your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it, so you  commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it, so you engage in disputes  and conflicts. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because  you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.  

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to  God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts,  you double-minded.… Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.  

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against  another or judges another speaks evil against the law and judges the law, but if you judge  the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge who is  able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?  

MESSAGE  

On Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas militants launched an unprecedented cross-border attack on  Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking civilian hostages, including from  a music festival.  

On Oct. 8, 2023, a day after its ally Hamas carries out its deadly attack on Israel,  Hezbollah launched strikes on Israeli targets in the disputed area of Shebaa Farms.  Israel declared war on Hamas in response, launching a ground invasion that fueled  the biggest displacement in the region since Israel’s creation in 1948.  

The conflict escalated, including with the assassination of a senior Hamas leader in  the Lebanese capital in January, followed by the assassinations of several senior  Hezbollah commanders.  

In July 2024, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an attack Hamas has  blamed on Israel.  

Mid-September, thousands of electrical devices exploded in a suspected Israeli  attack against Hezbollah inside Lebanon, killing at least 37 people, including  children, and injuring thousands more. Hezbollah leader Hasan  

Nasrallah blamed Israel for what he describes as an “act of war” and vowed to  respond. 

Israeli strikes on Monday killed at least 558 people and wounded at least 1,835,  according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Nasrallah was killed too.  

Some 67,500 people had evacuated homes in northern Israel since October and  about 110,000 people in southern Lebanon, according to the United Nations —  before this week. 

Comments under news articles say “they’ve been fighting forever; why try to change?” and  “bomb them all and let God sort it out.”  

During that time the United States has transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84  2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter  bombs to Israel.  

[Statistics and history adapted from The Washington Post]  

An Episcopal communal confession asks God for forgiveness for the evil done on our behalf. 

On Thursday Hurricane Helene came onto the mainland, pouring out the water it had sucked up in the overly warm seas of the Caribbean. Without mercy the storm hit Florida, Georgia,  South Carolina, North Carolina, and eastern Tennessee, dumping 11 inches in 2 hours in  Atlanta, and as much as 2 feet in Asheville, North Carolina. It burst dams, flooding islands and towns across thousands of miles with feet of water. It is a catastrophe of devastation and flooding that Buncombe County’s assistant emergency services director called “biblical.”  

And some will say, “The Lord was not on their side.”  

Deaths mount. Asheville is without power, fresh water, or cell service. Officials there don’t  know how many people are dead, and have not been able to contact the families of the  souls they do know about.  

And then, of course, there are the little tragedies of human life, those losses and griefs dwarfed by the outpouring of horror, anger, and despair in the wake of cataclysm.  

Everything in us wants to do something. But that “something” we want to do differs from person to person and from moment to moment.

But we know that flying into North Carolina  or Florida or Tennessee won’t help anyone and will hinder those who are able to help.

We know that sending money to the Red Cross or the UN Crisis Relief funds is good and useful, while at the same time being aware that any amount of money is a drop in a leaky bucket.  

So what can we do?  

We can remember that impulsive reactions that burst out of immaturity and injury almost never help or heal.

We can remember all that we have been gleaned from the books of James and of the Wisdom of Solomon these last weeks: The importance of wooing wisdom,  of controlling our impulses, reining our tongues.  

 “The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy  and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is  sown in peace by those who make peace.” James reminds us that “the conflicts and  disputes among us come from the cravings that are at war within us.”  

First, we can do as James admonishes and speak no evil. We can mind our own behavior, and do our level best to both name evil when we see it and avoid adding to it when we don’t.  

Second, when we hear others speaking evil, cursing the light as well as the dark, we can quietly take them aside, speaking to them with empathy, and love, and truth.  

Third, where there seems to be nothing we can do now we can prepare to act when.

Perhaps that’s putting away money now for the cleanup that is to come.

Perhaps that’s contacting those we love with words of encouragement and love, even when their cell phones aren’t  working and they struggle without basic needs. 

Or, in the cases where doing matters, it may be thoughtfully writing and sending the letters, making the calls, attending the protests.  

Fourth, we can do everything in our power to keep hope in front of us. We can draw near to  God, in the secure knowledge that God will draw near to us.

We can be lights, not by denying  the horror but by speaking the reason for the hope that we have, or by comforting those who  mourn or rail against the darkness.

We can proactively offer to listen, to be witnesses to  others’ pain.

We can do everything in our power to keep loving.  

Finally, or maybe firstly, we can pray. Not in the complacent, insipid and denigrating  “thoughts and prayers” way, but fervently, meaningfully, and trustingly pleading for what we  and others need. James says that our envy, jealousy, disputes and conflicts come from wanting what others have, reminding us that we do not have because we do not ask, or we ask in order to satisfy our own desires for pleasure.  

Praying for wisdom and help and mercy and peace is exactly the kind of prayer God wants  from us.

In those moments when we don’t know what to do, we can just stand still, as the  old gospel song says, and pray with all the strength we have for miracles, small and large, to bring comfort, healing, strength and hope to others, and the end of war to us all.  

Christ be all around us, all. 

Rev. Dr. Elane O'Rourke 29 Sept 2024