Johanna Morrigan
Hosea 2:14-23
Psalm 103
2 Corinthians 3:4-11, 3:14-4:2
Mark 2:18-22.
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed....
That's what our psalmist tells us today.
It's a familiar refrain throughout scripture... God loves those most in need...Blessed are the meek, blessed are the humble, blessed are the poor and the hungry......
Those in need, the oppressed..... They are the ones to whom God calls us. History abounds with stories of the oppressed.
A few hundred years ago there was a prosperous sea captain by the name of Newton. Now Captain Newton would hardly have seemed oppressed. And he certainly wasn't meek or humble, poor or hungry. He had risen from modest circumstances to become the captain of large, sea-faring ships. He'd worked his way up, and he was proud of his accomplishments, as well he should be.
Among his writings we read that he believed his life's work had been granted to him by divine providence. This was a man who was shrewd in business, and scrupulous in his dealings. Captain Newton tolerated no shiftlessness aboard his ships. The merchants who supplied his cargo expected him to manage their interests to the very best advantage, as would we all - and he did just that. He carefully ensured that every spare inch of cargo space was used to maximum benefit. Captain Newton had surely been blessed by God. He was a respected and prosperous sea-faring man who looked forward to marrying into the polite society of the 18th century.
In his lucrative business, Captain Newton would sail from England with his ship heavily loaded with merchandise. If all went reasonably well on the voyage, he would return from his destination with a cargo of approximately 200 human beings crammed into a space that should have accommodated no more than 50 at the most. He was proud of his accomplishments. Captain Newton was a slave trader.
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed...
It shouldn't be difficult to identify the oppressed in this story....who deserves justice....
During World War II, a Dutch family risked all they had to hide persecuted Jews from the Nazis. The surviving member of this family, Corrie Ten Boom, tells their remarkable story in the book, The Hiding Place. I expect that some of you may have read it, or seen the movie. It is a remarkable story of a Christian family that prayed ceaselessly for the strength and wisdom to provide refuge for God's Chosen People. They worked tirelessly and were responsible for saving hundreds of lives... until they were caught, and Corrie and her sister, Betsie, found themselves in Ravensbruck - a women's concentration camp in Germany where over 96,000 inmates died.
Yet even in this living hell, they continued to pray, to seek God's grace for the miserable and oppressed victims of Hitler's madness.
Prisoners were frequently made to stand at attention in freezing cold temperatures for hours on end. There would be thousands of poorly clothed, starved, sick, and despairing women standing in the compound - where they often had to watch one act of brutality after another. After watching a female guard savagely beat a young mentally retarded girl into unconsciousness, Corrie whispered,
"Betsie, what can we do for these people? Afterward I mean. Can't we make a home for them and care for them and love them?"
Betsie replied,"Corrie, I pray every day that we will be allowed to do this!"
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed...
Who were the oppressed at Ravesnbruck? Who deserved God's justice? Not too hard to figure that one out either.
Who are most deserving of God's compassion? Who are most in need? Who deserves justice in a world that seems consumed by evil? Who must we, as Christians reach out to in those dark places that touch our lives, those places which are corrupt and corrupting?
I expect that we have all heard the grisly stories of the concentration camps and held their victims in our hearts in prayer - just as we have held the victims of Vietnam in our prayers, and those of Apartheid in South Africa, and of Kosovo, and of East Timor.....
Let's return to Captain Newton for a moment. Whatever became of the prosperous captain who traded in human flesh? Perhaps some of you already know.
One night, far out at sea, a storm came up - and the death of all aboard seemed inevitable. Captain Newton was notorious among sailors all up and down the African coast for his foul mouth and terrible blasphemies. In his daily journal, Captain Newton recorded that when he came to the realization that he could do nothing more to save the ship or its passengers, he lifted his eyes to the sky and shouted: "If nothing more can be done...then, Lord, have mercy upon us!"
Now this was completely out of character for Captain Newton. He was not a praying man...
And yet, many years later, after he'd gotten out of the slave-trading business, the Reverend John Newton recognized in that very moment a life-saving gift from God. He memorialized that moment when he took pen in hand and wrote........Amazing grace, how great the sound that saved a wretch like me..... Captain Newton became the Reverend Newton and served as an Anglican priest in England for 44 years.
So who are the oppressed?
To whom does God plead with us to share his promise of salvation?
Who is it that is most in need of saving?
Just look at the people that God and God's prophet reach out to save.
Hosea, in our Old Testament reading this morning vividly describes what God ached to give to God's Chosen People, Israel... How God longed for union with her...
And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord....and I will say, "You are my people,"...and you will say, "You are my God."
To whom was God offering this gift of eternal union? To the faithful and humble people of Israel who had been oppressed by merciless invaders?
To Israel? - yes. But faithful and humble? - hardly. Yet Hosea gives us a rare glimpse into God's own heart...
Hosea is called by God to marry Gomer. Gomer is not the chaste flower of beauty we might expect God to select for God's prophet. Gomer is a prostitute - a whore who presents Hosea with children which are not his own. She blithely continues to two-time Hosea over and over again, making of him a laughing stock... a fool who keeps taking her back, even wooing and courting her, promising her all that he has if she will simply return to him....despite her repeated betrayals.
Like Gomer, Israel betrayed God time and time again... abandoning God for this idol or that pagan god. And yet God stubbornly continued to pursue her, to win her back. He courted her like a virgin maiden, and showered her with God's amazing grace.
So...who is the oppressed? Who deserves justice?
Was it Hosea, the steadfast husband who was hurt repeatedly by a faithless wife... or the faithless wife?
For whom are our prayers to plead? To whom are we to reach out with the message of God's compassion and justice?
The poor, the homeless, the sick, the addicted, the AIDS victims, the disabled, the victims of rape....? The list seems endless. And it isn't very hard to figure out that we are to pray for these people, that we are to reach out to them and to serve them as Christ has served us.
But who are the oppressed? Who deserves justice?
What of the slum landlords, the pimps, the rapists, the murderers of young Matthew Shephard, the drug dealers, the purveyors of child pornography, ... ? This list seems even more endless.
What of these? What are we to do with them?
Let's go back to the scene between Corrie and Betsie when they dreamed of helping the victims of the camps. Only this time, let's read just a bit further. Remember, Corrie and Betsie had just seen a mentally retarded girl mercilessly beaten...and Corrie whispers...
"Betsie, what can we do for these people? Afterward I mean. Can't we make a home for them and care for them and love them?"
Betsy replied, "Corrie, I pray every day that we will be allowed to do this! To show them that love is greater!"
And it wasn't until I was gathering twigs later in the morning that I realized that I had been thinking of the brutalized prisoners, while Betsie was talking about loving and caring for their persecutors."
Yes, God longs to bring righteousness and justice to all of the oppressed... to every one of us.
When we are at our very worst and our most despicable, when we are most in need, when we are most oppressed, God offers Amazing Grace, and longs to save a wretch like me....
AMEN