Reflections about Kenya
I have been trying to follow the events that are going on in Kenya. It really is heart breaking to see this African nation that was one of the most stable dissolve into internal chaos. I especially find troubling the fact that many Christians, when push comes to shove, end up opting for their tribal identity rather than their identity in Christ. The massacres in Rwanda occurred in spite of the fact that Christians from different tribes joined in killing of different tribal members.
In the Praise Service on Sunday one of our parishioners asked for prayers for Mark, a Kenyan pastor whose life and the lives of his family were threatened several weeks ago. The parishioner's parents were missionaries in Kenya and had met Mark and his family and are very concerned for them. They left their home and church and fled to another area in a lower elevation where two of their daughters have now contracted malaria (their village is at an elevation where the virus-bearing mosquitoes cannot survive). It has been a heartbreaking trip for them as you can imagine. Please keep Mark and his family in your prayers.
I do not say this to condemn the people--I do condemn the violence. I often wonder about my own faith and imagine various violent and frightening scenarios and wonder how I would respond. Would my trust in Jesus trump the violent and vengeful side of myself? I don't know for sure, and hopefully won't be put in a situation where I will have to find out.
But clearly the message of the gospel, the import of the Jesus Creed is that all divisions have been broken down through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus: even that between Jew and Samaritan, which was about as great a division as their could be in Jesus' culture. But of course, know this in our heads as some detached fact is not the same as having it in our hearts and living it in daily life.
The New York Times has two articles in the OP/ED section that you may want to read: one has to do with some of the tribal problems and one recommending what needs to be done to help end the violence and return to stability.
In the Praise Service on Sunday one of our parishioners asked for prayers for Mark, a Kenyan pastor whose life and the lives of his family were threatened several weeks ago. The parishioner's parents were missionaries in Kenya and had met Mark and his family and are very concerned for them. They left their home and church and fled to another area in a lower elevation where two of their daughters have now contracted malaria (their village is at an elevation where the virus-bearing mosquitoes cannot survive). It has been a heartbreaking trip for them as you can imagine. Please keep Mark and his family in your prayers.
I do not say this to condemn the people--I do condemn the violence. I often wonder about my own faith and imagine various violent and frightening scenarios and wonder how I would respond. Would my trust in Jesus trump the violent and vengeful side of myself? I don't know for sure, and hopefully won't be put in a situation where I will have to find out.
But clearly the message of the gospel, the import of the Jesus Creed is that all divisions have been broken down through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus: even that between Jew and Samaritan, which was about as great a division as their could be in Jesus' culture. But of course, know this in our heads as some detached fact is not the same as having it in our hearts and living it in daily life.
The New York Times has two articles in the OP/ED section that you may want to read: one has to do with some of the tribal problems and one recommending what needs to be done to help end the violence and return to stability.
posted by UCC Medfield at 6:42 AM
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