By The Rev. Marek Zabriskie
A newspaper editorial by Tom Friedman in today’s New York Times tells the story of how 36,000 people in 160 countries signed up through Airbnb’s nonprofit affiliate, Airbnb.org, to welcome refugees fleeing Ukraine into their homes.
In addition, people in 165 countries have booked more than 430,000 nights at Ukrainian homes on Airbnb with no intention of using the rooms – but simply to donate money to these Ukrainian hosts. Airbnb has temporarily waived all guest and host fees for bookings in Ukraine, so those reservations put $17 million dollars directly into the hands of the hosts.
Meanwhile, 300,000 hackers have been enlisted to shut down government and financial websites across Russia. All of this is in addition to Western companies pulling out of Russia and the US and NATO allies sending direct military aid to Ukraine and offering intelligence to help defeat the Russian invaders.
The world is stepping up in a myriad of creative, powerful ways to counter the forces of evil. Good will triumph, but not without much bloodshed and great suffering. Such is our reality.
Closer to home, Christ Church Greenwich will host a Candlelight Vigil for Peace this Sunday at 5 p.m. in our church open to the entire community. Those who attend will be invited to come forward during the service and place a candle on a large map of Europe, Ukraine and Russia.
The following Saturday, March 26, from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. Christ Church will be hosting a pack-a-thon open to the entire community to come together and pack 30,000 meals that will be sent to Poland to feed Ukrainian refugees. We are raising $12,600 to fund this effort. Donations can be made via our church website.
The Bible tells us that God hears the affliction of his people and acts. Just examine Exodus 3:1-15, which will be read in countless churches around the world on Sunday. This is the story of God calling Moses, the boy prince raised in Pharaoh’s palace and who later spent 40 years as a lowly shepherd in the wilderness tending sheep and goats, to go forth and lead the Israelites from slavery under Pharaoh’s brutal regime to freedom in the Promise Land.
This became the signature story of the Old Testament. The Exodus was mentioned about 120 times in other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures.
It shows how God intervenes in history, calling forth human leaders to stand against oppression and evil, demanding and ensuring what is good and life-giving shall prevail. The story of the Exodus reveals God as the great Liberator. No wonder African American preachers combatting slavery selected the story of Exodus more than any other biblical text to speak about the hope of freedom and emancipation from suffering.
The Exodus story still speaks. It speaks what occurring in Ukraine for God surely hears the affliction of the Ukrainian people. Surely, God knows that President Vladimir Putin’s heart so hardened that he can kill, imprison, poison, bomb and terrorize without the slightest twinge of his conscience. Putin is like one of those figures that the Russian author Gogol described as “dead souls.”
But we in the West have grown soft. We had blurred the distinction between good and evil. We have reduced Christianity to a message about being kind and nice. We remember Jesus’ words to “love our enemy” and “do not judge,” but we forget how he cast out demons and challenging domineering powers that perpetuated evil. We are therefore paralyzed to address evil ourselves.
Only a few weeks ago, some leaders were referring to Putin as a “savvy genius” who had every right to surround Ukraine with 200,000 soldiers. Now, we have seen more clearly than ever how evil Putin and his closest associates are and what they are cold-heartedly capable of doing.
In Tuesday’s reading from the Daily Lectionary in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, the prophet Isaiah used the word “evil” three times in his short speech. He said:
Ah, sinful nation,
people laden with iniquity,
offspring who do evil…
children who deal corruptly,
who have forsaken the Lord,
who has despised the Holy One of Israel,
who are utterly estranged!
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean:
Remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes:
cease to do evil,
learn to do good,
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow…
If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
We need to take the forces of evil seriously and not let them take root, grow and exercise domineering power. In his book Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, theologian Walter Wink writes, “One of the most pressing questions facing the world today is, How can we oppose evil without creating new evils and being made evil ourselves?” That is a vital question.
But rest assured that God is working in the midst of the horrors of this war. Here are a few signs:
• Putin’s invasion has brought NATO together and helped us to realize the vital role that NATO plays in stabilizing the free world.
• The Russian invasion has united Republicans and Democrats behind a common mission and to focus on the real and not imagined evils of this world.
• It has shown us the importance of truth and dangers of disinformation and censorship and keeping people in the dark.
• We are seeing the dangers of those who align themselves with despots and ignore or give tacit permission to their evil actions.
• We are experiencing why Americans and free countries must always champion human rights and seek the common good.
• We are reminded that we need a strong military and a strong police force to challenge those who would do us harm. These forces must always act with the utmost integrity.
• We see clearly how evil is an ever present reality. If we overlook leaders who attack and kill journalists, judges, police, and political rivals, and censor news, skew facts, delve in corruption, and seek their own interest rather than the people’s interest, we run grave risks.
• In order for evil to be countered, people of good faith must speak out and act. We cannot be passive or silent.
The arc of history bends towards justice. Evil can triumph for a time but it will ultimately perish. It may harm and kill many before it is fully recognized, challenged and brought to an end, but it will never ultimately triumph. God is the great Liberator and calls us to stand up and participate in overcoming evil.
