Sermon, March 14, 2023 - PSR Chapel
Opening prayer
God You are our refuge and strength; a very present help in trouble. We ask for Your help this morning as we contemplate Your Word.
Amen
Acknowledgments - Those of you who are part of a denomination that works from the common lectionary may notice that today’s scripture is not the one listed in the lectionary. Today we are working from Year W of the Women's Lectionary for the Whole church, which is the work of renowned Hebrew Scholar and Right Rev. Sam B. Hulsey Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School of Texas Christian University, Rev. Dr. Wilda Gafney. I cannot recommend her work enough. Her choice of Scripture for the 3rd Sunday in lent is an appropriate foundation for having a serious discussion about women, forced migration, and revisiting the war in Ukraine, one year in.
It is also my birthday, and it felt like an auspicious day to honor my ancestors, who formed me, taught me, and brought me to this moment. In their honor, I am wearing a Vinok - which is the flower wreath, which is associated with womanhood, marriage, purity, and fertility. The blouse is called a “vishyvanka” and was hand embroidered in Ukraine, it simply means “garment that is embroidered” and is worn by both men and women.
Some of the best memories from my childhood involve my Nana, Mary. She was a typical grandmother in some ways, and in other ways not so much. My Nana was a widow because my grandfather who was a WW2 veteran died in a single-vehicle car accident near St. Augustine when my mother was 18.
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| Mary Barbara and Robert Ellis Bush |
She struggled with very serious health issues similar to my own. She had an Ileostomy when she was 42, and spent the rest of her working life as an occupational therapist helping others who had colostomy and ileostomy surgeries.
The thing I knew most about my Nana, was that she was a survivor - she worked hard, she could speak 5 languages - Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, Czhechoslovakian, and English, and that she loved me and my siblings and cousins more than she could say.
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| Mary Barbara Vendgryn (Bush) - age 18 |
The thing I did not know at that time was that my family was in the US because my great-grandmother Helen fled her home in Ukraine with her very small children after her husband was killed in the unrest during the formation of the Soviet Union. She came with nothing but the clothes on her back, a basket of things for the little ones, and landed at Ellis Island in the early 1920s, intent on making a safe life for herself and her two daughters.
When the violence started in her homeland in the Carpathian mountains, Helen did not have much time to think about what to do, she just had to run…she fled from Ukraine to what was then Czechoslovakia, to Poland and from there made her way to the US with babies in tow.
She was just one of millions of women who were on the move in the world due to war and violence, and I am grateful that I can honor her, and my grandmother today, and bring a little bit of their history into our continuing celebration of women’s herstory month.
In our scripture passage today, Jesus is warning the people about the impending destruction of the temple, if you read the entire chapter it is filled with apocalyptic language. What Rev. Dr. Gafney says about this passage is the following: ‘
“…there is trouble in the world and more on the way. The danger to humanity is not the biological imperatives of women, real or imagined. In the larger chapter, Jesus prepares his disciples for the danger they will face for refusing to bow to the empire or its idols. The danger is such that believers would be better off dropping everything and fleeing. Jesus expresses concern for the women who are pregnant and nursing. It is more than concern over their slower pace; it is also a reminder that women and children are often most vulnerable to systems that wield power.”
This was the case in Jesus’s time, it was the case when my great-grandmother fled her mountain home, and it is the case today as we see in the ongoing war in Ukraine. I would add that this is also the case in numerous places in the world, and in every conflict women disproportionately suffer, but for today we will focus on the particular case of Ukraine.
It has been 1 year and 18 days since the most recent Russian invasion of this patch of land began, and it may be that it has fallen off the radar for many of you. It is the nature of our fast moving 24 hour news cycle, that there is always a new horror to replace yesterday’s horror. But this doesn’t mean that yesterday’s horror isn’t still happening, and so I would like us to circle back to Ukraine for a few minutes today and look at the status of women and children in this conflict. (I want to add here a trigger warning - I will be discussing some of the real atrocities of this war, which include sexual and physical violence).
Some statistics to contemplate:
As early as April of last year, over 80% of all the children in Ukraine had been displaced, the vast majority of them were transported out of the country or to safer regions within the country by their mothers and/or grandmothers.
According to the United Nations, there were approximately 265,000 women who were pregnant at the time the war broke out. Many of these women have had to migrate in order to receive maternal care, as maternity and children's hospitals have been a favored target of Russian missiles.
These women and children are deprived not just of medical care, but of the basic necessities of life in many cases, lacking access to clean water, food, adequate shelter, and heating during a long, cold, and violent winter. The rate of premature births in Ukraine has increased by over 30% since the beginning of the war, largely due to food insecurity, lack of medical care, and stress.
There has been an alarming increase in gender-based violence, including women and girls forced into transactional sex for food and survival, and an increase in sexual exploitation and trafficking.
Thousands of women and girls have suffered from sexual abuse and rape at the hands of their invaders, and many others have been taken to refugee camps inside Russia and forced into “resettlement” programs where they are abused and brainwashed, and then used in media campaigns by their captors.
These women did not have time to plan their escapes, for many of them, they had drop everything and run or die.
Women with small children,
women who were caring for aging family members,
women who were pregnant,
women who were in college studying for their future careers,
women who were working -
as doctors, lawyers, bakers, teachers, child care workers…
What do you do when the bombs are falling on your street?
You run, and pray, and hope that you survive to see sanity restored to your world someday.
Millions of people have been displaced by the war in Ukraine, the vast majority of them women. It is estimated that a total of 5.5 million refugees have fled the country, 90% of whom are women and children, and approximately 7 million people were internally displaced, 60% of whom are women and children. For many of those who came to the U.S. and were granted a one-year compassionate asylum, this time is about to run out, and once again they will be put into limbo.
I would be remiss if I also did not mention, that there has been a tremendous loss of life on the Russian side of the conflict as well. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 Russians have died in this conflict so far, and most of those are from poor, rural areas, and many are conscripted to fight. This is another aspect of pain that the women who are left behind have to bear.
And so we find ourselves here in this season of Lent, which for many is a time of struggle and desperation, but we also know that there is a promise that Easter will come at the end of Lent. We can’t get there without traversing these troubled grounds first though.
But you may ask, what can we do?… First, we need to not forget that this is happening in Ukraine and other places in the world as well. We can protest, we can use what political power we do have to vote, and we can give of our time and money.
There will be links provided where you can donate money. If you are so inclined, and want to travel - there are a lot of organizations who need ready hands and bodies to help as well.
We can also pray for the people of Ukraine. I know often we get told that our thoughts and prayers are useless, but if we are people of faith, we know that prayer does have real power, just that it is extra powerful when we combine it with actions.
St. Therese of Lisieux had a worthy insight into prayer, and said "I (pray) like children who do not know how to read, I say very simply to God what I wish to say, without composing beautiful sentences, and He always understands me."
and "All my strength lies in prayer and sacrifice. They are my invincible weapons, and I know, by experience, that they can soften the heart much better than words."
My Nana Mary was a great example of this, both praying for those people whom she helped in her work, and also working with her hands and her heart to help them during what was likely one of the worst periods in their lives, as they struggled to learn a new normal, with an altered body.
So, if our hearts need softening, which they often do, then praying is as much for us as for those we pray for. If we need to soften the hearts of an entire community, then perhaps the best thing we can do is to pray together as a community, and so now let us join together, and pray some simple words.
“God, we know that you are with our sisters and brothers - all of our siblings who have been impacted by this most recent war in Ukraine. We know that as people are forced to make hard choices at a moment's notice, you are with them, as they trust that they will find safety and care along the way.
Our God who is love incarnate, softens our hearts and guide us to ways that we can help the children, the mothers, the grandmothers and all our fellow human beings who are forced to leave everything and run. Help us to also remember the impacts that this conflict has upon the animals, and the environment as well, and that no matter what issue we feel is the most important, we can do something to help.
We also pray for the Russian people and their leadership, and for all world leaders to make good and wise decisions in regard to this very serious conflict.
We thank You for the strength and courage of our ancestors who brought us here to this moment where we can live more fully into YOUR kindom. We pray for peace to come finally to this earth, in all your holy names.
Amen
And before I finish - I want to put a gift in the chat for all of you - it is a link to charitable organizations where you can make a donation, and also to some of my Nana’s recipes which I transcribed from her recipe cards. Eat in good health!
https://lahomasrecipes.carrd.co/
Prompt - A scientific fact is that the egg that made you, was actually created in your mother's ovary while she was a fetus in her mother’s womb - What is the story of your Grandmothers/Great Grandmothers? Where was your seed created? How are you tending to the legacy of those who tended to you, whether biological or not?
Benediction:
May the Spirit of Peace descend upon you and upon our world until all conflicts cease and peace reigns on earth. May your hands and minds find worthy work in this endeavor, and may you take joy in knowing that the God of creation works, and walks with us today and every day.
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