Good News of Great Joy

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• Publisher: Wild Goose Publications
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781849520751
• eBook ISBN: 9781849521604
• Topic: Theology & Religion

Reflections for Advent from members, associates and friends of the Iona Community around the world - from Uganda, Scotland, Wales, Palestine, Switzerland, India, Malawi, Australia, China, Iona, Sweden, Kenya, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, the Netherlands, Germany, Jerusalem, Japan, Ireland, Taiwan, Cuba, Alaska - and more.

December 1

Luke 2:10–11

‘Do not be afraid’: A checkpoint in Bethlehem, a funeral in Switzerland

When was I in desperate need of that message? In two different situations:

In 2007, I was an Ecumenical Accompanier in Bethlehem; one task was monitoring the large checkpoint Gilo. When we arrived at five in morning, there would be about 1000 men waiting in a long queue. They had to walk up through a narrow, wire gateway, which ended in an entrance the size of a normal door, leading to the first turnpike.

One morning the gateway broke and the men came from all sides to go through this door. They pushed one another. I was already standing near the turnpike, where I usually spent the first part of the time to find out if the soldiers had opened the checkpoint in time. When I saw the masses of men squeezing and pushing, I became terrified. The men just fell when they were through. One man could hardly breathe any more and was in pain. Probably he had broken some of his ribs. As I had no water, I gave him strong peppermint tablets, which I always have with me to keep me going.

There I found myself in front of the crowd, looking into the men’s eyes, shouting: ‘Please move back, form a row, stand in line, do not squeeze any more!’ Many understood. Slowly they started moving back.

A miracle had happened: They formed a row, and one after the other came slowly forwards through the doorway to the turnpike and the first check of their identity cards.

The Spirit of God was within the crowd; the situation calmed down. I knew well that the men were in desperate need to move on, to queue for the security check, and again wait to have their work permits and their identity checked. I also knew they were afraid of missing their buses to work … and losing their jobs.

I spent at least an hour at the entrance of the checkpoint, managing the crowds; many among the men thanked me.

To go through this checkpoint early in the morning took three hours. Later in the day it was faster.

Looking back I imagine that more than one angel was present among the crowd, guarding them.

Two days later, I was again on duty. To my surprise the men stood quietly in a row. Some of them looked at me and nodded: ‘You were right, thank you again.’ As an elderly woman I was like a mother to these men. And a voice deep in me kept repeating: ‘Do not be afraid, I am with you.’ Was it the angel? Was it God’s voice? …

Another experience:

I was afraid when doing the funeral of my best friend. She had asked me on her 80th birthday to be her pastoral carer, and to do her funeral – none of us expected her to die six months later.

She had been in intensive care for four weeks – she did not want to leave her world. She could not speak, but it was obvious that she was not ready to let go; she wanted to stay with her beloved ones and all the plans she still had. After another five weeks she finally died peacefully. My last words to her on my last visit were: ‘God guard you and bless you.’ She whispered: ‘Also you’ …

Her last words gave me courage to do her funeral. But what would I do with my emotions? There was no room for my tears. Then I realised that my dead friend had given me the energy to do that task with love and compassion for her family and her friends. My feelings became caring, rooted in and nourished by the hope of Christ.

A few days later I had to lead a second service in her village in the mountain area of Engadin, where she had lived and worked nearly all her life. It was a beautiful end-of-October afternoon. I blessed her house and our way to the cemetery. A large crowd walked behind the horses taking her urn to the old church outside the village, where her ashes were put to rest. This second service was even more difficult. ‘Do not be afraid, your voice will not fail, fulfil your task.’ These words guided me to the church to lead the worship of remembrance, thanks and hope. I could do my task, treasuring her blessing deep within me. I felt held in God’s presence among us.

Meditation and prayer

‘Do not be afraid’ the angel told the shepherds of Bethlehem in Beth Sahour below the city. He also gave that message to the desperate crowd at the checkpoint, not far from the place Jesus had been born.

He tells it to all people suffering under the Occupation in Palestine, giving them the hope of the newborn baby Jesus.

May this good news reach all the places of distress and death all over the world …

You, Jesus, you were born in a shelter in Bethlehem.

Today you and your parents can no longer travel

from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

There is a separation wall.

As Jew and citizen of Israel you are not allowed

to enter your hometown.

Jesus, you lived in a time of war and occupation –

you died in utter despair on a cross on Golgotha among criminals.

You die again and again with every woman, man or child being killed.

Jesus, you are with the tortured ones.

May the light of the angels shine on each of them;

may that light also shine on the torturers,

on the soldiers who have to kill,

and on their commanders.

May your light enlighten them

to find ways of reconciliation and peace.

Elisabeth Christa Miescher

Elisabeth Christa Miescher: ‘I am a member of the Iona Community and a feminist theologian (my Ph.D in 2004 was on ‘Rizpah’s mourning as resistance’). In 2007 I was an Ecumenical Accompanier in Bethlehem (www.eappi.org). I will never give up hope for a just peace there and in all troubled regions of our world. I am a mother and grandmother.’

December 2

Luke 2:10–11

26th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster – still waiting for justice

A little after midnight, early on 3rd December, 1984, toxic gas leaked from the Union Carbide insecticide factory in Bhopal, central India, killing an estimated 8000 people.

But the angel said to them: ‘Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a saviour, who is Messiah, the Lord …’

I am suspicious of anyone claiming to bring good news of great joy for all the people. All the people? It is a trick of the powerful to claim that something is good for all people, but which turns out to be good for themselves and those like them. The Green Revolution in the 1970s, in which high-yielding crops were introduced to India to feed all the people, turned out to be good for the big landowning farmers and the agrochemical companies. The poor are still hungry and many have suffered at the hands of the chemical industry on the way – none more than the people of Bhopal.

Angels are a useful literary device for delivering such a message, since they have the appearance of being classless: neither rich nor poor, floating timelessly above history (although not entirely, since the angel is clearly male). In the strongly class-divided society of first-century Palestine, how would the shepherds recognise the angel? Does he have the calloused hands of a worker or craftsman, the grubby hands of a retainer, or the smooth hands of the elite? On whose behalf does he speak of good news for ‘all people’?

This is the third time that Luke has used the angel to present the tension between fear and joy. The first, to Zachariah, an elderly priest, whose infertile wife will give birth to John; the second, to Mary, a teenaged girl, pregnant with Jesus; and now the third, to shepherds, workers, to explain the significance of Jesus as Messiah. Fear and joy.

The people of Bhopal were visited by an anti-angel, who brought fear where there might have been joy. Many women who were pregnant then miscarried, their children stillborn or born deformed. Ever since, teenaged girls have suffered gynaecological irregularities. Workers and the elderly have been left destitute.

Fear was the emotion which the survivors recall from the night the gas leaked. As the panic spread, people fled in all directions; sleeping children were bundled up and pushed onto the backs of lorries going anywhere; women who would never leave home without a burqa, ran in their under-clothes; quick decisions were made about whether to save babies first or the sick, whether to wait for those out late to return. Come daylight: the hospitals overflowing, the streets littered with the dead – people and livestock, the Muslims’ goats, the Hindus’ sacred cows – people searching for their children, their parents, their loved ones.

Today, 26 years later, great joy is still elusive. The people of Bhopal still await justice. For them, there has been no saviour. In 1989, Union Carbide ‘settled’ with the Indian government, without consultation with the survivors, for the equivalent of $500 per affected person: the value of Indian lives to the US corporation. Senior executives have avoided trial and the company chairman, Warren Anderson, now enjoys his retirement as the US refuses to extradite him. Dow Chemicals, who acquired Union Carbide in 2001, refuses to accept liability, whilst profiting from India’s ‘economic miracle’, splashing corporate sponsorship around to disinfect its past. The Indian government doesn’t want to discourage major investors by making them accountable for their crimes. This year saw the first convictions, of some managers of the Indian subsidiary company, on a minimal charge: far too little and targeting the wrong people.

Fear and joy. The survivors have had no joy but they have been fearless. For 26 years they have confronted multinational companies, government politicians, corporate lawyers and brutal police in their demands for justice: for adequate health care; economic rehabilitation and employment; access to clean, uncontaminated water; proper environmental remediation of the factory site; commensurate compensation; and to bring those responsible to account.

The anti-angel – the gas – was the messenger of fear and devastation. There was no evil in the gas, but rather in the economic decisions of the company. The gas leak was a direct result of cutting back on ‘unprofitable’ maintenance and safety features at a factory. The cause of death and destruction was the logic of putting profits before people.

There is no easy saviour, just as Jesus is no easy saviour. Bhopal survivors say that even if they got their demands, there would be no justice, no joy, if the same logic is putting others at risk. There are smaller Bhopals occurring throughout the world, wherever workers die or are made ill through exposure to hazards at work, wherever the ever-increasing cocktail of chemicals in the environment damages people’s health, wherever children are made sick because it is cheaper to pollute the air with factories, roads, incinerators. The most vulnerable – children, the elderly, pregnant women, marginal workers: to whom the angel announced great joy – are those most at ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• November 27 Children’s voices round a campfire: Words from Uganda
• November 28 Around the world at Christmas
• November 29 The flare: One night in Yanoun
• November 30 ‘Do not be afraid … see’
• December 1 ‘Do not be afraid’: A checkpoint in Bethlehem, a funeral in Switzerland
• December 2 26th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster – still waiting for justice
• December 3` Jesus the maize seed: Christmas on the edge of a village in Malawi
• December 4 Finding our own voice: Words from Australia
• December 5 Good News from China: The Amity Foundation
• December 6 Listening for the sound of the Divine voice
• December 7 A wellspring at the bottom of our existence: Words from Sweden
• December 8 Good News of great joy to humanity: Words from Kenya
• December 9 Six simple words
• December 10 God is not emperor!
• December 11 Looking for signs of joy and hope to share: A message from Brazil
• December 12 Chosen to be his hands, his feet, his voice
• December 13 Outstretched hands
• December 14 Not an opera god
• December 15 An Iona Christmas
• December 16 Places of salvation around the world: Corrymeela, Vellore, Iona …
• December 17 What have we learnt in two thousand years?
• December 18 Tying justice onto the tanabata tree: Words from Japan
• December 19 A Kairos moment
• December 20 Waiting for the light/the waiting room
• December 21 In the star-sharp stillness: Words from Ireland
• December 22 The light from the open door: Christmas in a Taiwanese village
• December 23 God breaks through the ‘normal’: Words from Cuba
• December 24 Giving up old images of ourselves: Words from Alaska
• Christmas Eve Why should I not be afraid?
• Christmas Day God wonderfully present, incarnate, enfleshed, in us and all around us
• Christmas Day reflection