Casella 23
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Advent 4 : Psalm 80:1-7; 17-19 Matthew 1:18-26 and Iraq
The fourth Sunday of Advent is traditionally the time when we think about Mary. The story is so familiar that we don’t always stop to reflect on just how incredible it is. Mary, probably in her early teens, is engaged to Joseph, and rather than talking about plans for the big day, she drops the bombshell that she is pregnant. Even in our post-Christian, western culture, such an announcement would spell the end of many a relationship – but in 1st century Palestine the consequences could be death.
Yet, we are told Joseph is a righteous man: not one who necessarily follows the letter of the law, but righteous in the sense of open to God, compassionate and merciful. His first response to Mary is to dismiss her quietly rather than to submit her to public disgrace and possible stoning. But then he has a dream and a conversation with an angel that leads to a courageous and grace-filled turn of heart. And he does the almost unthinkable: he takes the pregnant Mary as his wife, offering her protection and a place of safety.
But it could have been a very different story with a very different ending.
Ngen is just 23 and already has a nine-year-old son and four-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. Hers is a story that those of us who are old enough will have heard on the news. From northern Iraq, she was one of hundreds of thousands of Kurdish people displaced from their communities by the Al-Anfal attacks committed against Iraqi Kurds by Saddam Hussein. One tragic story lost in the midst of thousands. But Ngen was also separated from her family when she was just a few years old, taken in by another family until she was 13 and then sold to an Iranian man as his wife. But this man was no Joseph; he imprisoned and abused her, mistreating her after the birth of her first child, and later locking her away to give birth to twins alone.
We can hear the words of the psalm of lament reflected in Ngen’s story.
‘How long will you be angry with your people’s prayers? You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure....’
But there is hope in Ngen’s story, hope in her own courage and determination for a better life for her children. Hope in escaping and returning to her homeland. Hope, even, in surviving until help was found, living among the graves of a cemetery. Hope in trying to trace her original family. Ngen, who like all Muslims believes that Jesus was a prophet from God, says:
‘I saw a vision of Jesus touching me and the babies, and he told me “God and I will help you find a way out of here”.’’
And there is hope too in an organisation with Joseph- like qualities – Christian Aid partner ASUDA, which courageously offers safe shelters for women, legal services, help with tracing lost families, vocational training and other support. And hope, too, that we can respond to just some of the stories of mass tragedy we hear on the news by supporting ASUDA, through giving to Christian Aid and through praying, as it works with the Ngens and the Marys of this world, in the name of Immanuel, God is with us.
(c) Christian Aid |
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