Keep Awake Sermon starter (2020)
By Rev. Amy Yoder McGloughlin
Isaiah 64:1-9, Mark 13:24-37
Mitri Raheb writes about the cries of the Palestinian people in Faith in the Face of Empire. The question of Palestinian people in times of difficulty is Weinak ya Allah, “Where are you, God?”
“{Palestinians} don’t question the existence of God or {God’s} care. But they wonder why {God} isn’t moving….The cry is supposed to shake {God} so {God} awakes, acts and delivers.”
The Palestinian people call for God to tear open the heavens (a powerful, violent image of saving help), to come down and help them. And for good reason. The occupation is escalating, especially with the pandemic, where international eyes and ears are focused in other places.
This year, Palestinians in the west bank brace for annexation.
They’ve quarantined during Ramadan, Easter and Eid, as the West Bank has experienced two lockdowns this year.
Palestinians face an dramatic increase in home demolitions
Gazans are faced with a ratcheted up blockade, even as they experience their first COVID cases, and brace for an outbreak.
Palestinians in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron continue to face attacks from settlers, their neighbors who live nearby, as soldiers look on.
Iyah Halak, an autistic teenager from Jerusalem, was murdered by police in the Old City.
Palestinian Christians and Muslims call out to God, asking “Weinak ya Allah”, “Where are you God?” as they face another difficult year of brutal occupation.
In North America, we are becoming more accustomed to asking that vulnerable question--in the unrelenting isolation of this pandemic, in national racial uprisings, and in an uncertain political landscape. We too are beginning to know a bit of what it’s like to cry out to God. And in the middle of all this, we also worry about our Palestinian friends. We join them in their cries, “Weinak ya Allah,” “How long, O Lord?”
The revelation the people of Palestine received was the ability to spot God where no one else was able to see {God}, and to find {God} in the most unexpected places.
Our hope this Advent is that God is coming to us. Our challenge this Advent, after months in quarantine, after a nerve-wracking US election, is to “Stay Awake” and “Stay Alert”. We fully expect that God will deliver us. We expect that God will show up. The question is not, “Will God?”, but “When, God?”