By Father Casey
The news from Ukraine continues to shock and sadden the world. Rather than recognize the futility of the invasion, or acknowledge the terrible price – economically, reputationally, and in human lives – the war will cost his nation, Vladimir Putin has doubled down on Russia’s brutal siege of a peaceful neighbor. Each day I wake up and read the news, hoping upon hope that there will be some glimmer of change, that perhaps the clouds of war might break long enough for the light of peace to shine through.
But the bombs keep falling, the bullets keep flying, and the fighting rages on.
I have been amazed by the humanitarian response of Eastern European countries to the exodus of Ukrainian refugees. Countries like Poland, which have in recent years grown more nationalist and suspicious of its neighbors, have nevertheless stepped up to this enormous challenge and accepted over 2 million people in barely two weeks. Small towns on the border of Ukraine are processing 2,000 refugees an hour every day – processing their entry, providing basic care, and directing them onward to safer settings further west.[1]
If you feel compelled to donate to help the response to all this suffering, I commend to you the option of donating through Episcopal Relief and Development.[2] ERD is working closely with agencies and ecumenical partners in eastern Europe to meet the urgent needs of thousands of Ukrainians. I know our individual donations can feel tiny in comparison with the size of the crisis, so we must remember the power of the unified Church. When joined together – Anglicans, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestant – we become a compassionate force capable of responding to every form of human suffering, no matter how large.
I am sure you’ve been praying, too. Prayer is how faithful people offer the needs of the world to God, asking God to do what we’re unable to do and be where we cannot be. Prayer is also how we join our broken heart to the broken heart of God, and allow our grief to settle into the divine grief for a suffering world. So pray, friends, for hardened hearts to be softened, for malicious plans to be thwarted, for courage among those forced to defend their homes, for breakthroughs in diplomacy, for the safety of refugees, for those trapped by the battlefronts, and for all the dying and dead.
And remember to include in your prayers that God would shield our hearts from hatred. It will be very tempting in coming days, if we have not begun to succumb to it already, to hate Vladimir Putin and the Russian forces. It will be easy to allow hate to simmer steadily within us as we read about the terrible events happening in Ukraine. But there is too much hatred in the world already, and the last thing needed right now is to add to its tally. We are right to be appalled at the invasion, and right to support those who are bravely resisting it, but we are never right to hate. Hatred does nothing to aid our resistance to evil, but works like poison in our souls, slowly killing us from within.
Just three weeks ago we heard the passage from Luke’s gospel in which Jesus commands us not to hate our enemies, but to love them. I will never forget the sight of the Dr. Waters holding up a KKK hood as he recited these holy words in his sermon, which led me, in turn, to revisit a sermon by Dr. King from 1957:
[People] must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.[3]
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how to love those who are inflicting such terrors on innocent people. Which is why, for now, I’m simply praying for God’s help us to resist the temptation to hate. That is how we begin, by asking for God’s help – for the weak and vulnerable across the world, and for ourselves, as we fight against the lure of hatred.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/03/10/1085838465/hundreds-of-thousands-of-refugees-are-passing-through-this-polish-city-mayor-say
[2] https://support.episcopalrelief.org/ukraineresponse?ID=220301DP0DS0100&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=fy22ukraine&utm_source=220301DP0DS0100
[3] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church