Lamentations

“Enemies have stretched out their hands over all her precious things; she has even seen the nations invade her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation” Lamentations 1:10.

The women were gathered in the church singing as the rest of the community prepared for the celebration outside. The joy was interrupted by screams, gunfire and death as the army entered the church killing the women in a spray of bullets. Those that did not die by fire arm were piled on top of those already dead inside the church and set on fire. Everyone in the church that day in 1982 died.

“The young and the old are lying on the ground in the streets; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; in the day of your anger you have killed them, slaughtering without mercy” Lamentations 2:21.

Outside the church the army placed people inside the kettles of boiling water which had been set up to prepare food for the anniversary celebration.

“You invited my enemies from all around as if for a day of festival; and on the day of the anger of the LORD no one escaped or survived; those whom I bore and reared my enemy has destroyed” Lamentations 2:22.

They rounded up all the young women and girls and shut them inside the school. For two weeks the girls were raped. At the end of the two weeks, the last soldier walked out, locked the door and set fire to the school.

“My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, until the LORD from heaven looks down and sees. My eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the young women in my city” Lamentations 3:49-51.

It was market day and the women and children were cautiously buying some food for their families. They were assured that the army was far away, that it was safe to buy today. The bartering of the women was interrupted by gun fire. Many were killed falling with their babies strapped to their backs. Several women were taken and tied up to be kicked and beaten. “Where are the rest? Where are the rest? In the cardamom fields? Tell us!” Eventually they too lost their lives. At least one child was taken, alive, by the army. Twenty five years later he has returned to be reunited with his family, now strangers.

“Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting place” Lamentations 1:3.

Fleeing for their lives into the mountains, many died of starvation and disease. The dead were left behind. Crossing a river into Mexico, one young boy got caught under water too long and though alive never reached adulthood. In Mexico more died of starvation and disease in poor refugee camp conditions.

“They cry to their mothers, ‘Where is bread and wine?’ as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom” Lamentations 2:12.

Transfiguration

“The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:” Lamentations 3:19-21.

The Augustinian Lutheran Church “St. John the Baptist” on the day of the Transfiguration of our Lord presented a play they had put together about the massacre that they had lived through in their own flesh for the delegation from Easter Lutheran Church.

The women still knew how to run for their lives when faced with gunfire. They still knew how to fall at full speed in order to try to protect the babies on their backs. They still knew how the soldiers piled up the bodies in the church… and even set some paper on fire in the church to make it a little more real. They knew how to tie people up and how to kidnap a child. The babies cried, frightened and not knowing that it was only a recreation.

God has truly transfigured the pain of these people. It has not been erased. The scars are still visible and some wounds are still open. However, in the midst of hearing about what they had suffered in the flesh and seeing the depth of the pain in eyes blank with grief… a word of hope was spoken.

“We have found the place where we will die”.

They were the first to return to Guatemala in the murmurings of peace but the last to receive a place to resettle. The land they received was far from their land of origin. It was not good farmland, and especially not good for the farming they had practiced before the exile. It was for cattle, but they had none. The land had hardly any trees or water. Their community had slowly been meshed with others until they had to speak Spanish instead of their native language in order to communicate with their new neighbors-- with whom they would either make life or not. The promised land was not as wonderful as they had dreamed it would be all those years in exile. They could not even afford to get themselves to the land a few hours away. Struggle continued to keep fresh the bitter taste in their mouths.

Padre Horacio paid for four trucks to bring them to the land promised them. Somehow they found the will to continue to struggle and to apply for government loans for cattle so that they could make a life waiting years to receive any sort of answer.

As we celebrated the Transfiguration of our Lord in February 2007, we were gathered in the newly built church. Every family had gathered sticks to put up the walls so that the cattle would not loll in the church any more… for Christmas the nativity manger could very well have been in their lowly shelter. Now the church had walls and a hand made door, altar, and church benches. The ceiling was decorated with plastic streamers and the walls with Sunday school lessons.

The church benches were filled with the families of the church… and the people filled with the hope in Christ that they are home. With the help of our Lord, and His abundant promises they will die here… this will be the home of the generations to come. God willing.

“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him” Lamentations 3:22-24.

Coal to my lips

“For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears” Lamentations 1:16.

Personally… in Zaculeu this February, as I translated at least an hour of stories of the massacres that these beautiful people had suffered in their own flesh… something happened. I have heard many stories of massacres here in Guatemala since I have arrived. That day as I translated, I became the means for them to lament to God and neighbor. Their words and pain came into me so that as I translated it the pain and suffering could be shared.

One after another the members of the church stood up and added their sufferings to the others. The horror was indescribable and my call was to share that suffering in my mother tongue to the brothers and sisters who had come to be in solidarity with the church.

Is this what the writer of Lamentations felt when they put to words the suffering, the cry of the people? Is this what Isaiah felt when his lips were burned with the coal of the seraphs? I did not suffer what these people suffered but by translating it I was forced to take it, in a small way, into myself and then give it away so that it could be heard and healed. Is this what we do as pastors in confession… take it in and give it to God to receive His forgiveness?

There are things that only God can receive… and He too cries upon receiving them. For these reasons, He went to the cross so that this suffering is not the end. Rather it meets its end in the cross. Death… so that their might be life.

Violence Personally Delivered

Sunday we arrived at Porvenir with a delegation and were met with a nearly empty church. It turns out that late the night before a young man, whose family and extended family attended the church, had been killed. The family was all present at the home to begin to mourn. As the family gathered, they received a phone call from the gang. The gang member told the family not to make a big deal out of it and then apologized for killing the young man. They had thought he was someone else and killed him by mistake. Such a phone call cannot bring comfort.

In a neighborhood in Guatemala City al the homes and businesses received a piece of paper. On the paper was listed how many family members each house had or employees of each business, the hours they came and went and on the bottom the price that family or business owned the gang monthly. An address of the gang’s office was listed where payments could be made. Audacious… an office to receive extortion payments… no need to hide from the “legal” authorities.