Have you ever had that uneasy feeling that you are being followed?
Unfortunately these days in America that might not be a paranoid delusion! It is done by the secret police. Peaceful protesters are being literally snatched from our street and pushed into unmarked civilian cars by governmental agents. It happened in Portland and this Tuesday (the 28th of July) it was filmed here in NYC. Nikki Stone was kidnapped and detained by secret policemen in an unmarked car, allegedly for some minor infraction.
I grew up under a totalitarian regime in central Europe and would never believe I might see anything like that in the United States. This is the stuff of hard-core nightmares. Please, don’t take it lightly! My dear late friend Rev. Diana Austin was similarly kidnapped in the 1970s by Argentinian Junta and almost did not survive and her friend Elisabeth Käsemann, a daughter of a famous German Theology Professor, was “disappeared” from Buenos Aires street and murdered in a sacred detention center.
Plain-cloth agents kidnapping pedestrians in unmarked vehicles is NOT normal! We must not be silent, we must identify with the protestors and demonstrators. And in 96 days (from this Friday the 31st of July) we all must go and vote and thus express our revulsion over this state of affairs. We must resist this abuse of power and at the same time we must resist fear.
In Judaism and in the early Church there was a lovely legend that people of God escaping from Egypt were also followed on their journey across deserts from slavery to freedom. But they were not followed by any agents, they were followed by a mysterious life giving source of water. According to that legend (first ever recorded in 1Cor 10:4 and then mentioned by Philo and in Talmud) the spring of water followed them, wherever they went. And that is going to be our text and our theme this Sunday. On our journey to freedom, we are supported by a divine gift of refreshment and strength. So, do take heart! We are being followed by sweet, refreshing divine blessing. And don’t forget, in November go and vote.
Unfortunately these days in America that might not be a paranoid delusion! It is done by the secret police. Peaceful protesters are being literally snatched from our street and pushed into unmarked civilian cars by governmental agents. It happened in Portland and this Tuesday (the 28th of July) it was filmed here in NYC. Nikki Stone was kidnapped and detained by secret policemen in an unmarked car, allegedly for some minor infraction.
I grew up under a totalitarian regime in central Europe and would never believe I might see anything like that in the United States. This is the stuff of hard-core nightmares. Please, don’t take it lightly! My dear late friend Rev. Diana Austin was similarly kidnapped in the 1970s by Argentinian Junta and almost did not survive and her friend Elisabeth Käsemann, a daughter of a famous German Theology Professor, was “disappeared” from Buenos Aires street and murdered in a sacred detention center.
Plain-cloth agents kidnapping pedestrians in unmarked vehicles is NOT normal! We must not be silent, we must identify with the protestors and demonstrators. And in 96 days (from this Friday the 31st of July) we all must go and vote and thus express our revulsion over this state of affairs. We must resist this abuse of power and at the same time we must resist fear.
In Judaism and in the early Church there was a lovely legend that people of God escaping from Egypt were also followed on their journey across deserts from slavery to freedom. But they were not followed by any agents, they were followed by a mysterious life giving source of water. According to that legend (first ever recorded in 1Cor 10:4 and then mentioned by Philo and in Talmud) the spring of water followed them, wherever they went. And that is going to be our text and our theme this Sunday. On our journey to freedom, we are supported by a divine gift of refreshment and strength. So, do take heart! We are being followed by sweet, refreshing divine blessing. And don’t forget, in November go and vote.
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