Until the world is broken no more

Dear God,

Years ago, Paul Simon sang, “These are the days of miracle and wonder.” But that song was filled with terrifying images: soldiers in the desert, a bomb in a baby carriage. That sounds more like mayhem and worry than miracle and wonder. Still, that wise secular theologian and prophet kept repeating “And don’t cry, baby, don’t cry.” Was he crazy? Was he right?

Maybe that troubadour was reading the world through the eyes and memories of his Jewish parents and ancestors, whose lives were shaped by the Holocaust and earlier pogroms. Or maybe he was recalling the hope of Psalm 23’s poet who walked through the valley of the shadow of death and feared no evil. Paul Simon’s people, our ancestors as well, are Your “people of the past” and present. You call us to embrace hard facts and hopeful truths with the comforting Spirit you gave us as Jesus promised in John 16.

Your people then and now knew so much mayhem and worry. But somehow they kept singing “the only song they ever had,” that “very broken Hallelujah,” no matter what, no matter for how long. Help us to sing that song every trying day, during today’s battles and bombs in the Palestinian desert and the artillery battles in Ukrainian wheatfields. Were and are they right and/or crazy to sing Hallelujah anyway? Are we?

Merciful Lord Jesus Christ, you know mayhem and worry from the life You lived on earth with us. But you also know miracle and wonder from blind eyes that you opened, a woman’s flowing blood you stopped, the life you gave to Lazarus, the clean skin you gave to outcast lepers. Lots of people then thought you were crazy too.

We live in our own time’s madness and monstrousness. Floods and hurricanes, forest fires and charred homes and towns. We look south across the border and see months of unending confusion and brutal competition among congresspersons cursing each other and death threats terrifying their families. This is the stuff that valleys of the shadow of death are made of.

Are we crazy? Or can we see and live with the eyes of all who have ever sung and keep singing “Hallelujah” until the world is broken no more? Can we find your oases in the deserts where Palestinians and Israelis can pray and sing together? If that’s being crazy, so let it be, now and forever more. Amen.