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| Image by Sami Keinänen |
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A Greeting
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in God my heart trusts; so I am helped.
(Psalm 28:7)
A Reading
When a spirit from on high is poured out on us, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest, then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever. My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places.
(Isaiah 32:14b-18)
Music
Meditative Verse
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
(Psalm 42:1)
A Prayer
Look with mercy, gracious God, upon people everywhere
who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant
companions. Rouse us from our complacency and help us to
eliminate cruelty where it is found. Strengthen those who seek
equality for all. Grant that everyone may enjoy a fair portion of
the abundance of the earth; through your Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
- from "Prayers for the Oppressed",
found in Evangelical Lutheran Worship
Verse for the Day
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
God's understanding is beyond measure.
(Psalm 147:5)
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| Image by Sami Keinänen |
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Isaiah’s dream of having a righteous and just world comes in the image of a fruitful field or wilderness, where people “abide in a peaceful habitation”. The Sami peoples of northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland have long struggled to maintain their customs in the face of mining and logging enterprises that wreak havoc on their way of life, and in particular on the traditions of reindeer herding. In recent years, copper mining has become prominent and is ironically linked to efforts to avert climate change: copper is used for electric cars and for other modes of transporting electricity. At the northernmost point in Norway at Repparfjord, however, copper mining results in the dumping of tailings into the sea, disturbing fishing life and upsetting ecosystems. It also directly impacts the reindeer who migrate through the region and drink from the waters. Britta Marakatt Labbas is a Sami textile artist who was raised in a reindeer-herding family. Her creativity takes the form of epic embroidery: in one project called Historija, her embroidered history of the Sami people stretches twenty-four metres in length. In the video below, we see another work called Kråkan which depicts a violent conflict that took place in the early 1980s in Alta, Norway, when Norwegian police cracked down on Sami protestors who were trying to prevent the building of a hydro-electric dam on traditional Sami reindeer herding land. In the video, as the camera pans over Labbas’ work, we see smoke emerge from the tents and drift away. Eventually it crosses paths with crows who turn into and become police confronting the people. Labbas based the work on her own experience of having been present at the Alta protest. In more recent days she has turned her art toward climate change, depicting the contrasts of disappearing herding lands to expanding mining communities. As the deer pants for water, so we all thirst for justice. How can we find ways to resolve our climate challenges and find renewable forms of energy that also allow for Indigenous peoples to stay in right relationship to the creatures and traditions of the lands they have always known? How can our deep trust in a loving and restorative God guide us into peaceful solutions?
A CREATIVE PROJECT
Please note: for the next two days, the planned pages will be suspended to make space for special devotional pages that will respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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LC† Reimagining Justice is a project of
Lutherans Connect / Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto,
supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.
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