Reflections on events in Ukraine. How I will react?

     What started as a peaceful demonstration in Maidan on the 21^st of November 2013 suddenly took an unexpected turn in the months following it. Suddenly it caused the interventions of alien forces and annexation of a part of sovereign state. As the Western World watches the events with unbelief and obvious hesitation as to how to respond to what is happening, the dramatic development proceeds and it is not quite clear where and how it will move forward. Today, as I write these words, is the 9^th of April and newly established zones of conflict in eastern municipalities of Ukraine causes more and more turmoil and uncertainty.

But what do we make out of it? How do we as Christians and citizens can and/or should respond to these events? It is not an easy answer.

     I wonder if you were surprised by these events the same way as the leaders of the Western World were. Living in the world of “post”, it is hardly surprising that it brought surprise to the leaders. These events should return us from the post-historicity and post-ideology maze, and bring us back to reality at least a little bit. Most of the readers can remember something about the events in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Chechnya, Transnistria that unfortunately somehow were ignored by the West for the sake of rather pragmatic political reasons. Unfortunately such pragmatism proves itself to be absolutely impotent in the face of today’s conflict in Ukraine. I could probably attempt to give some perspective of mine on these events, but that would be of a very limited value as I am not competent in this area at all. But my concern as a professing Christian would be to find out how as a Christian I can view these events in the light of the Biblical message.

     The conflicts of that scale are nothing new. And let us not be disillusioned by the expectation that such conflicts are not possible in the XXI century (that’s what we often hear in the talks of political leaders, “It is unthinkable in the XXI century!”). Jesus once told that “you will hear of wars and rumors of wars” (Matt. 24:6). What we see here, however heart breaking it might be (and is), is nothing new and will continue to happen as long as this world exists. Jesus was quite realistic about the state of the world that he came to live in and die for, knowing full well that the problem of the human being is really the state of one’s heart and not the lack of peace, happiness of life or lack of prosperity. All these things are also desirable, but not really possible if there is no change of human heart. Some decades ago we stumbled upon the idea of the perfect world and it captured our imagination with ideas of perfectly happy society, financial prosperity, easyness of traveling, and one can add all that she wishes. But as all created hopes – the promised thousand years Reich or the coming of Lenin for ever, just to recall few – , this hope will eventually disappoint us.

      So, firstly as Christians we should take this stand in our thinking and understanding of all creation – that the biggest need of human being is transformation of the heart. If we do, international conflicts, not to mention our personal conflicts and suffering will not catch us by surprise at all. It should bring us to the stronger sense of reality. It would be very sad if, at this moment of history, the West would again, in days to come, ignore the reality and repeat the historical mistakes already done in the past. (At the same time I wonder what to say about leadership of Russia, which reveals my personal western-centeredness) Then, I would not be surprised that in years to come we would see not only conflicts of

this scale, but a conflict involving the whole continent and possibly the whole world, keeping in mind the globalization. This should be a wakeup call for us all to investigate our own hopes and desires on personal level as well as hopes and desires of the society at large and to see where and how we miss the point. It is a difficult issue to deal with and naturally we are resistant to these ideas.

     Yet, God calls us to be people who are called out of the world to be a different kind of people. To be in the world, but not of the world. The primary mandate of a Christian is to be a witness of Jesus. When Jesus was leaving the world, as we read in the Acts 1, angels prompted his disciples not to look into heavens. That must have reminded them of the words that Jesus spoke just a moment ago – to go out and to be his witnesses. Witnesses of a different kind of God, of different kind of hope, different kind of community, different kind of politics, business ethics, morals, justice, truth. It does not mean to be apathetic to the situations that we face and somehow to be uninvolved or to be stuck in small Christian ghettos. Now might be a time to mourn. But this means to be wise in making one’s steps in life and carefully determining how, in the long run, we might stand firmly as wittiness of the resurrected Christ in the midst of the world that struggles to make sense of the evil that exist and expresses itself in greed, irresponsible politics, unhealthy leadership, ethnic and racial prejudice, seeking of power, lack of morals. For the reality is that the world longs for realistic hope and realistic meaning. Exactly for that reason Jesus calls his followers the light and the salt of the earth. How we work that out in detail goes beyond this short reflection. We, you and me, have to work it out in relation to our own vocation and situation of life. There is loads of freedom in this.

     Two main arguments may stand in the way for us to accept this position. It might sound too simple to be true, or too good to be true. But I urge you not to think it is too simple or too good. Historians agree that the main factor that speared Britain from the horrors of bloody revolution in France was the preaching of John Wesley, because many converted people brought about the initial changes in the Anglo-Saxon world. Why not to say together – God, in your mercy, do it again and use us as your servants!

Steponas Ribokas
LKSB Lithuania