Category: Poverty

Israel, Palestine and What Makes for Peace

“As Jesus came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

Luke 19:41-42

Jesus still weeps over Jerusalem and Palestine and the cities and nations of the world, weeps over our nation’s capital and our nation. If we only knew the things that make for peace, but they are hidden from us by our pridefulness and arrogance.

Join Jesus in weeping over Jerusalem and Palestine. That is a starting point for those of us distant from the horror, but who learn daily of the carnage and loss of life. Weep over the acts of terrorism in the slaughter of Israelis, men, women, and children. Weep over the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians, men, women, and children, and for the many children being traumatized, going hungry, exposed, and living in fear.

Then weep for ourselves and our warring ways, for our support for war as a solution. Weep for the wars fought in the name of God and for wars fought in the name of no God; for wars pitting one religion against another and for wars to end religion; for wars fought in the name of ideologies, fought in the name of democracy, or an autocratic ruler, or capitalism, or communism, or any of the many isms.

Weep for the poor and suffering and the violence added to their lives. Stand with those who suffer. Stand against oppression and brutality in whatever name it is exercised, whatever religion or ideology. Join Jesus in weeping over the world and then take up your own cross and walk in the way of peace. Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. Justice, mercy, and humility are the ways of peace.

“There can be no justice without peace. And there can be no peace without justice.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

These words of Pastor King are a statement of reality. Peace cannot be achieved without justice and justice cannot be achieved without peace.

Israel, in the end, will not know peace without doing justice, making right what is wrong in their relationship with Palestinians. War is not the answer. Justice is. “There can be no peace without justice.”

And the United States will not have helped Israel by continuing to arm it and refusing to call for a ceasefire and taking steps toward peace.

”Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.”

Jesus

This remains true. Violence begets violence.

And Palestinians will not achieve justice by violent actions, but rather injustice will be added to injustice. The Civil Rights Movement in the United States points to a way: peaceful, sustained, active resistance. “There can be no justice without peace.”

“Let us then pursue what makes for peace.”

St. Paul

Doing justice makes for peace. Love that takes up the cross (that enters into the suffering of others rather than adding to it) makes for peace.

In our commitment to dominate others, in our commitment to our own security over others, the United States, along with Israel and the other nations of the world will keep going to war. Throughout most of our history, the United States has been at war somewhere in the world. And we have spent trillions of dollars on armament, monies that could be used for peace and for the uplift of those in need and therefore for justice.

We remain blind to what makes for peace.

So, Jesus weeps over us: “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

Filed under: Grief, Justice, Poverty, WarTagged with: , , , ,

A Pandemic Reminder: The World Is One

If we have ignored this reality, the present pandemic is a reminder: the world is one. A virus that began in Wuhan, China, is now global. It will increasingly effect every part of our global community. We are all in this together. What has been moving rapidly across the northern hemisphere will do the same in the southern hemisphere. What we have shared with those to the south will come back to the north from the south. It will move in every direction finding many various ways to spread.

Of course, this virus that knows no boundaries does not make us interconnected; it makes it harder to ignore our interconnection. We are one world, no matter how many boundaries or barriers we erect: physical, social, national, ethnic, class, etc. We affect one another across boundaries and by means of the barriers we erect: the wealthy here, the poor over there.

Those who are poorest among us, having the fewest resources, will experience greater devastation from this virus—the result of the inequality we have built within our nations and the global community. The poor do not simply choose to be poor. Poverty is produced by greed, racism, nationalism, fear; by the loss of love and compassion. As Augustine said, “The superfluities of the rich are the necessities of the poor.” We cause the divisions and breakdown of our one world. And yet the reality of the one human race is primary. We are one world. The coronavirus is a reminder. It touches us all.

This virus is expected to grow much more rapidly among poorer communities across the world. Consequently, it will be kept alive and pervasive longer because of the barriers we have erected and the oneness we have ignored. We are one world and one human family, but we have acted like we were adversaries in a quest to carve up this globe into kingdoms of wealth and power. Never mind the losers.

It is clear that if we, as a global community, were to address the needs of the hungry and poor among us, especially by addressing the systemic ways of operating that have produced inequities, we would break down barriers to the one world that we inescapably are. It may be that the reality of this pandemic forces us to make changes. After all, we are all helped when the necessities for healthy communities are available to all. The deeper change, however, comes with a change of heart, a movement toward love and compassion.

On this Maundy Thursday, Christians remember and reenact the last meal Jesus had with his followers. We share in a meal at which Jesus is the host. Jesus gathers us from every corner of the global community. The barriers of class, race, nation, and gender are removed. As Paul writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Followers of Jesus are to be witnesses to this reality—witnesses to the true humanity to which all are called, a humanity made in the image of the God who is love.

Filed under: Justice, Love, Poverty, WitnessTagged with: , , ,