The Promised Land
A sermon in The Other Six Days series
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
November 15, 2009
Deuteronomy 24:17-22, Judges 3:1-6, Mark 7:24-37

Deuteronomy 24:17-22 · You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow's garment in pledge. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.

When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all your undertakings. When you beat your olive trees, do not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow.

When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this.

Judges 3:1-6 · Now these are the nations that the LORD left to test all those in Israel who had no experience of any war in Canaan (it was only that successive generations of Israelites might know war, to teach those who had no experience of it before): the five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath. They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the LORD, which he commanded their ancestors by Moses. So the Israelites lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and they took their daughters as wives for themselves, and their own daughters they gave to their sons; and they worshiped their gods.

Mark 7:24-37 · From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go--the demon has left your daughter." So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

I. BEGINNING

When people talk about peace in the Middle East, you often hear them say things like, "Well, they've been fighting there for thousands of years, so that's not going to change any time soon." It's a curious statement on a couple of different levels. First, because it seems odd to limit that dismissive sentiment to the Middle East. In the 1950's when the European Economic Community (predecessor to the European Union) was coming into being, did anyone say, "Well they've been fighting there for thousands of years, so that's not going to change any time soon"? Because, the Europeans weren't exactly one big happy family for most of their history.

But second, because in the case of the Jews and the Muslims, this has not been the case for "thousands of years". In fact, for Jews, living in a Muslim country was often preferable to living in a Christian one, when it came to being treated well.

Indeed, the current level of conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors, or Israel and the Palestinian Arab population, is a relatively recent phenomenon, owing itself to the influx of Jewish immigrants into the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and then to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.

Now, to be sure, we can read in the scriptures of the people of Israel, Biblical Israel, that is, at war or in conflict with various nations around them. We hear a lot about the Canaanites, the Moabites, the Edomites, the Amalekites, and so on. We read a lot about the Philistines, with whom the Israelites had a long running conflict. It would eventually be King David, who as a youth slayed the Philistine champion Goliath, who would eventually defeat the Philistines and establish security for Israel. In fact, the Philistines loomed so large in Israel's memory as a historic enemy that when the Romans evicted Jews from their homeland in the Second Century, they renamed the region after Israel's historic enemy, calling it Palestine.

But the current conflict with the Palestinians comes as a subset within the broader Arab-Israeli conflict, a product of the Twentieth Century. After the First World War, the British and the French divided up the territory of the former Ottoman Empire and administered it. In 1917, the British Government issued the Balfour Declaration, which stated in part:

"His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." [1]

After the Second World War, Jewish refugees from Europe began to arrive in great numbers into Palestine to make a new life and to establish a Jewish homeland, a place where Jews could be safe from the caprices of kings, tsars, and nations, free to be their own people, secure from the terrors that had been unleashed by the Nazis in the genocide of the Holocaust. The United Nations approved a partition of the land into two states: a Jewish state and an Arab state. The plan was accepted by the Jews, rejected by the Arabs. In 1948, the State of Israel declared its independence and found itself immediately at war with the surrounding Arab countries. At the conclusion of that war, an armistice line was set that is often referred to as the Green Line.

In 1967, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan went to war with Israel and were soundly defeated in what is called the Six Day War. At the end of that war, Israel was in possession of the Sinai peninsula and the Gaza strip (formerly under Egyptian control), the Golan Heights (formerly under Syrian control), and the West Bank of the Jordan River (formerly under Jordanian control).

Egypt and Syria attacked Israel again on Yom Kippur in 1973 in a war that failed to retake land captured by Israel during the Six Day War, land that Israel insisted it would return to Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in return for peace treaties and recognition.

In 1979, Egypt and Israel struck a peace treaty--The Camp David Accords--and Israel returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt in return for a formal peace treaty and recognition by Egypt, the first Arab state to recognize Israel. This treaty did not include the Gaza Strip. Eventually, even Jordan would strike a peace treaty with Israel and recognize the Jewish state. But that peace treaty did not involve the return of captured Jordanian territory--the West Bank.

And so, a sizeable Arab population remained in land controlled by, but not legally a part of, the State of Israel. Unlike the Arabs who had been in the land at the founding of the State in 1948, these Palestinian Arabs did not enjoy civic rights within Israel. Unlike Israeli Arabs, the Palestinians were not citizens. They lived in an occupied territory, under military administration. They have lived in that condition for 42 years.

This situation has seen a fair amount of violence. Attacks by the Palestinian Liberation Organization, incursions by the Israeli army, attacks by Islamist organizations like Hamas, have left thousands dead.

The conflict between Israeli and Palestinian over the last twenty years has claimed nearly 6,000 Palestinian lives and around 1,500 Israeli lives. [2]

The Oslo Accords of the 1990's were meant to provide a way out of this morass, a process that would lead to recognition of Israel's security and right to exist and the formation of a Palestinian state. Since those days of optimism in the 1990's, the situation on the ground has produced a more complicated, messier, and more difficult situation. The presence of Jewish settlers in the West Bank and until recently the Gaza Strip, rocket attacks launched by forces the Palestinian Authority is unable or unwilling to stop, Palestinian claims for a right of return to land in Israel proper, Israeli construction of a "security fence" surrounding Palestinian lands raising claims of a "land grab"... The situation has remained stuck and at times, seemingly hopeless. The Israelis do not have security. The Palestinians do not have a land of their own. And there is death and destruction every day.

It is a complex situation with a complex history and a number of competing interests, that are not always easy to work through.

For Christians concerned with peace in our world, it can seem like an unsolvable conflict. And whether history bears out the claim or not, the idea that "they've been fighting for thousands of years..." seems like something we don't just say now, but will be saying thousands of years from now.

So, what are we supposed to do?

II. What the Church Teaches

Well as good Methodists, we turn our attention to the Book of Discipline, the Social Principles, and The Book of Resolutions. The United Methodist Church has taken a number of official positions on the conflict in accordance with our social principles. These can be found in our Book of Resolutions.

The United Methodist Church encourages "all leaders of and participants in 'Holy Land Tours' to contact indigenous Christian leaders in the Middle East, and to hear concerns of both the Israelis and Palestinians who live there, as well as visit the biblical and historical sites." ( 2004 Book of Resolutions, "Holy Land Tours," ¶292)

"The United Methodist Church calls upon the United States, as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, to accept the authority of Security Council resolutions and abide by Resolutions 242 and 338, as well as other relevant Security Council resolutions, that provide a framework for bringing this conflict to a just and permanent end." ( 2004 Book of Resolutions, "United Nations Resolutions on the Israel-Palestine Conflict," ¶323)

"The United Methodist Church opposes continued military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, the confiscation of Palestinian land and water resources, the destruction of Palestinian homes, the continued building of illegal Jewish settlements, and any vision of a 'Greater Israel' that includes the occupied territories and the whole of Jerusalem and its surroundings." ( 2004 Book of Resolutions, "Opposition to Israeli Settlements in Palestinian Land," ¶312)

And so, our church is on record seeking the continuation of the peace process, and for an end to the military occupation of Palestinian territory. The Church has spoken. The crisis is solved.

III. Muddying the Waters

You'll have to forgive my cynicism. But, in the midst of what is already a difficult and complex conflict, the voice of religion often complicates matters further and makes things worse.

On the Islamic side, you often hear language identifying Jerusalem as a sacred Islamic site, a site referred to obliquely (and likely metaphorically) in the Qur'an as the "farthest sanctuary", and thus a holy site in the Islamic tradition. So attached have Muslims become to this idea that a visit by then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount (where the Al-Aqsa mosque is) led to the beginning of the Second Intifada, which many believe continues today.

On the Jewish side are frequent claims to the land as that land promised to Abraham by God under the covenant. A land promised to Isaac and to Jacob and his descendants. A land to which the Israelites were led following their slavery in Egypt. A land flowing with milk and honey. A good and broad land. This understand of the land as deeded by God to the Israelites (and thus to modern Israel) runs deep. Many of the Jewish settlers on the West Bank make reference to the land as one granted to their people by God.

And then on the Christian side there are mixed reactions--neither of them particularly helpful. On the one side is the natural sympathy with those who have little power--in this case the Palestinians--bringing with it a condemnation of everything the State of Israel does and an often self-righteous judgment of the Israelis. On the other side are those among certain Evangelical movements that see the return of all Jews to the Holy Land as a necessary precursor to the Second Coming of Christ. Therefore, if we want to see Jesus again, we have to make sure all the Jews return to Israel and that the land is the one that follows the borders of the ancient Kingdom of David (which means the Palestinians have to be removed from ancient Judea/the present West Bank).

Religion certainly seems to have clouded an already difficult situation. Activists will tell you that the conflict is essentially a human rights struggle, not one of competing religious claims. Religion, it seems, muddies the waters of what should be a process driven by fundamental respect for law and principles of human rights.

But could it be that what this situation requires is not less religion, but more?

IV. A Shared Land

There's something very interesting about the passages we read earlier. All three of them have an implicit declaration to make.

The first is a passage from Deuteronomy that declares that resident aliens and orphans are not to be deprived justice. Further, that when you are gleaning your field, you are not to pick up any grain that has fallen from your sheaves--it is to remain for the widows, orphans, and the resident aliens. Likewise, you are not to glean the remainder of the grapes from your vineyard, but they are to be left for the widow, orphan and the resident alien.

The second is a passage from Judges that somewhat oddly, suggests that God has allowed certain tribes to remain in the promised land in order to test the Israelites, and so that they may know war as other generations had before them. Now, in all likelihood, a passage like this exists because somehow the Biblical author has to account for the fact that despite what the Book of Joshua says about wiping out all the nations who possessed the land prior to Israel's arrival after the Exodus, many of them were very visibly around at the time these books were being written. And so Judges speaks of those nations that God has caused to remain in the land.

And then the third is a passage from Mark's gospel in which he tells the fascinating story of the Syrophonecian woman (i.e., an Aramean or a Canaanite woman) who asks Jesus for help for her daughter. After Jesus makes a somewhat scandalous comment equating gentiles with “dogs”, she demonstrates that she has faith in what Jesus can do, and he declares her daughter healed.

What all of these passages make clear to us, is that the land of Israel, the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the land to which the Hebrew slaves were delivered following bondage in Egypt, the land to which the Judean exiles returned after captivity in Babylon, the Holy Land, that land has always been a shared land. There have always been other non-Israelite peoples who inhabited the land. They lived in and among the Israelite people. The reality of their presence was so great that the Biblical author had to assume this was God's plan. Indeed, the commandments of the Torah assumed the presence of non-Israelites, and demanded that they be accorded justice no less than the Israelites. One law for the foreign and native born. Throughout the history of Israel, non-Israelites had been lifted up as righteous ones, in many cases, furthering the purposes of God: Rahab the prostitute, Ruth the Moabitess, Uriah the Hittite, and many others.

The land of Israel may have been promised to Abraham and his descendants, but it does not seem to have been promised to them to inhabit without neighbors.

IV. The Promised Land

And so we understand that we have been looking at this conflict as a conflict over competing claims to land. A conflict over control over land for strategic or security driven reasons. A conflict driven by religious claims and ideas of national identity.

But speaking to us from the heart of this conflict is a vision of the Promised Land, not as a place of ethnic purity, or of an armed citadel, but of a place wherein the purposes of God can be seen for all people.

The Promised Land is much more than a parcel of real estate, it is a vision. It is a vision of a time of peace and safety, when the wolf shall lie down with the lamb and the lion will eat straw like the ox. A vision of the nations streaming to Zion, to bask in the light of God, to learn the law of God in Jerusalem. A vision of the City of God, come down from heaven, a city in which sorrow, suffering, even death itself, have been vanquished. As Christians we are called to lift up this vision. In effect, we are called to remind Jew, Christian, and Muslim alike of the common hope that we have. The common faith that should conquer any divisions we can create.

V. END

And so it is that our task as Christians is clear...

You know, that's as far as I got in writing my sermon last night. Because I got stuck on that simple sentence. "Our task as Christians is clear." What am I, nuts? If there were something clear and direct that Christians could do to solve this intractable crisis, wouldn't we have done it?

Who did I think I was, about to propose the end all/be all solution to one of the great conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries?

Did I imagine that I could say something like "Therefore, we should all support a two-state solution" or "We must oppose further illegal settlements" or "We must hold the Palestinians accountable in curbing militant attacks" or "We should not allow Israel to continue to build the security fence over disputed land" or "The Palestinians need to embrace a liberation movement grounded in non-violent resistance not in suicide bombings"? Did I imagine that I could say any of those--or perhaps all of them--and that would lead to peace? A real peace?

I suddenly realized, my sermon, much like the conflict, had no ending.

I began to wonder whether I should just make that point and walk off the chancel, mid-sentence and let that message be the message. But that's kind of irresponsible, and people are still really annoyed that The Sopranos ended that way.

Perhaps, part of the problem is that we think of peace as the cessation of conflict. When "peace", both in the Arabic salaam and the Hebrew shalom come from a root meaning "wholeness" or "health". Without that wholeness, there can be no lasting peace.

There are a lot of intermediate things we might do, I suppose. A lot of tactics we might support to at least get the shooting to stop. But there is a deeper task we are called to do.

Christians proclaim that Jesus is the very Word of God made flesh. Jesus, the Incarnation of God's innermost being, who walked the dusty highways and byways of the ancient Holy Land. Ministering to Jews and Gentiles alike. Demonstrating God's presence in the midst of the people.

Perhaps, that is where we can begin. To demonstrate that God is present in the midst of the conflict. That God can be seen on the faces of the Palestinians and the Israelis. That both Jew and Arab are made in the Image of God. One Israeli human rights organization is named B'Tzelem --Hebrew for "in the image", a direct reference to the account in Genesis declaring humanity to be made in the image of God. It is an important thing to remember.

This issue is far too complex and far too entrenched to be solved in the course of one United Methodist sermon. But perhaps, if we Christians can help our brothers and sisters in the Holy Land, joint heirs of God's blessing and purposes, if we can help them to see more fully the image of God in the other, then perhaps we will be able to sow the seeds of a lasting peace. A peace not grounded in mutual assured destruction. A peace not enforced by force of arms. A peace, rather, built upon justice and righteousness and wholeness.

A peace so deep that all will truly understand the promise of the Promised Land.

Notes
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917
[2] http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/viewresource.asp?resourceID=000639