Meditation: PEACE IN JERUSALEM by John de Gruchy

 PEACE IN JERUSALEM

Matthew 23:37-39

Jerusalem,  Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

The Old Testament exhorts us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. (Psalm 122:6)  Yet, despite this, and the fact that its name means "city of peace," it has been a centre of conflict for thousands of years, and remains so today.  The current war in Gaza may be about Israeli security and the Palestinian demand for the lifting of the Israeli blockade and the release of Hamas prisoners, but it is ultimately about the peace of Jerusalem.  A city over which ancient Israel, the Syrians, Persians, Romans, Crusaders, Turks, the British, Germans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, have all fought, as do Palestinians and Jews today.  Jerusalem is the key to peace in the Middle East; it is also a key to peace in the rest of the world. To pray for the peace of Jerusalem is to pray for the peace of the world.  But what are we praying for in relation to the present war in Gaza, and why is the United Nations now accusing Israel of crimes against humanity?   Was not the State of Israel founded in 1948 in response to the Nazi Holocaust so that Jews might have their own homeland where they could control their own destiny in peace?

I have visited several former concentration camps in Europe built by the Nazi's to incarcerate and murder those whom they considered undesirables: communists and homosexuals, and millions of Jewish people of whom six million were exterminated simply because they were Jews.  This was the result of centuries of anti-Semitism in Europe propagated by Christians.  If you have not yet visited the Holocaust Museum in Cape Town then you should do so to be more informed about  this sordid crime against humanity.  The State of Israel was established in 1948 to make sure that this would never happen again.  But does the Holocaust justify what Israel is now doing to the Palestinians whether in Gaza or the West Bank? 

The story is a complex one, but simplistically put, the founding of the State of Israel was the result of a war fought by Zionist Jews against British control in Palestine, in order to take control of Jerusalem.  And the British Mandate that eventually led to its formal establishment was a European solution to the "Jewish Problem," but much against the interests of the Palestinian majority living in the country.  Naturally there was Palestinian and Arab resistance and even violent attempts to destroy the new state, not helped by some serious errors of judgment. But Zionism prevailed, and Israel has flourished, but at the ongoing expense of the Palestinians, including Christians.  

Many Christians in the West think, however, that all this is in fulfillment of biblical prophecy, and therefore they give their uncritical support to the State of Israel.  But Israel as the people of God in the Old Testament is about the Jews as a "light to the nations," a people providing a moral compass in witnessing to God's justice and mercy; it is not about the modern State of Israel, today pursuing its policies of security through expansion with ruthless power armed to the teeth by the United States.  Being critical of Israel today is not being anti-Semitic or anti-Judaism any more than it was when the Jewish prophets called those in power in Jerusalem to account, demanding justice and mercy both in Israel itself and in its dealing with other nations.

More than the five million displaced Palestinians now live in refugee camps in neighbouring countries, and those in Gaza and the West Bank live under Israeli occupation.  Israel continually expands its borders in disregard of international law.  The situation for Palestinians, especially in Gaza has become intolerable. This has led to the violent reaction led by Hamas, its rejection of the State of Israel, and the launching of indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli citizens.  Hamas has rejected ceasefires and truces because in the past, despite promise, these have not brought about change; things have only got worse.  So the war on Gaza continues apparently unabated.  But it is a case of a David versus Goliath, only now David has all the tanks and helicopters and Goliath largely ineffective and inaccurate rockets.  

On Tuesday morning I joined thousands of academics around the world in supporting a statement made by almost a hundred Jewish academics in Israel.  It reads as follows:

The signatories to this statement, all academics at Israeli universities, wish it to be known that they utterly deplore the aggressive military strategy being deployed by the Israeli government. The slaughter of large numbers of wholly innocent people is placing yet more barriers of blood in the way of the negotiated agreement which is the only alternative to the occupation and endless oppression of the Palestinian people. Israel must agree to an immediate cease-fire, and start negotiating in good faith for the end of the occupation and settlements, through a just peace agreement.

Israelis have every right to live in peace; but the killing of over 650 civilians, with 4,000 more injured, many of them women and children -- some of them playing on the beach -- and the bombing of schools and hospitals,  has turned the war on Gaza into a crime against humanity.  Rockets may well be hidden in homes, schools and hospitals.  But that does not give Israel the moral or political right to bomb wherever and whatever they choose, and to do so at will.  The war has become grotesque and outrageous.  But it is also counter-productive.  The more Israel acts in this way the greater the resistance not just in Palestine but around the world.  The truth is, there is no military solution to the problem, nor will a cease-fire actually solve anything unless the underlying problems are addressed.  Conflict will continue,  many more lives will be wasted, and the reaction of militants will become  more violent.   We know that from our own experience in South Africa: the only way forward is to pursue justice with mercy.  Former President FW de Klerk said as much to the Israelis on a visit to Israel recently.  They have to come to their senses through increasing pressure and diplomacy. 

Luke tells us that as Jesus came near to Jerusalem on his way to the cross, he "wept over it, saying, 'If you, even you, had only recognised on this day the things that make for peace!'" (19:41)   Those who challenge Israel today, including many Jews, stand in the shoes of Jesus who wept over Jerusalem because its leaders refuse to recognise the things that make for peace.  As we weep for the victims of war in Palestine and Israel, we also pray for peace in Jerusalem, for those who are seeking to make it a just reality, including those Palestinian Christians who witness to the gospel of peace in such terrible times.  "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!"

John de Gruchy

Volmoed  24 July 2014

Meditation: FOOTBALL NOT WAR by John de Gruchy

FOOTBALL NOT WAR

Matthew 5:1-12

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

I am not sure whether any of you watched the final match of the Football World Cup between Germany and Argentina on Sunday night, but I was one of the billion people across the globe who did.   Having spent the previous day and night travelling home from Jersey and London, I could gladly have joined Isobel and gone to bed; but there was no way I was going to miss this grand football fest finale.  And it was only close to our midnight, that Germany scored the goal that made them world champions.  The Argentineans were devastated and in tears; the Germans delirious with delight.  But when all is said and done, football was the winner, uniting millions of people around the world even though divided into opposing nations.   I thought about that while I watched the game because in other places, at that very moment in time,  notably but not only in Gaza, Syria and Iraq, another game was being played.  A much older game in which nations and groups sacrifice their sons and daughters to the god of war who is never satisfied and always demands more.

But even as I thought of this contrast between football and war, another image appeared on the TV screen.  High above the city and its magnificent stadium stood the enormous floodlit statue of Christ the Redeemer, only now with the golden sun hovering behind Christ's head like a halo as it sank into the western horizon.  It was a glorious sight.  The TV commentator was so overwhelmed that he declared only the most insensitive of people would not be deeply moved by what they saw.  For a brief moment in time a billion people were dramatically reminded of the outstretched arms of the God we know in Jesus seeking to embrace and reconcile a world that is too often at war.

In a report on the Football World Cup in the UK Independent newspaper the comment was made that while winning at football is not the most important thing in the world, it is the most important of the less important things!  Yes, indeed, there are more important things than winning the world cup, but it is surely much better for nations to fight it out on the sports-field -- even if some get hurt -- than doing so on the battle-field.  The fact that Argentineans and Germans could embrace each other after the game suggests that sport, despite the ugly side to much of it, is a  far better religion than war, and yet it is war that too often gains the upper hand in the name of God and under the guise of religion. Football might lead to punch ups on and off the field; but war is murder sanctioned by governments, ideologies and religions.

A hundred years ago this week the so-called Christian nations of the West began what became the bloody four years of the First World War.  Germany took to the field to do battle with England, France and their allies, all claiming that God was on their side. and most of their respective churches and theologians justified them doing so.  The war, they declared, was just, it was God's will they even said.  I was reminded of this last week when visiting the parish church of St. Brelade in Jersey and seeing the memorials to the many young men of that small Island who had died on the battle-field, both then and a few decades later in the Second World War.  Their sacrifice is rightly honoured, but was it really the will of God that their young lives were wasted, and in such a way? 

No one better expressed the horror of the First World War and its meaningless suffering than the English poet Wilfred Owen, himself a soldier who died during the last week of the war.  He ended his most famous war poem, Dulce et Decorum est,  in which he described the terrible conditions in the trenches and the slaughter of men before his eyes, with these words:

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud  

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, 

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest  

To children ardent for some desperate glory, 

The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 

Pro patria mori. (It is sweet and right to die for your country.)

Owen is absolutely right. War is based on lies.  And the worst lie of all is the claim that it is the will of God!   We rightly remember and honour those who die in the course of duty and acknowledge their deeds of courage, bravery and self-sacrifice.  But war itself is anything but glorious; war destroys everything in its path. That is its game plan.  War is the very opposite of the God revealed in Jesus whose outstretched arms seek to embrace the nations in peace. 

Of course,cynics say that wars are inevitable, and they seem to have history on their side.  War seems programmed into our fallen human nature.  It is also true that God is often depicted as a God of war in the Old Testament.  There are two reasons for this.  The first is that nations not least Israel use the name of God to justify their acts of aggression and conquest and this is written into the biblical text. The second is, as the prophets remind us, that we live in a moral universe and God is a God of justice.  So if nations and peoples oppress others, they act contrary to God's will and therefore are liable to suffer the consequences, punished, as it were, by God.  But that does not justify war in the name of God.  War is the result of the lust for land and power, it is the consequence of greed and the abuse of resources.  We may have to resist tyrants, but only in the pursuit of justice and peace, and therefore in ways that end the cycle of violence not perpetuate it. 

Yet the makers of peace, the real children of God as Jesus calls them, not just those who like all of us love peace, but those whose lives are dedicated to peace making, always have an uphill battle and sometimes are crucified for their efforts.  That is why, despite its faults and failings, we should always give thanks and pray for the efforts of the United Nations to make peace, and for all those who serve in peace making operations at considerable risk.  Likewise we give thanks and pray for all  those diplomats who give so much energy, time and effort to finding solutions in war ravaged place despite the ugly truth is that their governments spend trillions of dollars more on weapons and the waging of war than they do on peace- making and training people to make peace.  And we need to pray, too, that the church remembers its calling to be a community of justice, reconciliation and peace-making.  For the will of God is peace not war, redemption not damnation.  This is the good news  of Christ the redeemer with outstretched arms encouraging and blessing all those who are peacemakers, even footballers, for they are children of God. 

John de Gruchy

Volmoed 17 July 2014