Sermons

Sun, Aug 02, 2020

Together, the people of God

Series:Sermons
Duration:13 mins 30 secs

The new coalition government in Israel––

egged on by the ignorant and racist policies of Donald Trump––

has recently announced plans for the formal annexation of significant parts of the occupied West Bank.

In fact, they plan to take almost a third of it––

including the fertile agricultural lands of the Jordan Valley––

potentially displacing many Palestinians…

and seriously hampering their efforts to feed themselves…

and a time when food security is a concern.

These plans have been almost universally condemned—

except, of course, by the United States…

and, sadly, by Australia.

Of course, Israel has been encroaching upon–– 

and appropriating–– 

this territory since they seized it back in ninety sixty-seven.

But the latest plans are particularly cold and heartless…

in light of the COVID pandemic.

To make matters worse…

the Israelis have been actively hampering Palestinian efforts to contain the virus.

Since the first confirmed case in Palestine… 

back in February…

the Israelis have demolished sixty-nine structures in the occupied West Bank. 

That includes almost thirty residential buildings––

which have affected more than four hundred people. 

Seven water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities have also been razed.

Israel tried to justify these demolitions by claiming that they lacked building permits.

However, the Israeli government systematically denies such permits to Palestinians.

These demolitions are a clear violation of international law––

because, as an occupying power, Israel is required to ensure the welfare and well-being of the Palestinians…

and they are not permitted to destroy property or humanitarian relief.

A third of the buildings that have been destroyed were constructed under humanitarian relief.

Of course… 

apart from violating international law… 

such demolitions have seriously undermined efforts to control the pandemic.

Indeed, at a time when Palestine was averaging four hundred new cases a day…

the Israelis demolished an important quarantine and testing centre.

And, let’s face it…

control of the pandemic has been hard enough in Palestine… 

already… 

given the structural oppression under which the people live…

which… 

for example… 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has labelled, without hesitation, as “apartheid”.

Israeli forces have harassed–– 

and arrested–– 

local volunteers who were distributing food, aid, and information.

COVID is also beginning to spread rapidly in one of the major refugee camps…

where about fourteen thousand people live…

with poor hygiene and little chance to practice social distancing.

 

What’s sadly ironic in all of this, of course…

is that the modern state of Israel was founded by Jewish refugees from Europe––

people who had suffered untold atrocities at the hands of the Nazis.

Now, they are effectively treating the Palestinians as their own forebears were treated.

Based on these latest actions alone––

without considering the systemic violence and oppression of the past fifty-plus years––

I think it would be fair to say that Israel has lost its moral compass.

And yet, it’s not just a moral failure…

or a political failure…

or even a humanitarian failure––

at heart, it’s also a spiritual or a theological failure.

Ironically… 

that has been pointed out most clearly by the Canadian Muslim scholar, David Liepert…

in an article entitled, “When Israel remembers their covenant, they will change the world”.

Noting–– 

perhaps surprisingly––

that the Quran actually acknowledges the right of the Hebrew people to live in the Holy Land…

and, even, to govern it…

Liepert declares, unequivocally, “You’re doing it wrong”.

Citing passage after passage from the Hebrew Bible––

in which God exhorts the people of Israel not to mistreat the aliens living among them––

but to care for them and to act justly––

he reminds them that God’s covenant to Abraham was contingent upon Abraham–– 

his children and his descendants––

enacting righteousness and justice.

And Liepert urges them to be the Israel that God intends them to be;

not that he uses the words…

but he urges them to be the ‘people of God’.

 

And yet, sadly, is not Israel’s attitude––

and Israel’s behaviour––

exactly what happens when you see yourself as God’s “elect”–– 

as God’s special, “chosen” people;

and you start to act as if that involves some exclusive, indelible sense of privilege.

And isn’t that something that we––

the Christian church––

also need to be careful about?

Has not the church, throughout its history, been a bit too sanctimonious…

assuming that it’s now the ‘chosen one’?

Too often, have we not adopted an air of exclusivity?

Too often, have we not thought––

have we not assumed––

that we, now, are the people of God;

that we have replaced or usurped Israel’s position…

and acted as if we alone speak for God…

and are the objects of God’s love, mercy, and salvation?

 

In our brief reading from the letter to the Romans…

this morning…

Paul expresses his profound sorrow and anguish over the plight of his people––

the people of Israel.

In so doing, he echoes––

or, perhaps more accurately, historically-speaking, he prefigures–– 

the poignant story from Luke’s Gospel…

in which the author has Jesus weep over the fate of Jerusalem…

because of its hardness of heart;

because of its failure to heed the prophets that God had sent to it––

including Jesus;

and because it would not learn “the things that make for peace”.

Throughout its history, Israel has endured unspeakable horrors;

but it has not learned from its experience;

and it has failed to live as the people of God.

Although we would not connect those things–– 

in the way that the prophets of old…

the author of Luke’s Gospel…

or even Paul would have done––

as a form of divine punishment…

surely it is the case that peace will not come in the absence of justice and righteousness…

and without the people of God living out their identity.

 

Paul’s argument––

in the letter to the Romans––

is that God’s covenant with Israel remains…

and always will.

God will never abandon Israel nor write it off.

Indeed, according to the theologian, Karl Barth:

Israel and the Church are “two forms and aspects of the one inseparable community”.

Together, he argues, we are the people of God.

But, too often we Christians have operated as if God were as partial…

tribalistic…

and fickle…

as we are.

We have, as another theologian put it, understood God’s grace according to a “zero-sum mentality”––

that there are winners and loses…

insiders and outsiders.

Thus, if Christians are now the people of God…

then the Jews can’t be.

What Paul is trying to say to us–– 

in the letter to the Romans–– 

is that God doesn’t think like that or act like that.

God is impartial, not partisan.

God is not a Christian or a Jew.

God’s mercy and love are not meted out in an ‘either-or’ fashion.

The challenge for all of us is to embrace that way of seeing and thinking;

to model that in our dealings with those of other faiths…

in the hope that they, too, might discover that that is what God is like…

and that that is what God intends for us all.

It’s certainly a way of seeing…

and thinking…

and acting…

that’s desperately needed in the Middle East today.

Only together––

Christians…

Muslims…

and Jews––

do we reflect the true nature of God.

Only together do we live as God intends.

Only together are we the people of God.

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