Justice Matters: Is God an estate agent?

The first reading on Sunday ends with Gen. 15:18: “That day the Lord made a Covenant with Abram in these terms, ’To your descendants I give this land, from the wadi of Egypt to the Great River’.”  This is one of the verses used by those who claim Biblical authority for the actions of the state of Israel against Palestinians.  Their displacement of Palestinians continues, having begun in 1947-8. More homes are demolished, and more land taken from Palestinians each week in Israel and the West Bank. An estimated 1.3 million of Gaza’s 2 million population are refugees. There are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees around the world.

See     If we do look at Gaza then we see 15 years of blockade by Israel: lives lost, people maimed. We see flattening by bombs of homes, of social and cultural centres, of industry and of water, sewage and energy systems. Health care is hugely depleted.  People have been traumatised, deliberately so. We see denial of free movement, massive unemployment and dependency on international aid.  Palestinians’ national identity is denied, their history rewritten and its evidence destroyed.  If we listen to those responsible for Israel’s violence we hear narratives blaming the victims, and claiming to be the peace-seekers. Too often, these are amplified by our media and politicians.

Reflect     Did God take sides against the mother of a Palestinian friend of mine?  She had said, “In 1948 I went to bed in Palestine, awoke a homeless refugee in Israel and the Church told me this was the will of God.”  That is for many the consequence of such verses. So in what sense is Sunday’s first reading the “Word of the Lord”?

Isn’t the whole of Scripture the Word of God?  How should we treat isolated verses?  Certainly  not to be selected like a hammer to hit whatever situations arise today, nor used in arguments in a form of Biblical ping-pong (ping: Gen 15:18; pong Is. 5:8 then ping:  Ps 79, pong Ex 22:20...)

From our Christians’ viewpoint after the Resurrection, don’t we see in the Scriptures that there is growth in faith and understanding, first of the Chosen People and then of the disciples?  In the Old Testament God is sometimes seen as the enabler of a conquering nation – certainly not always but sometimes.  By a few decades after Jesus, God is recognised by John as present wherever there is love (1 John 4:16).  In the Gospels we see times when Jesus asserts God’s love is for all (e.g. Lk 6, the gospel of a few weeks ago), and also times when He grows in such love Himself (Mt 15:27).  

Act      This week I was recalling hearing from Palestinian Christians that their faith gives hope in hopelessness – “do what is right even if it seems hopeless and remember 5 loaves and 2 fishes fed thousands”. Yet they also do cry to us for hope – for us to act.  To learn from Palestinians, watch the sabeel-kairos Lenten series about their Cry For Hope. The photo above is of a painting in the West Bank.

In Lent especially we are asked to confront the brokenness of the world, to acknowledge our part in it through our shared humanity, to work for justice through prayer and other actions.  We can learn and tell others about causes of injustice;  we can raise awareness of issues with politicians and challenge media; buy Fair Trade products to stop exploitation of workers; work for change - join Sabeel-Kairos or other campaigning organisations. We may not feel able to fix the terrible problems alone, so join with others! 

We will also continue to take our daily actions of love, actions that acknowledge others’ humanity.  Each such action, each prayer, does somehow help to heal us all through that shared humanity, and to edge us towards the new world order we now so desperately need.  

Mike Mineter