Thoughts on Israel/Palestine

Prior to last year, I wanted peace in Israel and Palestine as much as the next person, which typically means, "yes, peace is good to want, but the reality is that these people just continue to fight." I know this sounds terrible to think to yourself, much less write down and post, but truthfully, most of those who are on the outside looking in from a nice comfortable and safe position think very little of how to actually help to work toward peace.

The summer of 2007, I went to a School of Mission put on by United Methodist Women and took the course on Israel-Palestine. I was given the opportunity to look at this situation anew. I watched a few videos and read the book and looked at a variety of newspaper articles and realized I cared very much what happens in Israel and Palestine. I do not care because of the religious implications or the political implications, but because people, real people, innocent people, are being hurt on both sides of this situation.

When I came back from the study, and before I taught it in my church, I did further independent study. As a result of this, I found a blog entitled "Life must go on in Gaza and Sderot." It is written by two friends; 'Hope Man' who lives in Sderot, Israel, a small town near Gaza, and 'Peace Man' who lives in Sajaia refugee camp in Gaza, Palestine. They tell of their life and the lives of those around them that face the reality of what we only see on the news.

I periodically check this blog and have been more so in the last 15-20 days or so. The recent posts are very disturbing to me. Hope Man writes of the sentiments of those in Israel.

The public opinion in Israel is largely supporting the war. A poll taken shortly after the attack said that over 81% of the population in Isreal supports the action. I am not sure the poll is accurate and what more recent polls will show, but I expect that this percentage will decrease only slightly.

Obviously, there is a great deal of fear on the part of those who live near the Gaza strip on the Israel side. They are within rocket range of the Hamas, and as such live with the threat regularly. Those in the rest of Israel know that this is a threat and, of course, are sympathetic with their governement and their fellow citizens.

But there is more to it than that. They fear for their children.

The ongoing reality of rockets falling in Sderot and other places for 8 years is a terrible reality. Many people of our region have left it for good over the years. Bringing up children in such a reality seems almost abusive and certainly irresponsible.

However, Hope Man does not necessarily think that Israel's attack of Gaza is entirely warranted or unavoidable, and has written this statement:

With that said, I personally think it is a terrible mistake that could have been avoided. For 5 months there was an almost complete cease fire. Instead of taking advantage of this long period of quiet to reach a long term agreement, both sides spent their time preparing for this war by planning and arming. No serious efforts were made to start a dialog. The siege by Isreal continued and the smuggling of arms by the Hamas continued. It was a cease fire but only to prepare for the next terrible round which we are experiencing this very moment.

You can read his entire post dated January 2, 2009.

Peace Man wrote when he could between the shelling and power outages. His most recent post talks about the deaths that have occurred and the mind-boggling devastation to their lives.

Israeli announced when they started the operation they want to stop the rockets from Gaza they can't do this by targeting the civilians. What is going in Gaza is real and big crime, against all the laws in the world, they are killing everything moving, especially the civilians.

When the operation started in Gaza, they destroyed all the government centers, and in the same time killed many civilians, Israel said they don’t mean to kill civilians. But when the ground operation started, most people die is civilians and children.

Prior to the start of this round of fighting, Peace Man was trying to be able to get back to his university studies in Europe. He was having difficulty because Israel was letting only a very few students leave Gaza, and he was trying to raise the funds to be able to go. Somethings we take for granted, like being able to go to college or the ability to move between states and cities.

These two men are probably under ten miles apart. I live approximately 28 miles from the nearest town in the next state. I could cross the border and never realize I left my state. No one would be waiting for me to ask for my papers, or to give me a hard time about the state I lived in. We take these things for granted, when so many people cannot travel freely or live unmolested lives.

I would encourage you to do some research on your own, and not just take the media's position or government position without your own thinking thrown in the mix. I would ask that you pray for these two men who write of their experiences that the world may know, and pray for peace in their land.

More Thoughts on the Magi

I have a devotional type of book I picked up entitled “In the Bleak Midwinter: 40 Meditations and Prayers for Advent and Christmas” by Herbert Brokering. It comes from the Advent hymn, “In the Bleak Midwinter” based on a poem by Christina Georgina Rosetti. Close to the end of the hymn, and therefore the book, the stanza says, “If I were a wise man, I would do my part.” The devotion I was reading was based on “if I were a wise man.” It prompted me to think about the gifts the wise men brought to the infant Jesus – gold, symbolic of the wealth of kings; frankincense, symbolic of the aroma of priestly duties; and myrrh, symbolic of death. All were costly, and all were of importance to the life of Jesus.

We could look at this whole story as a symbolic writing seemingly foreshadowing the life of this small child, or we could look at it as giving the ultimate gifts, much like the pure nard in the alabaster jar – it was a substantial material gift to represent a substantial sacrifice on our part. It was more than worth or value in the world, it represented the extreme worth or value the giver placed on Jesus. It is no wonder very little has been written since of such extravagant gifts, we tend to only give gifts of extravagance to the very needy – generally ourselves! So, my question is how do we bring gold, frankincense and myrrh today? What is the ultimate gift of extravagance and significance that we place at the manger?

If I were a wise man, what gift would I bring? I am reminded of the claymation movie, “The Little Drummer Boy.” Of course, we all know the song…poor boy, have no gift, I’ll play for you. The gift he brought to the baby was all he had, his talent and music. But in the world of wealth, particularly in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, simply giving of our time and talents seems…well….too easy. I have seen numerous people who never give to the church because, they do this or that for the church and they are “giving in other ways.”

This line of thinking always seemed like a cop-out to me, even before I went into the ministry. Since going into the ministry, I have seen cases in which their time and service supplemented their giving where the person’s income and finances failed. They in effect were giving more than their tithe so to speak. However, in cases where the person made $50,000 a year and gave $50, because they led a pet program and gave to that program just seemed to me as if they were using the church for their own forum and not for God’s glory. (This is no comment on the validity of the program, just the motivation behind the person’s giving.)

What is the extreme gift, the sacrificial gift, you are called to bring? It was different for each of the wise men, and it will be different for each of us. There is something that would take a real act of giving on our part.

Giving of oneself is not giving something that it doesn’t phase you to give anyway. A gift of a scarf that you bought at a last minute sale the week before Christmas to Aunt Martha doesn’t take much; a little time, a little money, but nothing of yourself. Most of our gift giving consists of those little things that simply say, “I remembered you,” but not necessarily, “I thought about who you are and what you would like.” This is good too, it is important to remember people, and we don’t always have to go the extra mile. When they say, “it isn’t the gift, it’s the thought that counts” they are right, but what is the thought? And these little gifts that say, “I remembered you” or “I really thought about what you would like,” still may not take much sacrificial giving on our part.

But giving a gift to our Lord, the baby Jesus, the Christ child, Emmanuel, God with us, this ought to take some thought and some real sacrifice. It should be of significant value not only materially, but also symbolically. What is our equivalent of gold, frankincense or myrrh? What is Jesus to us, and what is that which we are willing to provide for that role Jesus plays in our lives?

The "Aha" Moment

Sermon on January 4, 2009, based on the text Matthew 2:1-12.

2008 Top Ten

These were the top ten viewed blog posts from this site in 2008:

1. Adam Hamilton Sermon Series
2. Nasty People
3. Support Group for Parents of Adult Children
4. Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin? How's that Working for Us?
5. My Father's Day Sermon
6. Still Fussin' over Women in Ministry
7. Weddings and Other Craziness
8. Christmas Lament
9. Superheroes
10. Music for Worship

And it didn't make the top ten most viewed, but my favorite:

In Honor of my Daddy

And another honorable mention:

God was in This Place. Did I Know It?

I thought maybe if you missed some of these you may want to check them out. As I was looking over my last year of blogging (it will be my anniversary on January 17th!), it has become apparent to me that I have neglected my writing. I have mainly just posted the podcasts of my sermons. For those who follow me, I apologize. I will endeavor to do better in 2009. This is not a resolution mind you, or it would be doomed to failure.

Blessings for 2009

How Far Have we Come?

Yesterday was the first day of 2009. My husband and I were talking about what we thought the year 2000 and beyond would look like when we were kids. I really felt sure we would have some amazing 'Jetson-like' technology. My husband did not feel that we would have that kind of advanced technology, but admitted to wondering what the 21st century would look like. Now here we are almost a whole decade into this millennia and we still wonder what it will look like.

For example, I felt certain in my youth that the more advanced we became in knowledge and technology, the more peaceful our world would be. Boy was I wrong! We have the U.S. involved in a war on two fronts, and the whole thing with Israel and Palestine, not to mention the unrest in Africa and South America. In fact, I think the only continent that does not have military conflict or is involved in military conflict is Antarctica. I would move there but I hate the cold, that I am a quite comfortable being in Oklahoma - good, bad or ugly. The really sad fact is that we have all the technology in the world to carry out research about our environment or climate, we can communicate and connect to one another in more ways that ever imagined in the 1970s, and we have information at our finger-tips like never before, but we still haven't figured out how to get along.

I was somewhat right about the technology. I remember watching the early versions of Star Trek (yes, I am a closet Trekkie, although I have been told that the appropriate term is Trekker), and was fascinated by their ability to read on things held in their hands, the amazing mount of information on the little hand-held computers, and the ability to communicate hands free. What do you know, we have all those avenues available, they just look a little different than when Spock and Kirk modeled them.

We have Kindles and Ebooks:

We have smartphones and PDAs:

We have these great little bluetooth headsets that enable us to talk as we walk around and go about our routine business: And we even have cell phones that flip open like Star Trek communicators.



But, do we have the really important stuff?

And if we do, do we appreciate it?

My suggestions? Glad you asked! Turn off an electronic device and have a conversation with your family. Take a drive with your spouse - just to see the scenery, not to rush to a destination. Play a board game with your children - you know, the old fashioned kind without a computer chip. Color in a coloring book, or paint a picture. Try to live without electronics, just long enough to remind yourself that you are a human.