Is There No Hope?

June 15, 2010, Bethlehem

Is There No Hope?

Is there no hope, when people have long been struggling with each other

When there is a long and painful history

Of wrongs

Of hurting, taking, attacking, even killing.

When each feels themself a victim

When each calls on God for vindication

When each sees only their own hurt and the others’ wrongs to them

And is unable to acknowledge their own wrongs

Or to ask for forgiveness.

Is there no alternative to a struggle to the death

(“til death do us part” has a different meaning here)

When others take sides

And blindly defend

And encourage the parties not to compromise?

“Jesus is the answer” – but how?

What would Jesus do?

What would he have me do?

Did he change the suffering of the Jewish people in the First Century?

Didn’t they crucify him because he failed to?

Did Jesus bring hope to the Jews and the Romans?

He did,

But not the way that I would like (him) to bring hope to the Palestinians and Israelis.

Is there no hope for a “tangible” solution,

for an end to the conflict,

for compromise, reconciliation, justice, peace?

What can we do?

What can we hope for?

Are we not called to call out for peace and justice?

Are we not called to work against wrong, exploitation, the strong hurting the weak?

Are we not called to stand for truth and reconciliation?

So what do we do, what can we do, what is – where is – our hope?

“My hope is in you” –

But what does that mean, today, in the land where Jesus walked?