Land and Neighbours: A Homily on the Current Gazan War for the Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost

Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, on the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost October 29th, 2023 

Readings  (Proper 30 Yr A) - Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46 

The Lord said to him, ‘This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, “I will give it to your descendants” (Deut 34.4)

Today’s first reading from the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) brings us to the end of Moses’ long journey leading his people from slavery in Egypt to the land that God has promised the Israelites will be theirs if they keep his law.  Moses will die before they cross the Jordan, but he is consoled with a vision of this promised land.

In our bible study this Wednesday, we looked at this verse with some discomfort, realizing that that the lands mentioned in our first reading, and God’s promising of these lands to the Jews, are part of the ancient foundation of the tragic war we are witnessing between Israel, Hamas, and potentially the wider Middle East.  How do we as Christians understand God’s promise of land to Israel when that land is being so terribly fought over?  How do current events complicate our relationship to scripture, particularly to the Hebrew Scriptures?

I think any preacher who wants to wade into these waters must do so with immense caution, given the enormously complicated history of this conflict and the strong feelings that it’s provoking.   So today I’m just going to invite you to think with me about land, and to see, with the help of our gospel reading, whether we can get from a theology of land to a theology of nieghbourliness.

The first thing we need to say is that there is a reason why Israel is called he Promised Land.   On six different occasions in the book of Genesis, God promises a homeland to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (13.14-17, 15.12-21, 17.8, 26.4-5, 28.13-14).   At the beginning of the Book of Exodus, God promises to save the Jews from slavery in Egypt and “give them the land of Canaan” (Ex 6.4).

But this promise of land is not absolute;  it is always conditional, a two-way agreement, hence in the Bible it’s called a covenant.    The deal is that God will protect his people and keep them on their land if they obey the laws that God gave them.  Moses tells the people that “the Lord charged me at that time to teach you statues and ordnances for you to observe in the land that you are about to cross over and occupy” (Deut 4.14).  So, the promise of land is always conditional on Israel’s faithfulness and good conduct.

The next thing we need to say is that God’s promise of a homeland unfolds over long centuries of human history and human agency. God’s people conquer the land of Israel (see Joshua, Judges) and then struggle to hold it (see Kings, Chronicles).   Israel is conquered by Assyrians and Babylonians and its people taken in captivity and exile.   The chroniclers and prophets (Jeremiah, Ezekiel) point to Israel’s disobedience and the faithlessness of its kings as a reason for these disasters.

God’s people return to Israel and rebuild the Temple, but Israel is conquered again, by Greeks, then by Romans.  Jerusalem is destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and the Jewish people are scattered across Africa and Europe.  Then through the middle ages Christian crusader kings and Muslim caliphs competed to own what became known as Palestine, with the Muslims winning.   Much of Palestine became Arab and Islamic over the centuries after the fall of the Crusader Kingdoms in the 1200s.

Meanwhile the Jews were persecuted in almost all  countries where they lived, surviving pogroms and massacres and the Holocaust.  During the 19th century many Jews were attracted to Zionism, the return to the land promised by God, and even before World War Two many Jews had resettled in Palestine, which had become a British possession.

After World War Two the British were tired of trying to hold onto Palestine.   America was the dominant power, and President Truman supports the creation of the state of Israel.  Thousands of displaced people, many of them Holocaust survivors, settled in Palestine.  They in turn displaced many Palestinian Arabs.   The UN tried to divide Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, the Arab states refuse to accept the partition of lands, and the first of many Arab-Isaeli wars begin in 1948.   So, long centuries of conflict led to an Israeli  state where Jews could reclaim the ancient promises of land.

This brief history lesson helps us at least to understand the origins of the present conflict, which is enormously complicated and tragic.   In the concluding part of this homily, let me offer some thoughts on what resources we have as Christians and as Anglicans to understand this war and to pray for its victims.

Our first resource should always be the gospel and the words of our Saviour.  It is thus helpful to note that in today’s gospel reading from Matthew, Jesus, speaking as a Jew and speaking to his fellow Jews, summarizes the whole teaching of the Torah in an idea of neighbourliness that is rooted in obedience to God.

Drawing from the Hebrew Torah, Jesus defines the greatest commandment of Jewish belief as loving God “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Deut 6.5) and loving “you neighbour as yourself”.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Mt 22:36-40).  

What’s interesting here is that Jesus says nothing, here or in any of his ministry, about the land of Israel.   Instead he talks about love of neighbour, but without any restrictions.  Is the neighbour a fellow Jew?   A Samaritan?  A Gentile?  Even a Roman?  Jesus does not specify which neighbours we should love,  nor does he make any exclusions. Since the arc of his ministry bends towards inclusiveness, we should love all our neighbours.

As Christians, we recognize that when Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, he was speaking of something that was not drawn on a map.  The borders of the kingdom of God run through our hearts and minds, as we are open to the will and work of God in Christ.   But that’s a Christian theology, and we can’t impose it on our Jewish brothers and sisters.

I can’t imagine how difficult it will be for Israel and Palestine to accept one another as neighbours.   Many Israelis, especially in the settler movement, cling to the idea that God has promised them this land as an absolute and wish to expand their settlements, while many Palestinian militants and their supporters want the state of Israel to be destroyed.   W need to pray that the two sides will be able, one day, to move from a theology of promised land to a theology of neighbourliness.

 For us in Canada, I would say that Jesus’ words about love of neighbour should steer us clear of demonizing one side or another.  We have large Jewish and Arab and Iranian Muslim populations here, and ongoing demonstrations in our cities.   The potential for hatred and hostility is high.   It’s important to watch the news unfolding with a spirit of compassion.  Canadians of all backgrounds should build bridges, in the hope that we can offer examples of coexistence for those in the middle east.

A second resource we can draw on as Canadians is how we have slowly begun to think about land.    Our Sunday services now begin with a land acknowledgement, as we remind ourselves that indigenous peoples lived here before us and were often dispossessed from their ancestral land.   The first western settlers who came here often acted as if the land was virtually empty, given to them by God to populate and exploit while civilizing the original inhabitants (The Doctrine of Discovery).

  We’ve learned to repent of these attitudes, and are slowly coming to understand realize the indigenous idea of land as a common gift of the creator, providing for the needs of the creator’s peoples.  If we think of land as a gift held in common, then we might learn to see our common responsibilities to the dispossessed, the homeless, and the refugee.  Our Bishop Andrew spoke very strongly about this in his letter this week.

A third and final resource that we have to help us make sense of this terrible time of war is our Anglican Communion.    The Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem includes parishes in the Palestinian West Bank and also operates the Al Alhi hospital in Gaza City, which was the site of a significant rocket explosion on 17 October, with many casualties.

On October 24th, Bishop Hosam of Jerusalem, together with our Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, asked us all first “to pray for our mission here, as well for the peace of Jerusalem (Psa 122:6)”, to.”advocate with your representatives for a just and lasting peace in the Holy Land, so that all who dwell within these lands can live in security”, and lastly, for this who are able, to financially support [the Dioceses’] ministries in Gaza, Palestine & Israel”   

Dear saints, this is all enormously complicated and I fear that I’ve made a muddle of it.   But, for us as Christians in the Anglican tradition and communion, I hope I’ve shown how scripture evolves from a theology of land to a theology of neighbourliness.   I’ve argued that as Canadians, we’ve ourselves evolved from seeing the land as a possession given to some, and rather as a gift of the Creator to all the Creator’s children.   And, as Anglicans, I’ve suggested that our prayers and support for the Diocese of Jerusalem can make possible a ministry of neighbourliness in the midst of a terrible war.  

In the words of Psalm 122, let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem and for a holy land that may be shared by all God’s children.