MY INNER GAZA AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD

I am not an expert on Gaza, on Palestinians, or Islam. Nor am I ready to pass your pop quiz on Israel of the modern day. So, I am not going to pretend I know stuff I don’t. It’s clear to me, though I strongly doubt to many of my readers, that one man’s “shock-n-awe” is another man’s terrorism.

It should be clear to everyone interested in GAZA and Israel that there has been, is currently, and will be death. No matter how things shake out there, there is dying to do, and it is fearful and tragic. There is a cancer of mistrust there that kills those who come in contact with it, and it can’t be prevented, or so it seems.

I’m no surgeon either, so take this with a grain of salt, but as I understand it, when the cancer patient goes under the knife, the surgeon skillfully cuts out the diseased tissue leaving behind the healthy tissue. It’s important to catch the disease early in the process because if too much vital tissue is too heavily infested with the cancer, then the surgeon either cannot leave enough healthy tissue for the body to function, or the surgeon must not operate.

So far in the analogy, I am fairly confident in it, but I’m a little less confident in saying the surgeon will typically cut as close to the dividing line between healthy and diseased tissue as possible, erring on the side of cutting into the healthy tissue. This method eradicates the disease completely with a little collateral damage (to borrow some dark terminology). On the other hand, if the surgeon errs on the side of leaving some of the diseased tissue in tack, hopefully other treatments will subdue it because the cancer is still not eradicated.

Israel seems to be taking the role of the surgeon erring on the side of cutting out part of the healthy tissue in order to eradicate the diseased part. And, of course, Israel loves this kind of metaphor because as a surgeon, the goal, whether effective or not, is to save the patient. Gaza, in this view, has a Hamas cancer, and Israel is like a surgeon helping Gaza be free of it.

All surgery is traumatic to the body in general and the tissue near the site of cutting particularly. Operating with tanks, artillery, and bombs isn’t as precise as a surgeon’s blade, and terrorists blending with the general population makes such careful work all the more messy and damaging. And I haven’t yet mentioned that both Judaism (if we can call it that) and Islam (if we can call it that) are religious faiths oriented toward the same God! The same God as Christianity, by the way.

We are all the people of the same God.

My expertise, which I already say I lack, ends about there. The terrorism of October 7 is/was intolerable, and I get it. I don’t think Palestinians were simply humming in a vacuum before that attack, but I in no way condone it, AND I think Israel should respond. In fact, I can’t find any ground to stand on from which to tell Israel not to bring their guns, tanks, and soldiers right up to the border of Gaza and stop any more attacks from coming across. But clearly Israel has killed Palestinians before, and clearly Palestinians have killed Israelis before too. And clearly, the cancer of death has not been eradicated by the previous killings.

So, since my expertise runs out right there, I want to change the subject and talk about ME. If anyone reading here finds any relevance beyond ME, I welcome them to think about ME with ME as it might apply to the larger world. After all, I am a devotee to the same God as these combatants, and I have to share this world as well as this God with them. How might a Jesus guy have something to say to and about neighbors that don’t get along?

Let me tell you about my inner Gaza.

It turns out I have evil in me. I’m not pure evil, okay? But I got greed, lust, sloth, and meanness in me among a few other tasty bad things. I’m definitely not pure goodness either. I am ashamed to say it. I wish you could see me the way I do (and especially the way I try to see myself). You would give me a lot more advantage if you did.

Anyway, this evil (which is not pure, but is evil) in me is intertwined with my goodness. I mean, it’s amazing how I can pray on a good thing, plan for it, engage in it, and do pretty good for a while too, only to suddenly get frustrated and blow a fuse. I mean, take my volunteering for instance.

So, I sign up, take the training, then show up at the appointed place and time dressed and ready to build a house for Habitat for Humanity. I show up praying, singing, encouraging others, even sharing donuts and kalaches with the crew. But then as I am driving nails, I bend one, mash my thumb with the hammer, and trip off my stool, all in an instant! The word that comes out of my mouth all of a sudden isn’t “Oh, God!” Wish it were, but I find a totally different one right there at hand like a cancer just waiting amid all my good tissue to infect my good deed.

There. That’s a nice safe example.

All that good I do down there at Habitat, and then THIS! Ouch!! Where did it come from? Hmmm… evil in me isn’t pure; it runs deep though.

By the way, evil isn’t pure in anyone. The only time we speak of “pure evil” is when we excuse our hate of our neighbor, and Jesus wants me to love my neighbor AND my enemies. Peace is made in such ways.

But in the meantime, I am trying to cut the evil out of me. The nice, prudish Baptist lady driving nails four feet away from me is offended by my evil, and she gets snitty with me the rest of the day. She wants to rid herself of that evil be sanctioning me – even being rid of me! I didn’t jump over the fence at her house and kill her kids, okay? But she wants rid of me. I am not her kind of neighbor now, and I pay every little social sanction she can hit me with the rest of the day. She makes me pay in the name of good! But there’s not likely ever a place where she and I will be at peace with one another now. That ship has sailed.

Right?

Just imagine where she and I would be if I had hopped the fence and killed her children. If I did that, she would have your sympathy and I would not.

I MIGHT get your sympathy for after killing her kids like that if I told you she killed my parents before I killed her kids, but probably not. Probably, you would think we are both crazy, and you would want to keep us both at arm’s length.

But let’s back up from THAT terrible fantasy a moment since it is starting to sound and feel like my outer Gaza more than my inner Gaza. Also, there is that whole tit-for-tat thingy about “who started it” about the killing going back and forth, about a whirlpool of inertia pulling more and more life into that vortex of death.

Somehow, I should expect THAT of people who don’t know Jesus. But as one who does know Jesus, I should expect SOMEKIND of imagination expansion where peace comes back into view whether I offend a nice Baptist lady with my foul mouth OR kill her kids. And in that imagination, I DON’T get to imagine myself as a surgeon. I don’t get to imagine myself with a gun. Instead, I must turn to the power of LOVE and dare to imagine how love will eradicate the cancer and make this nice Baptist lady and me be friends at peace.

And IF I can image THAT and devote myself to it, it surely is because of Jesus, involves Jesus personally, and thus means YOU, my Christian reader, must imagine this healing peace with me.

Care to try?

And IF we imagine this together, THEN we together have something new to say to Israel and Gaza other than, “Here’s some more weapons and money” or “Hey! You’re not being fair.” When it comes to Israel and Gaza, there has been, currently is, and will be death. And yet every time I partake the Eucharist, I consider the One who died for me, and I give thanx. And I dare to dream how he changes the world.

Want to think about this with me?