1 Presbyterians, Jews, Israel, Palestine, and Peace Matthew 10:40-42 Andrew Foster Connors 3 rd Sunday after Pentecost June 29, 2014 Jesus sends out the 12 and he expects them to meet persecution. Beware of them, he says, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles (Matthew 10:17-18). Following Jesus will land you in a heap of trouble with all kinds of authorities. But Jesus pushes his followers even farther. Following me will create divisions in your family and force a choice. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me (vs. 37-38). Finally, Jesus says to his followers, whoever welcomes my prophets and my disciples, welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes the God who sent me (vs. 40-42). Normally, I d hear this text speaking to us in all kinds of ways. Perhaps it s challenging us to look at the places in our lives when we practice idolatry worshipping things or relationships other than God. Or perhaps it s challenging us to take seriously God s view of family, which is broader and wider than blood relations. Or perhaps it s challenging us to look at the role of hospitality in faith: When God sends prophets and disciples into our lives, how do we welcome them? Or, flipping it, when God sends us out to share our faith, are we prepared to testify to the truth of God in our lives, or are we more afraid of what people will think about us? But in the wake of our Presbyterian Church s decision to divest from 3 companies doing business in Israel, and the ripple effects that I am now experiencing with rabbinic friends and colleagues, it s hard for me to focus on anything other than the division between Jewish leaders in the synagogue and those early Jewish followers of Jesus that is all through the Gospel of Matthew - indeed, all through the New Testament. That division that is, once again, at the center of the relationship between Jews and Christians. A division that must be attended to if we Christians are the peace- loving people that we say we are. So let me tell you first the facts of what has happened and then give you the context in which those facts have played out. And finally, why, as a follower of Jesus, I stand where I stand. The General Assembly, the highest governing body of our church, convenes every two years with voting commissioners elected from presbyteries across the country. The overture that has caused division in our Church directs the Church s financial managers to divest Presbyterian funds from three American companies that it has determined are involved in non- peaceful pursuits that further the Israeli occupation in Palestine. According to the committee charged with corporate engagement, the Church tried to engage in dialogue with these three corporations
2 without a satisfactory change in policy. 1 The overture to divest, which was voted down by a slim margin two years ago, passed this year by 7 votes 310 for, to 303 against. Both those for and against the overture agree that this overture is highly symbolic. Our Church s financial holdings in these corporations are fractions of a percent. At face value the overture is consistent with ways in which the Church has acted in the past. The overture states clearly that the Church is not divesting from the nation of Israel. It also makes it clear that the Church continues to support a two- state solution. Finally, it affirms interfaith dialogue and engagement with American Jews, Muslims, and Palestinian Christians in pursuit of a common goal of peace in the region. 2 I have no doubt that many in our Church, including some of you in our congregation, have or would support this overture, motivated from a desire to force the hand of the Netanyahu government which has continued its expansion of settlements into Palestinian land, no doubt contributing toward the current stalemate in peace negotiations. But I oppose this action by our Church for reasons that are critical for all of us to know about. And whether you agree or disagree with me this morning, my hope is that you will walk away concerned, motivated to learn more, and determined to engage your Jewish friends and neighbors now, before the official relationship between Presbyterians and American Jews begins to disintegrate more than it already has. I oppose this action first, but not solely, because Americans Jews have stated clearly why this is not the right approach to peace, and asked us not to take this action. They asked us not to support this action because despite our claims to the contrary, divestment from these three companies aligns our Church with a movement to end the state of Israel. More than 1700 American Rabbis signed an open letter to our Church explaining why this divestment action will harm relationships between the Church and Jews everywhere. 3 Those signatures included many Rabbis who have publicly shared the Presbyterian Church s official position opposing settlement expansion, calling for justice for Palestinians, for a negotiated peace. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the head of the Union for Reform Judaism, spoke at the Presbyterian General Assembly and offered to arrange a meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu so that together American Reform Jews, the largest organization of Jews in this country, might stand together with Presbyterians as together we call on Mr. Netanyahu to stop the settlement expansion and return to the negotiating 1 The Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment report can be found here - http://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/mrti/pdfs/2014_mrti_report_on_i- p_corp_engage- _1-9_final.pdf. Some opponents of the divestment action charge that the PC- USA s engagement with these three was weak and motivated by a desire to reach a foregone conclusion. 2 An official letter explaining the PC- USA s action to interfaith partners can be found here - http://www.pcusa.org/news/2014/6/26/open- letter- pcusa- us- our- american- jewish- partners/ 3 http://pressreleases.religionnews.com/2014/06/18/jewish- leaders- every- state- urge- presbyterian- church- choose- partnership- reconciliation- divestment- division/
3 table. 4 Historically, in terms of social witness, our Church has had more in common with the Union for Reform Judaism than many Christian denominations. We stand together on gun control, ending the death penalty, and LGBT equality, among other concerns. It is short- sighted for us to reject the partnership of our friends who hold almost the same public policy approach to peace in Israel and Palestine. It undermines local rabbis in their own pulpits who have spoken out against Palestinian oppression, against the settlements, for a negotiated peace, by reinforcing the fears of more hardliners in their midst. Some of us have spent years building more trust between Christians and Jews, it could be argued, than has ever existed at any time between Jews and Christians anywhere. We ve worked on it with 2000 years of painful history between us. You hear that pain in the Gospel according to Matthew. There, Jewish followers of Jesus are encouraged not to fear those in the synagogues who persecute them. I m sure there s some truth in that history recorded in our sacred text, just as I know Christians have persecuted other Christians time and time again for what we have deemed as heretical belief. History is littered with persecution of religious people by other religious people. But for 1600 years, Christians have ruled the religious sphere, at least in terms of numbers, and often in terms of political power. 5 And for much of that time, our Church has a shameful history of denigrating Jews, naming them Christ killers, segregating them into ghettos, and delegitimizing their very personhood, all cloaked in our claims to God s will. All you have to do is read our Book of Confession (part of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church USA), to find blatant anti- Semitism cloaked in that language of our faith Since Satan, the 16 th century Scots Confession states, has labored from the beginning to adorn his pestilent synagogue with the title of the Church of God, and has incited cruel murderers to persecute, trouble, and molest the true Church and its members, as Cain did to Abel, Ishmael to Isaac, Esau to Jacob, and the whole priesthood of the Jews to Christ Jesus himself and his apostles after him. So it is essential that the true Church be distinguished from the filthy synagogues by clear and perfect notes... 6 4 An official letter from Rabbi Rick Jacobs and the Union for Reform Judaism can be found here - http://urj.org/about/union/pr/?syspage=article&item_id=112700. Many colleagues who were present at Rabbi Jacob s interpreted his offer to broker a meeting with the Israeli government as a disingenuous political move to avert the vote rather than to make progress against the occupation. Their interpretation reinforces the growing lack of trust between our church and the Jewish community. Rabbi Jacob s full remarks can be found here - http://urj.org/about/union/leadership/rabbijacobs/?syspage=article&item_id=112783 5 2.1 billion Christians vs. 14 million Jews. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_religious_populations 6 The Scots Confession, 3.18. Church has been substituted for Kirk, the Scottish word for Church. I should add that I am a strong advocate for retaining this language in our Book of Confessions because it reinforces the Presbyterian understanding of the authority of Confessional statements in our Church. Namely, that while the Confessions should be taken seriously as reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe about God, they are also limited by human fallibility, and the culture of time and place. Such a realization should lead us to remain humble in our statements about who God is and what God calls us to believe and to do.
4 Those anti- Jewish attitudes are not just relegated to the past. They were found most recently in a publication issued by an affinity group in the Presbyterian Church. That publication, titled Zionism Unsettled, attempts to re- write the history of Israel and Palestine by returning to a one- sided view of this long conflict. 7 It denigrates some of the most important Jewish thinkers of the 20 th century people like David Hartman, who I have quoted from this pulpit. 8 It speaks of Israel s history as if Israel is incapable of negotiation or concession, ignoring the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, for example, or Israel s departure from Gaza. It accuses Israel of a kind of ethnic cleansing, and blames the shrinking Palestinian Christian population solely on Israeli policy, without even mentioning the desperate situations of Christians in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, and Iran. It flattens Zionism into a single, malevolent ideology all to blame for Palestinian oppression, with Islam glossed over as a religion of peace, ignoring extremism that is present in all of our religious faiths. It claims that some of our faith s greatest theological thinkers stood or stand with Jews out of guilt, denigrating any of us who spend time delving into the complex interplay between the Jewish and Christian faiths. I could go on and on. So one- sided was this publication that our denomination publicly distanced itself from it. As of Friday, the Presbyterian Church (USA) had removed it from its website. As Rabbi Irving Greenberg wrote, publicizing such a documents would be akin to a Jewish religious organization circulating a scurrilous pamphlet (taken from the medieval polemic) by an extremist group, stigmatizing Jesus as an illegitimate child and Virgin Mary as a slut...the church or its boards, he wrote, should not be distributing a publication demonizing Zionists/Jews as crucifying Palestinian children or poisoning the wells of civic society in Palestine. Do unto others what you would have others do unto you. 9 Now to be fair and direct, our church did the right thing by distancing itself from this publication. It did the right thing by stating clearly that our denomination s disinvestment from these three corporations should not be understood as divesting from Israel, nor should it be understand as supporting the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement whose agenda is simply to end the Jewish state. 10 And if our denomination had demonstrated through the 7 The study guide is not available in a free, online format. It must be purchased from the website of the group responsible for its publication The Israel Palestine Mission Network - http://www.israelpalestinemissionnetwork.org/main/component/content/article/70/256- zionism- unsettled. For a well written critique of the publication, see Chris Leighton s article published on the website of the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies - http://www.icjs.org/featured- articles/open- letter- presbyterian- church- 0 8 See Krista Tippet s interviews with Rabbi David Hartman - http://www.onbeing.org/program/david- hartman- hope- in- a- hopeless- god/16 9 Rabbi Greenberg s blog can be found here - http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/to- our- presbyterian- brothers- and- sisters/ 10 http://www.bdsmovement.net/ It s important to understand that granting the Palestinian right of return as stated on the BDS website, would result in a single, Palestinian state by simple demographic realities. Those in favor of a negotiated peace, understand that the refugee question is a critical piece that must be negotiated alongside other issues including borders, settlements, and control of Jerusalem, among others.
5 centuries our commitment to the preservation of the Jewish people, I could accept the claims of many of my Presbyterian friends and colleagues that this action is like any other divestment action we have taken consistent with our values. Divesting from guns, or tobacco, or, as was proposed but defeated at this year s assembly, divesting from all fossil fuels. But here s what I know about our church. Anti- Jewish attitudes are still with us. I know because I hear them and read them in sermons. Jews are scapegoated as literalists incapable of interpretation, with no awareness that the rabbinic Judaism of today is what gave birth to Jesus. Statements are made in sermons that Jews believed this..., or Jews believed that..., as if the New Testament is the only historically reliable document that we need in order to understand the evolution of the Jewish people. Most Christians have no idea that when Jews talk about Torah, that includes both the written law the first five books of the Bible - and the oral law the rabbinic interpretation that gives the Jewish community its interpretative flexibility and ethos. Most Christians have no idea that a generation before Jesus, Rabbi Hillel walked in the land, saying things like, That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. We too often fabricate a straw- man Judaism that our hero Jesus easily knocks down, elevating our sense of our selves by denigrating someone else s cherished faith. None of this ignorance, in my view, is inspired by an intentional anti- Judaism, at least not in our Presbyterian Church. But this ignorance of Jewish history and contemporary values is the context in which Church decisions like this one are made. So I was not surprised to learn that the vice moderator of the committee charged with leading some of the discussions on this overture gave a morning scriptural reflection with the committee in which she stated, Jesus wasn t afraid to tell the Jews they were wrong. Why are we? 11 I m not surprised to learn that claims are made that Israel supports biblical scale enslavement or Israel tortures children as a matter of policy. I m not surprised to learn that Jews are lumped together in one militant, malevolent category so that we can feel better about ourselves when we undermine a centerpiece of their faith. When I was a child, I heard my southern Grandmother makes remarks like, He tried to Jew me down referring to bargaining for a better price. My grandmother would say something patently racist and I d tell her, Well, Grandmother, if I fall in love with a black woman, I ll marry her. My parents told me my Grandmother had trouble sleeping after spending time with me and could I please cut down on the politics. But here s what I learned early on I have racism in my family. I have anti- Judaism in my family. And if I wanted to be a better person, I couldn t start by pretending that wasn t the case. I d have to start with more listening and less talking. I d have to hear my Jewish friends talk about experiences when Christian ministers called them Christ killers, or threw pennies at them. I d have to hear my black friends talk about getting campus security called on them at every single educational institution I ve ever been a part of. I d have to be careful that before I go declaring what s right and wrong I take their experiences into account. 11 Corroborated by three different eye- witness sources.
6 So while I critique the Netanyahu government for its immoral and illegal expansion into Palestinian land with the settlements, its failure to see that, long- term, there is no military solution that can bring about peace... While I agree that the Palestinian situation is full of oppression, and that Palestinians deserve their own homeland that is secure and free from Israeli occupation... While I agree that the occupation must end (and sooner rather than later), I also know that, should Israel pack up and leave the land tomorrow, it is naïve to think that peace would automatically come. Blood stains many hands. It s not helpful for our Church to pretend as though the Israeli occupation is the only culprit in the equation. It s not helpful for our Church to critique a deep commitment to the land of Israel, held among most Jewish people, before we have bothered educating ourselves on what exactly that commitment means. It s not fair for our Church to flatten Israelis into a single voice, as though these very issues that we debate in the Church are not already hotly contested in Israeli society. And it is not peacemaking, in my view, to take decades of careful steps toward interfaith understanding and throw it away by disregarding the pleas of the vast majority of American Jewish organizations (on the left and the right). 12 The region, the issue, and the steps forward are much more complicated than that. This past week, I called several rabbis who I count as colleagues and friends. One said to me, when I heard about the overture, I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. Over a meal this rabbi explained about the heat he had taken in the past, time and time again, for pushing his congregants to reassess a centuries- held conviction that the world is always allied against the Jews. This just gives them fuel, he said, to say back to me: See, I told you, so. Another friend told me how meaningful it was to hear from me. Everywhere I have served, he said, there has always been a Presbyterian congregation nearby. And the Presbyterians were always the Christians I could count on to have meaningful dialogue, and shared action. So this fall, I have been invited to speak at Shabbat services at Baltimore Hebrew congregation. I have extended an invitation for Rabbi Andy Busch to do the same here at Brown Memorial. It is my hope that we will continue to engage one another, never with the expectation of agreement, but with the expectation that the only way to respect each other, to build trust that erodes centuries of oppression, is to listen and learn from one another. In preaching class, our professors always warned us against putting ourselves the preacher in the shoes of Jesus. You are not Jesus, they d say. Christ is speaking to you as much as through you. I think the same warning applies to the Church. Before we go around saying that Jesus isn t afraid to tell the Jews they were wrong, perhaps we ought to wonder if we have welcomed Jesus the Jew into our midst as God has commanded in this text. Has our hospitality extended 12 To be fair, there were Jews present at the Assembly who support divestment. Jewish Voices for Peace is the most notable Jewish organization that supports divestment as a strategy. http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org But receiving their view as the correctly Jewish one would be like Jews receiving the Unitarian Church s view on the non- divinity of Jesus as the correctly Christian one because it fits more with what they would like to see in their interfaith partner. True interfaith partnership must accept the self- definition of each partner as the only true starting place from which to build a relationship.
to both Palestinian Muslims and Christians, as well as to Israeli and American Jews? All have stories to share with us, narratives of pain and promise that deserve to be told. All have dreams to share about a homeland that continue to be contested. I pray that our Church will spend more time building those relationships that lead to peace; relationships that start, in this vision of Jesus, with a cold cup of water that is offered to anyone who bears the message of God s love and God s peace, and the challenge to travel along the difficult road that leads there. Both the integrity of our faith and the future of our world depend on it. 7