Does God take sides?
Does God cheer for Israel's victories,
or cheer for Israel's losses?
Does God pump his fist when Palestine succeeds,
or weep when Palestine stumbles?
Is God on the sidelines of Gaza, rooting for his team to win?
If God were mere man
perhaps the Gaza Strip would be one great football field
and God's whole life would rise and fall
according to the victory of his team.
The Christians say
God became flesh and dwelt among us
They say God became mere man.
They also say the God-Man's great victory was accepting death on a cross
that others might live.
But if Israel and Palestine's men keep taking one another's lives
in God's name
who will be left to bear his cross?
Perhaps the Second Coming
that the Christians await with bated breath
(as smart phones offer updates about their team)
will be another Incarnation,
a child born in the midst of blood and turmoil and rage.
Maybe the Second Coming
will be
a child born of love spilling over
between a child of Israel and a child of Palestine
Maybe, instead of a cross
there will be a stand
silent and gentle and unwavering
Palestinian hand in Israeli hand
the fruit of their living bodies
God's own child, swelling the mother's belly:
an invitation to end life no more.
What will it take for the beloved children of God
to perceive that the people they murder
are the beloved children of God
to understand that the people they hate
are their sisters and brothers and fathers and mothers
and daughters and sons?
What will it take for Jews
and Muslims
and Christians
and other religious people
and anti-religious people
to
quit
taking
sides
to say
"It is done"?
Will it take a new Yeshua?
A new martyr?
A new cross?
Will it take a wise mother among many wise mothers
who learned long ago that only love can yield a victory?
Will it take a woman among many women
who has seen the futility of this fight all her life
to rise up and teach the foolish men what they refuse to learn?
God, how long before you touch the hearts
of the children who think you take sides?
How long before you assure them that they are equally,
infinitely loved?
How long before they cease their fire
and offer open arms of
sorrow, repentance, forgiveness?
What do you mean
to whisper that
this assurance
this peace
this love
this transformation of the hardest of hearts in Gaza
begins
with my own heart?
Does God cheer for Israel's victories,
or cheer for Israel's losses?
Does God pump his fist when Palestine succeeds,
or weep when Palestine stumbles?
Is God on the sidelines of Gaza, rooting for his team to win?
If God were mere man
perhaps the Gaza Strip would be one great football field
and God's whole life would rise and fall
according to the victory of his team.
The Christians say
God became flesh and dwelt among us
They say God became mere man.
They also say the God-Man's great victory was accepting death on a cross
that others might live.
But if Israel and Palestine's men keep taking one another's lives
in God's name
who will be left to bear his cross?
Perhaps the Second Coming
that the Christians await with bated breath
(as smart phones offer updates about their team)
will be another Incarnation,
a child born in the midst of blood and turmoil and rage.
Maybe the Second Coming
will be
a child born of love spilling over
between a child of Israel and a child of Palestine
Maybe, instead of a cross
there will be a stand
silent and gentle and unwavering
Palestinian hand in Israeli hand
the fruit of their living bodies
God's own child, swelling the mother's belly:
an invitation to end life no more.
What will it take for the beloved children of God
to perceive that the people they murder
are the beloved children of God
to understand that the people they hate
are their sisters and brothers and fathers and mothers
and daughters and sons?
What will it take for Jews
and Muslims
and Christians
and other religious people
and anti-religious people
to
quit
taking
sides
to say
"It is done"?
Will it take a new Yeshua?
A new martyr?
A new cross?
Will it take a wise mother among many wise mothers
who learned long ago that only love can yield a victory?
Will it take a woman among many women
who has seen the futility of this fight all her life
to rise up and teach the foolish men what they refuse to learn?
God, how long before you touch the hearts
of the children who think you take sides?
How long before you assure them that they are equally,
infinitely loved?
How long before they cease their fire
and offer open arms of
sorrow, repentance, forgiveness?
What do you mean
to whisper that
this assurance
this peace
this love
this transformation of the hardest of hearts in Gaza
begins
with my own heart?
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