I am leaving tomorrow morning for a two-week Volunteer in Mission trip to Cambodia. I was asked to prepare a "sermon" for a service this coming Sunday (hopefully, a translator will be present!) Below is that sermon:
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| Section of Wall near Tulkarm, Palestine |
I’d like to tell you about a long journey that I
made recently – almost exactly a year ago, actually. I spent three months in the Holy Land –
Palestine and Israel – last spring. As
you know, the Holy Land is now a very troubled place, and many people believe
it is a violent place, where the Arabs (who are both Christian and Muslim) and
the Jewish Israelis want to hurt each other.
I was there with the World Council of Churches, working
with a program called Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, and our job was to work with people
on both sides of the Wall to help them live in peace.
How many of you are aware that there is an actual wall
between Palestine and Israel? I’m going
to pass around a picture of what a small section of that wall looks like. Those of us who were working with the church
there – and a lot of other people – do not like the Wall.
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| Palestinian workers wait in line to pass through checkpoint |
If a Palestinian wants to travel from their side of the
wall to the Israeli side, they have to go through checkpoints – and often are
not allowed to go through at all. And
Israelis are not allowed to go to the Palestinian side (unless they are
settlers who live there). Their
government tells them it is “dangerous” and “forbidden” for them to go into the
Palestinian territory.
So the Wall – the actual physical wall – separates
people. But so does the wall of
ignorance and prejudice separate people – not just in Israel and Palestine, but
throughout the world. In Galatians 3:28, Jesus said, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Yet, in Palestine – and in Israel – this very real
wall keeps people from getting to know each other and see that they are more
alike than they are different.
I could see that
Jesus was right; we are all one under Him; and the other people in my team
could see it – because we were able to cross the Wall; we were able to meet and
talk with people on both sides of the Wall.
But the people who live there are stuck on whatever side of the Wall
that they happen to live in – and they can’t meet each other and see each other
as people very much like them!
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| "Warning" sign at checkpoint into Palestine |
Every one of us lives behind a wall. It isn’t a 20 foot high concrete barrier,
such as the one in the Holy Land, but it is a wall built of our experiences,
our education, our government and our associations with other people. There
aren’t very many people in Portland, Oregon, who know what Cambodia looks like,
or what the people of Cambodia are like.
They probably have never met someone from here, and while they may know
something of your history – or at least the recent history that the US was
involved in – they cannot know or appreciate your culture, because they haven’t
experienced it.
Of course, that is true of us too. Most of you have probably not been to the
United States and your knowledge of “Americans” is limited to those of us who
have visited here – or, of course, American media, like television, movies and
music.
So to return to the scripture about “turning the other
cheek,” I think what Jesus was trying to tell us is that we should look for Him
in the eyes of everyone we meet. “The
unknown,” the person who is different, should be regarded with the same love
and compassion that we would give to our families and to our close
friends. And I do believe that everyone
wants peace; the problem comes when we disagree on what peace is – and how we
can best find it!
