Put people first on path to peace

I hate to admit it, but the conflict in the Middle East became more personal for me when a standoff ensued at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Isn’t there something fundamentally wrong in fighting over the very ground where a promise was made for peace on earth?

            At the time I am writing this on Tuesday, more than 200 people are trapped in the church. Outside is the Israeli army, wanting a resolution to the standoff that does not involve an international incident. Exactly who is in the church? Are they there for sanctuary only, or do those trapped in the church want to fight? We are too far away to really know all the facts.

            As I have reflected on the standoff, I have begun to wonder why it bothered me that it was that particular spot. Why was I more bothered when the violence centered on that church? After all, Christianity is the least place focused of the three world religions that trace their history to Abraham.

Judaism’s focus from well before the time of Jesus was Jerusalem and its Temple Mount. Jews around the world still maintain the Jerusalem focus by ending each Passover meal saying, “Next year in Jerusalem.”

Muslims also claim Jerusalem and its Temple Mount as a holy site. However, Islam’s greatest holy site is Mecca. Each Muslim is to travel to Mecca at least once in their lifetime if they are able.

Christianity did develop a sense of place over time. Certainly, all of the Holy Land is special to me and to many Christians. It was there that the stories of the Bible first took place.

Jesus, however, spoke out against the importance of place. In the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel, we read of Jesus meeting a woman of Samaria at a place known as Jacob’s well. The well was near the great Samaritan holy site of Mount Gerizim.

The woman asked Jesus the burning theological question of her day, which was part of what religiously separated Jews and Samaritans. She said, “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

The Samaritan woman was focusing on place and she wanted Jesus to tell her which was the better place the Temple Mount in Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim in Samaria. Jesus answered, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”

Jesus went on to assure her that how one worships matters more than where one worships, as God is everywhere. He said, “A time is coming a has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.”

If the how of worship matters more than the where, then what matters most now at the church in Bethlehem? Destroying the church does not change Jesus’ birth; it only alters the church built where people think Jesus might have been born.

I suspect that Jesus is radically indifferent to the church building. In his own lifetime, Jesus showed great compassion for people, never any concern for buildings. The evidence of his own life suggests that Jesus’ concern would be for the people caught in the conflict—Jews, Muslims, Christians, and those with no faith.

The complex of church buildings in Bethlehem is of no concern. The people inside and outside the building are the issue. Fortunately, they are both relatively safe for the moment because the church can still offer sanctuary. Nevertheless, they are all trapped in a cycle of violence, which no one seems to be able to control.

Ariel Sharon can no more bring lasting control to anti-Israeli attacks with violent incursions into Palestinian towns than radical Palestinians could control Israel’s policies with suicide bombings. Each side is trapped in a pattern of dealing with the pain of suffering and loss by inflicting suffering and loss on their enemies. If the Israelis and Palestinians want to stop short of completely annihilating their enemies, another route to peace must be found.

The path to peace may well involve both sides coming to terms with the importance of people over place. For each group to have a state, Israel will have to be divided.

Not everyone will find that their people will come to control all of the places their people hold dear. For example, Israel will need to allow the Palestinians to have some official presence in Jerusalem.

However, the Palestinians should also recognize that exchanging the Golan Heights for peace is too risky for Israel as that gives the strategic high ground back to the same enemies who used those very places to attack Israel.

Each side will need to concern itself with the security of the other if they are to find lasting peace. Everyone will need to lose some of the places they love if they are to gain the security that all the people who live in Israel need. Peace on earth demands putting the good of all people before the sanctity of places.

(The Rev. Frank Logue is pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.)

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