On
our pictorial calendar for May 2007 it says, “May is
usually a time to remember those who have fought on our behalf in wartime.
Pray for peace on the earth and justice issues that separate people.” When we pray for peace and
justice we ask people who are divided over the problems and solutions. The
UCC is pretty clear about just peace and social justice. I can’t tell you
what to pray about but I can share what I plan to do.
The
massacre at Virginia Tech is the first thing that comes to mind. On Monday,
the 16th of April, a campus resident senior student shot two students and
proceeded shortly thereafter to the other side of the campus and randomly
shot more than 40 students and faculty in several classrooms. He then turned
his gun on himself and took his own life. Thirty-three students and faculty
were among his victims have died. Some 17 others were hospitalized. This is
the most horrific scene in the history of this or any university. Our hearts
go out to the families and loved ones of the victims; to the friends,
classmates and others who witnessed the tragedy. And let us not forget the
parents and family of the shooter. Our Amish friends in Pennsylvania have
modeled recently the Christ life for us in loving and forgiving those who
have killed their own.
Why
any college student needs to purchase a semi-automatic handgun is beyond me.
I’m going to pray for stronger gun control laws and vote that way more
adamantly than ever come election time. I’m going to pray for all those
people who were victimized by our national tragedy. We need to transcend
ideological, personal, and political boundaries to pray, act, and work toward
the total healing of the human family.
Another
thing for which I am going to pray is the resolution of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While in the Holy Land in January of this year,
we traveled throughout the West Bank and Israel. We visited the Augusta
Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem, the Jewish settlement of Efrat where we
learned more about the Zionist perspective as well as a visit to the
Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem (the Red Varshem) where we went through the
Hall of the children. After touring the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem,
we had starving children beg us for American dollars. Seventy-percent of
their parents, government workers, had been laid off because of foreign aid
discontinued in protest to Hamas. The pastor (a Palestinian) of the Lutheran
Church of the Redeemer, talked to us about the Apartheid practices which he called “Open
air” prisons in affirming Jimmy Carter’s recent book on the subject. We met
an Iranian Jew at the En Gedi at the Dead Sea giving us a Jewish perspective
on the Iranian view of the Middle East conflict and resolution. We chatted
with Archbishop Elias Chacour, of the Melkite Church who believes we must end
the fighting in Iraq yesterday.
My
conclusions are clear: This Middle East needs resolution and not management
of the conflict immediately. The wall in Jerusalem and the checkpoints must
be taken down, and a unified educational system for the Palestinians must be
offered. We must move beyond right and wrong in discerning a solution. We
must pray for peace. The consequences could be dire.
Pastor
Bob
