How do we respond to violence during this Season of Lent, especially in the land where Jesus walked? The increasing violence of Israeli settlers is a real cause for concern. This past week, settlers cut down 80 olive trees in Al-Sharqiya, a small village south of Nablus. The trees were saplings replanted following a similar attack last year.
Settlers also attacked Sunia Mosque in Hebron, a city of 700,000 with Israeli extremists bent on pushing out Palestinians through attacking school children, throwing rocks at Arab businesses, and using Israeli soldiers as a cover. The organization Christian Peacemakers regularly accompany children to protect them.
Many Israelis and Palestinians, Christian and Muslim, want to live in peace, recognizing that as children of Abraham, they share a common heritage. We share that heritage as well. During this holy season of reflection and prayer, we need to encourage our leaders to work for peace in the Holy Land, made unholy by bitterness and violence.
Prayer for the Day
Like the Psalmist, we ask, O Lord, who may abide in your tent,
But we know the answer even before the thoughts leave our minds;
And like the Psalmist, we cry to you for peace in a troubled land,
Peace that seems so elusive when people refuse to talk to each other.
Grant, o God, that the voices of peace and reconciliation rise up,
So that there is hope for building a new community of justice.
In the name of the One who offers us new roads to peace,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Nonviolence is not inaction. It is not for the timid or the weak …Nonviolence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.
- Cesar Chavez, labor organizer (1927-1993)
If you’re going to hold someone down, you’re going to have to hold onto the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression.
- Toni Morrison, American writer (1931-2019)
O Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?
Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right,
And speak the truth from their heart;
Who do not slander with their tongue, and do no evil to their friends,
Or take up a reproach against their neighbor,
In whose eyes the wicked are despised, but who honor those who fear the Lord.
Psalm 15: 1-4