Reading the News with Jesus - Gaza (Part 1)

My intention when I began writing this first installment of “Reading the News with Jesus,” focusing on the situation in the Gaza Strip, was to finish it and publish it as a complete post, but I’ve now been working on it for a couple of weeks, and it’s still growing. The nature of the topic requires that I try to be as thorough and thoughtful as possible, and writing is taking longer than I anticipated. So, I’ve decided to release this first post in parts. You’ll find the first part below, and I will continue writing and posting over the next couple of weeks. 

Recently, the situation in Gaza has dominated the news, so it only seems right that we start our practice of Reading the News with Jesus there. But before we dive into the news, I just want to take a moment to share what this blog will look like and how it's intended to be used.

Since I wrote the first post introducing this series, I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about and praying through the format. If you've been reading any of my posts over the past several, you'll already know that my writing tends toward a traditional essay format, an introduction complete with thesis statement followed by long paragraphs that develop and reiterate that statement. However, I'm not sure that format is the most useful one for this series. I want this practice to be accessible and nourishing, so rather than writing a series of essays, I'll instead follow the format I used in this previous post about the L.A. protests. I'll write a short introduction followed by a few things that I think Jesus might be saying to us as we read the news with him. These thoughts will be numbered so that they can be read and digested individually, if you so desire.

That said, I want to make it clear that I am not claiming to speak for Jesus. These are things that I think Jesus might be saying to us. They are things that I believe he is saying to me as I've read through the news with him, but I might not communicate it clearly or adequately. Or I may just be wrong. I have been following Jesus for over 40 years, but that's doesn't mean that I always hear him clearly or represent him well. I say all this to say these posts are intended to supplement your own time with Jesus, not to replace it. They should be used to provoke and inspire your own conversations with him, your own study of Scripture, and your own dialogue in Christian community. As you read these posts, please listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit as he speaks to you individually and utilize the tools he has made available to you so that you can best discern what Jesus is saying to you.

Now, let's get into the news. Here are a few the articles I read with Jesus. It may be worth reading through a few of them for context.

Dozens of kids and adults in Gaza have starved to death in July as hunger surges

'Worst-case scenario of famine' is happening in Gaza, food crisis experts warn

Dozens killed while seeking food in Gaza as US envoy heads to Israel

Why not enough food is reaching people in Gaza even after Israel eased its blockade

Gaza aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds and armed gangs

Israel announces plan to retake Gaza City in another escalation of the war

Now, what do I think Jesus might say to his followers about the situation in Gaza? 

1.    "Eyes on me."

I have a feeling this will be a constant refrain in our practice of Reading the News with Jesus. There are so many voices vying for our attention, both out in the world and in our own minds. An endless torrent of media outlets, armchair journalists, celebrities and influencers are flooding our minds and feeds with information (and misinformation) about Gaza, each with its own slant and bias. But none of them have the words of life. Only Jesus can guide us down the narrow path that leads to life. Only his voice can lead us to the spring of living water that will not only satisfy our thirst but also well up in us to become a fountain of life and healing for the nations. But he does not shout. He is not trying to compete with the volume, ferocity, or relentless pace of the pundits and influencers. His Way is narrow, and few find it. His voice is quiet, and only those with ears to hear, that is those with a genuine desire to know his will and do it, will hear. We must prioritize his voice above every other in the world if we truly desire to learn to think, speak, and act like he would if he were us.

And, of course, it's not just the voices out in the world that ought to concern us. We each have our own internal dialogues, our own sets of predilections and biases. None of us are blank slates, but we all come to a conversation like this with established worldviews informed by family, friends, churches, schools, geography, trauma, and, of course, the aforementioned cultural voices. And while many of these are valid and important contributors to our personalities, none of them are Jesus. None of them should claim the allegiance that belongs to him alone. In the book of Colossians, the Apostle Paul instructs Christians to "set (our) minds on things above not on earthly things" and then gives us the rationale in the next verse. We are to set our minds on heavenly things because we "died, and (our) lives are now hidden with God in Christ." When we place our faith in and give our allegiance to Jesus, we surrender every other identity to him. The earthly things that defined us now become a distant second, at best, and as we "consider everything loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord" (Philippians 3).

Practically speaking, this means that Jesus will inevitably affect the way we think. He will put to death our prejudices and biases. He will upend our worldview. He will change our politics. We must allow him to do so. We are no longer what we were. We are a new creation in him. We are Christian. And as such, we must learn to see the world through his eyes (for this is what it really means to set our minds on heavenly things; it does not mean, as some Christians suppose, that ignore the realities of this world to spend all our time in "spiritual" contemplation).

All that to say, as we seek to understand and respond to the realities of Gaza, it is essential that stubbornly fix our eyes on Jesus. If we lose sight of him in the chaos, we will not only lose our own way but will also lose the capacity to be useful to anyone else.

2.    "Beware generalizations."

I've lost track of how many times I've heard Christians, referencing the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, say things like:

"All Palestinians are..."

"All Israelis are..."

"Muslims and Jews just hate each other."

"All Arab people just want to see Israel wiped off the map."

"There's no such thing as peace in the Middle East. There's always been war over there, and there will be until Jesus comes
back."

To my shame, I have said some of these things before, but by the grace of God and through the intervention of true friends, I've since had experiences that have forced me to see these generalizations for what they are: ignorant oversimplifications that completely distort and misrepresent the facts on the ground in order to provide me with a convenient excuse for apathy and inaction. Over the past decade, I've had the distinct privilege of countless conversations with people living in Israel/Palestine, people from all walks of life--Arabs, Israelis, Jews, Christians, Muslims, priests, rabbis, imams, soldiers, settlers, farmers, homemakers, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters--and I've learned that the only generalization that holds up is that all generalizations are wrong.

There is no singular perspective shared by all Israelis.

There is no such thing as the Palestinian position or strategy.

Muslims and Jews are no more prone to animosity than any other religious groups.

Diplomatic relations across the Middle East are far more varied and nuanced than our partisan news outlets would have us
believe.

The Holy Land has not been and is not now locked in eternal war.

This last generalization (that Israelis and Palestinians are locked in eternal conflict) is, in my experience, one of the most widespread, insidious, and damaging of the assumptions made by Western Christians about the conflict. In making it, we distort the complex and often beautiful history of the region, we deny the humanity of the people who have called it home, and we ignore our own role in its historical conflicts. It is true that, due to its economic, strategic, and religious significance, the small piece of land known as Israel/Palestine has experienced more than its share of war and conquest, but if we know our own history, we will be forced to acknowledge that much of the conflict in the region has been "exported" from elsewhere.

The Western world has a long history of using the Middle East as staging area and the people of the region as proxies in its own conflicts. This started with the Crusades and continues even in the current conflict. Throughout the history of the Holy Land, there have been significant and extended periods of peace, in which the diverse ethnic, cultural, and religious groups have coexisted in harmony. These times of peace have historically been the rule and not the exception, and often, when such peace has been broken, it has been at the hands of Western (European/American/"Christian") intervention.

In fact, the origin story of the modern conflict is steeped as much in Western Christianity as it is in either Judaism or Islam (more on that next week). Our claims that the people of the Holy Land are historically inclined and eternally fated toward violence and war are, therefore, not only ignorant and inaccurate but also hypocritical. We have the audacity to prejudge the people of the region as particularly predisposed toward violence and to blame them for their situation while ignoring our own history of violence and significant and ongoing contributions to the conflict. And worse still we often do so in the name of the Jesus, claiming that His Word has decreed this war and that the atrocities committed in it are, therefore, his will. It is simply unacceptable for us, as followers of Jesus, bond-servants of the Prince of Peace, to justify this war on the basis of false historical generalizations and dubious biblical interpretation.

Our generalizations simply do not hold up to careful examination, and we must do this careful examination. We owe it to ourselves, the people of the Holy Land, and to our King, to do the hard work of confronting and, where necessary, toppling our biases and presuppositions so we can know the truth and be useful to Jesus and to the people of Israel and Palestine.

We’ll discuss some ways we can partner with Jesus as he challenges our generalizations in next week’s post as we continue this conversation with a few more things I think Jesus might be saying to us about Gaza. Stay tuned.