June 22, 2008

Denise Kelsall

Pentecost 6     Gen 21:8-21     Matt:10:24-39

Hagar, a familiar name. We know her story – Sarah’s surrogate, slave, second-best, outcast, disposable, alienated. A wanted unwanted child, Ishmael. She has no voice, no power, no place. She lives at the behest of others who dictate the terms of her life and probably her death. A life of servitude laced with fear and resentment. Her future – precarious and unknown.

It is a pretty unthinkable way of life for us now where we have individual rights and laws that protect a person from such enslavement. But it was real then, and this story continues on today in numberless lives of men women and children. Think refugees, the hungry, the occupied, the dispossessed, the violated, the desperate. Only God does not come to save them and transform their lives.

 On reading this passage from Genesis I was constantly struck by the notion that the children of Abraham – Isaac and Ishmael, are at the root of the conflict in the Middle-east today.

Isaac carries God’s promise and can be seen as a father of the modern nation of Israel. In contrast, Ishmael is to be found in the beleaguered land of Palestine. The same inequality and unjust dominance of one brother over the other continues unabated today.

God tells Abraham not to worry about casting out Hagar and Ishmael. God has ordained that Ishmael, like Isaac, will found a great nation because he too is Abraham’s offspring. God’s covenant is with Abraham, and to all his descendents. The reading tells us ‘God was with the boy.’ Yet we have this savage and deadly conflict between the two peoples that is so deep rooted as to appear to be irreconcilable.

Ancient feuds and rivalries between close neighbours or tribes is the stuff of vicious and bloody war. It is, just as Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel today about family and neighbours – where a person’s foes will be one of the household. People who have lived alongside one another who run amok with madness. Think of Rwanda with the Hutu and the Tutsi, of Kosovo with the Serbs and the Croats, and again and again and in our time thousands of years later with the devastation and division of Palestine for the creation of Israel. This has led to a far-reaching and incendiary outpouring of hatred and death. The conflict is about land taken, different cultures, different stories from Abraham, faith.

On a day to day basis for me it is the sad stories about ordinary people who try to live a normal life that tug at me and make it real. I hear about a Palestinian mother and her four children sitting down to eat together being blown apart by a stray bomb, and I blanche with the nearness, the reality.

I know the unholy thing that is war and the pain and the grief and the fury of it all. It is a horrible and gory reminder and isn’t just about premature and unconscionable death – but such grief and such waste. The waste of lives, the family, the love and laughter, the trials hopes and infinitely precious potentials that are annihilated, turned to dust. The fuel for even greater vengeance that ever simmers just under the surface.

To this seemingly impossible and deeply complex problem that is a major source of hostility the world over I would like to offer some heartening actions and reflections being put forward by two prominent people. The first is Daniel Barenboim. He is a brilliant world famous Jewish musician and conductor and was the Reith lecturer for 2006. [1] His lecture series was titled ‘In the Beginning was Sound.’

Barenboim offers his lived understanding of the conflict and his contribution to a better understanding between Israel and Palestine. The overarching title of his lectures is a sort of alliteration on the opening lines of Genesis – ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth… and ‘In the beginning was the Word’ from the gospel of John. For Barenboim ‘In the beginning was ‘Sound’ is a better example of a creative unifying force as he believes that the power of music to move us is deeper and more profound than words.

He brought together young Arab and Israeli musicians and founded an orchestra [2] and discovered that music overcomes and transcends boundaries and prejudices – music is the great equaliser. Music in an orchestra is a model of a hierarchy with equality, where every instrument has its vital part to play and where every note played is essential to the whole. Each has its day. The lectures make powerful, inspiring and thoughtful reading and are well worth the effort.

Barenboim’s take on Israel, where he lived for a time as a child, is that Zionism is a Jewish European idea and therefore foreign to the Middle East. The solution, in his eyes, is for Israel to integrate, to become sort of Arabised, appreciate the Arab culture and to become part of the Middle East rather than a foreign body which it is at present. This leads to ongoing hostility. His vision offers mutual enrichment rather than alienation. Just like playing music.

The second person is Tony Blair. A closet Anglican when English Prime Minister who came out as a Roman Catholic when he left ministerial office. I know suspicion hovers about him through his support of the invasion of Iraq and other questionable decisions but a recent article in Time magazine about his vision is worth consideration. [3]

Recently he has birthed the ‘Tony Blair Faith Foundation.’ Blair’s goal is to enable faith to overcome the dividedness it arouses, so that it can have a real voice in the world. He believes that religion is key to the global agenda and intends to spend the rest of his life working on interfaith perspectives and cooperative actions that build bridges and look to heal our confused world. Blair believes that in the west we need to overcome the irrelevance of faith that is driven by our consumer oriented and materialistic society, and the frightening religious extremism that fundamentalism can become.

Interestingly, he claims that the passionately secular European countries need to understand the importance faith has for Americans and Arabs alike. And I had to admit to the truth of his statement that it is we who are out of step with much of the world as to the influence of religion inherent in daily life. Blair thinks that in the rich world “without spiritual values, there is an emptiness that cannot be filled by material good and wealth.” It is faith that gives meaning to billions of lives and he will try to broker faith to the betterment of all. As Blair says “ faith is part of our future” He does all this as a committed Catholic Christian, who in the article Bono likens to a pilgrim.

We are part of a global society. We can speak to our friend in Africa or Ireland at the drop of a hat. We all draw from the well of our inherited histories and genes or genealogies. We are, according to the theory, only 6 degrees apart from anyone else in the world.

Barenboim and Blair speak of what we long for and what we must act for. They speak for a better more harmonious world where life is seen to be best where we can all live equally and faithfully with our God – the God Abraham walked and talked with, whom Hagar called El-roi. Where we are all vital and essential to the whole – just like an orchestra.

Movingly, Israeli poet Shin Shalom writes in some Jewish liturgy that is used in English synagogues:

Ishmael, my brother,

How long shall we fight each other?

My brother from times bygone,

My brother, Hagars’ son,

My brother, the wandering one.

One angel was sent to us both.

One angel watched over our growth-

There in the wilderness, death threatening through thirst,

I, a sacrifice on the altar, Sarah’s first.

Ishmael my brother, hear my plea:

It was the angel who tied thee to me.

Time is running out, put hatred to sleep.

Shoulder to shoulder, let’s water our sheep.

[1] A Reith Lecture is a lecture in a series of annual radio lectures given by leading figures of the day, commissioned by the BBC. Begun in 1948 in honour of the first Director-General of the BBC, John Reith. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2006/

[2] The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

[3] Time, June 9.