Religion

Think you know the Holy Land?

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Line up your balloons, my pin is sharp and hot. 

“Woe to the inhabitants of the seacoast, The nation of the Cherethites! The word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines; snd I will destroy you so that there will be no inhabitant.”

Zephaniah 2:5

No such thing as Palestine

The state of Israel has proceeded on its Zionist mission and vision with the idea that Jewish people need a land for Jews exclusively, in complete violation of the idea of Zion (for Zion’s cosmopolitan character see Psalm 87). Furthermore the idea of Abraham’s family being extended to all the families of the Earth for a blessing by the one called the seed does not end with Jewish control of the holy places and sovereign control of Judea and Israel.  The settler passion is completely off the rails because all the promises of the land to Abraham’s to descendants are for a particular purpose, and the Jewish people are renter-farmers.  There is no such thing as permanent ownership of the land. The land belongs to God and the Jewish people know it; they are holding it for the rest of people of the world to come and celebrate the unity of all nations in the one true God the Creator and Redeemer of the world.  There is no land called israel, but there’s a land called Canaan and Peleshet (Philistia, Palestina, Palestine).  ISRAEL is the name of a man, the name of a kingdom and the name of a people.

No such people as Palestinians

Racism and xenophobia cannot get much worse than modern Jewish people completely ignoring the fact that the historic claims of Jewish people on Palestine has to do with them replacing seven Canaanite Nations, of whom the Philistines were their most persistent enemy.  Are Jewish children being taught at the Palestinians are Philistines?  Palestinians are not the Philistines.  The Palestinians are Arab people (descendants of Abraham) who adhere to Christianity and Islam, and I have not heard of any Palestinian subscribing to the religion of the Jewish people, that is, Judaism. 

No such thing as Jewish land

One of the pillars of Jewish hope and identity is their residence in Canaan. The promises of land to Abraham and his descendants loom large, but sadly the promise of land does not a title deed. The Jewish people are tenants who residence in the land was not guarenteed as permanent. Residence in the Holy Land is contingent on the people’s faithfulness to God. God’s disruption of both the kimgdom of Israel and the kingdom of Israel and the dispersal of the people are not secrets.

Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.

Matt 21:33

This parable lands Yeshua in considerable “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. (Matt 21:45) And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet (Matt 21:46). The crimes that caused the emptying of the land continued from the 6th century BC on into the current era. One of the hardest truths for a Zionist Jew to accept is that the master who planted and leased the vineyard “will let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” (Matt 21:41) Jewish migration to the State of Israel will not forever shape the destiny of Jerusalem or Palestine. All the passionate and loose talk about Zion and Jewish homeland shows how little diligence has been put into pride of history.

Conservative Racism

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Calling for firings and criminal investigations seem to be the only time Conservative politicians are alive.  Their agenda for dirty energy, pro-business and against cannabis is a recipe for the new fascism. Canada will not make the same mistake twice. Religion – anyone’s – will not define public policy. Watch out for politicians with strong religious passions. They breathe violence and breed oppression.

Racism and bigotry are not cards or covers. It is a thing people do to deny their own history and other’s.

The Prayers of the Faithful in the Vatican

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as I write this many eyes are trained on the Vatican and its attempts to mediate in the Palestinian Problem.  Theologians are most likely longing to hear the prayers of a Christian, a Jew, and a Muslim aimed at finding a solution.  The probability of anyone ever hearing what the three leaders actually say to their God is extremely low.  We can imagine though.  The Vatican Prayers (Vota Vaticana) are an intriguing innovation.  The only avenue of resolution is an appeal to Abraham which would involve each of the leaders to set aside the centuries of jockeying for validity.

Will Pope Francis call on the Father of our Lord Yeshua as Christians are expected to do ?  Will the Israeli President invoke Yahweh of the Sinai Covenant, Abrahamic (land and progeny) covenant, Davidic (monarchy/messianic/dynastic) covenant, or Zionistic (return to Palestine) covenant and promise?  Will the Palestinian President pursue the human rights prospects or the superiority of Islam?  The potholes are huge.

If the prayers are a silent exercise it would seem to defeat the purpose.  These men have declared that they will appeal to a greater power and we have seen what the dependence on a greater power have brought to the Middle East and beyond.  What lies beyond is most likely to be a new centre for the arguments for the future of Jerusalem.  The scariest prospect is the emergence of a new syncretistic expression of the three faiths.  We can expect a announcement that JudaChrislam is born, not as a clearly defined new religion, but as a working model for creating harmony in preparation for the last deception, namely, that mankind can solve spiritual problems without a transparent dependence on God.

We may see Jewish superior claims to Canaan, and an Islamic appeal to variants of the Biblical record of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  It is the Pope who will hold the trump card with the approval of the vast majority of earth’s governments.  All he has to do is decry the inhumanity of the Palestinian problem.  The parties will have to work out something, anything, or all will be seen to be window-dressing and a waste of time.

One cannot fail to see that Islam is heading for a new caliphate, and it will have no respect for Judaism or Christianity.  Islam is the revision of all religions and Mohammed gets the last word.  The rise of ISIS (the Islamic State now pushing up across Iraq and Syria) is a threat to peace.  Pope Francis cannot fail to condemn the violence with which Islam rules.  He must insist on Jerusalem being a citadel of human creativity, co-existence, and freedom.  But how?

The report is that Francis has stressed that he is not seeking to jumpstart peace negotiations, but merely bring the two sides together to pray. He said he had arranged for a rabbi and a Muslim cleric to lead the prayers, along with him. (http://metronews.ca/news/world/1049062/vatican-israel-palestinian-peace-prayer-june-8/)

The Vota Vaticana are bound to be a personally edifying experience, and we wait to see whether a political pathway emerges, because prayers and votes have always been in tension.  People, even in nations with a strong and even declared religious governance have been unable to decide whether they want a theocracy or a pluralistic and humanistic government and society.  Will Moses’ disciples give way?  Will Muslims agree to a government that is mixed with non-Islamic tenets?

Sinning and hitting the mark are the only two outcomes.  There is no grey area.  Hitting the mark calls for personal honesty, the integrity of each leader’s claims, and an unabashed trust in what is good.  We pray, we hope, but ultimately we will vote.  The presidents have taken an unprecedented step to pray together and it would seem that the prayer leaders will have to package their prayers more to the liking of their partners than to God. God cannot fail.  Humans do.  God cannot be blamed for centuries of hatred and bloodshed or for the failure of men to work together within their differences.

I say let us pray for Jerusalem’s peace and may God have His way in uniting humanity under a banner of honesty, integrity, and trust.  A prayer that focuses on these three ways of life are bound to be a hit.

As I publish this months have passed since the Roman Pontiff and the Presidents of Israel  and the Palestinian Authority met to pray.  However awkward, comical, or self-effacing their prayers may have been I dare not say that the answer to the prayers of the faithful are denied because we see only more hostility and violence between the parties in Canaan.  If the attempts to bring the Palestinian problem to  UN vote is thought to be an answer to prayer one only need listen to the bombast form the Israeli PM and visiting US legislators.  The direction is nowhere!  It is not enough to pray.  Long prayers have been a cloak for abuse, greed, and self-centered pride.  Short prayers also may be shallow and mere words.  What is needed is courageous action.  Funny how those willing to kill for land are afraid to die for peace in the land..  When I say that the faithful will rise from their knees and proclaim their claims inappropriate and that there is an authority beyond their religious enclaves we will see the answer to the prayers of the faith.  Pipedream?  No.  A prayer of  the hopeful.