tensions have not all been resolved. Transformation is a never-ending journey.
Not every reference to history or to current events is factual. Those interviewed were speaking from memory, without reference to verifiable sources. They, like all of us, speak out of their framing stories which provide legitimacy for why we think, feel, and act the way we do. We need framing stories. We cannot help having them, but we can help which ones we live out. We need a new one that speaks of justice, reconciliation, and peace. And the first step is to open ourselves to listening to the stories of others.
National defense strategies and political resolutions have never created space for this opening and listening. They cannot. Oppressive systems and extremist violence must be confronted, but if people are still tied to the destructive mindsets that engendered these violent systems, then little will be changed, and the brutal cycle will continue. Maybe one step to overcoming the oppressive political and societal systems is to dismantle the racial prejudices and uninformed worldviews held fearfully by so many people. To transform hearts. Many would say this is foolishly naïve. And it is. “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” Like Hercules fighting the Hydra monster, we can and must chop down the countless destructive systems forever, but they will always grow back like biting heads unless the people in the systems rethink everything. We can only ignore the source for so long.
I hold no illusions of being or wanting to be a politician, at least not in the typical sense. I have no grand theories or clever schemes that if implemented will end this turmoil. I want to be a storyteller; I have stories I want to tell because I foolishly believe in their transforming power. There will be no peace without conversion through reconciliation and justice. I do not mean justice characterized as “getting what you deserve,” justice as the antecedent to “the American way,” or justice as an “eye for an eye.” The Holocaust cannot justify the Nakba and the Occupation; the Nakba does not justify suicide bombings and rockets. In the Jewish worldview, peace, shalom, is not the absence of difference or disagreement, but it is the presence of the wholeness of God. Justice is about rehumanization, because justice, as Dr. Cornel West says, “is what love looks like in public.”1 The Arabic word translated as “goodbye” is ma’a salaama, but a friend once told me that it literally means “with health,” and comes from the same root as the word for “peace,” salaam. Peace is healing, and healing brings wholeness. Justice is the arrival of that healing presence which washes away oppression and dehumanization and conquest; and mercy and compassion always flow within the mighty stream of true justice.
Frederick Buechner wrote that “In Hebrew the term dabar means both ‘word’ and ‘deed.’ Thus to say something is to do something . . . Words are power, essentially the power of creation. By my words I both discover and create who I am. By my words I elicit a word from you. Through our converse we create each other.”2
Words and actions create stories and stories create meaning. Stories say something and do something. May these stories create an open space for the sacred event of what seems like the impossible to happen, because stories not only describe reality, they transform it. They tell us to keep looking again.
Jonathan McRay
1. Justin Dillon, Director, Call + Response, 2008.
2. Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC. San Francisco: Harper-One, 1993.
Contributors
Salim J. Munayer, former Academic Dean and lecturer at the Bethlehem Bible College, co-founder and director of Musalaha.
Lisa Loden, former director of the Caspari Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, member of Musalaha’s advisory board, and lecturer in the Department of Leadership Development Studies at the Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Munther Isaac, lecturer and assistant Academic Dean at the Beth-lehem Bible College, currently pursing his Ph.D. at the Oxford Center for Mission Studies.
Philip D. Ben-Shmuel, currently working on a degree in Biblical Studies and Comparative Religions at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Shireen Hilal, lecturer at the Bethlehem Bible College, Project Co-ordinator for Musalaha’s Women’s Department.
Evan Thomas
Once a month, Musalaha’s staff and participants gather at the Talitha Qumi School in Beit Jala, northwest of Bethlehem for curriculum teaching. The German-operated school is the best location for such meetings: it’s in the West Bank, so Palestinians can attend, but it’s accessible by Israelis because the main road down the hill leads to settlements in Area C. Musalaha’s curriculum teaching seminars deal with important topics related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, endeavoring to find the tense place for shared-faith reconciliation within that conflict.
In the middle of October, everyone gathered in a corner room on the top floor of the school’s guesthouse. We sat around a wide table that filled up the center of the room and papers for note-taking were passed around the table’s edge. Even in October, the heat in the room, fueled by large numbers crowded in a small space, was enough to make people squirm uncomfortably in their seats. The windows were opened and the cool air came in with a faint scent of pines from the courtyard.
Evan Thomas unbuttoned the top button of his short-sleeve shirt; the heat still lingered even with all the windows wide open. Evan, the Chairman of the Board of Musalaha, continued his presentation from the previous month of a study on Israeli Messianic Jewish identity, attempting to unpack the intricate layers involved in such a label. Beads of sweat dripped beneath the rim of his glasses, perched on the edge of his nose as he read slowly from a thick packet of papers. He used his hands frequently when he spoke, and his gestures were smooth, like sign language, inviting the listener to relax and become part of the conversation. And the listeners did join. Throughout his lecture, he was interrupted by enthusiastic affirmations and perplexed questions, and he would softly set the packet of papers down and lean forward toward the speaker. He seemed to have an incredible gift for making the other person in a conversation feel valued, like their opinion was really worth listening to. At times, the discussions turned into arguments and brows furrowed and words were sharpened, but Evan’s large hands started moving and he gently interceded and quelled the rising storm. The man was a natural mediator.
After the lecture, everyone migrated downstairs to a buffet meal and sat in close huddles around long tables, consuming pita and consumed by conversations of identity. Evan and I moved to a circle of couches and chairs on the other side of the room from the tables. He tried to stifle a yawn and he scratched his buzzed hair, thinning near the back of his head. Aside from his role as Chairman of Musalaha’s Board, Evan is also the Chairman of the National Evangelism Committee of Israel and is on the Board of Directors of the Israel College of the Bible. Not to mention that he is one of three pastoral elders for Beit Asaph, a Messianic congregation based in Netanya. Despite his busy schedule, he had excitedly agreed to meet with me and afterwards to take me to Jerusalem’s central bus station; I would be spending the weekend hiking and camping around the Sea of Galilee with my housemates. His pleasant Kiwi accent easily gave away his country of origin. Herschel and Esther, his grandparents, were originally from Jerusalem, but left at the start of the twentieth century, settling down in the green hills and white mountains of New Zealand. In university, I spent a semester studying in Australia and hopped over to New Zealand, although all of my time was spent on the south island and Evan was from the north island. He was born in Whakatane, a fishing town
