Last week I heard another statement from Israel that curdled my blood. Some politician (I don’t think it was the new right-wing Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett.) decreed that God chose the Jewish people as His chosen and gave them the land of Israel. Israel is meant for Jews and no one else.
Such a statement is the very reason that I quit reciting daily monastic prayer, where we cycle through the 150 psalms every month. The Psalter is riddled with verses claiming that Israel is God’s chosen people, favored above all others. After my three-month visit to Palestine in 2014, I simply could not continue to flush such nonsense through my brain four times a day.
I am disgusted to hear and know and realize that anyone in today’s world would suggest that one people are God’s chosen, above all other people. (Naive, I know. But nonetheless, I am disgusted and outraged.)
Today I have two favorite theologians and their quotes.
,Michael Curry, the Archbishop of the U.S. Episcopalian Church said in his sermon in Honolulu in 2018, “If it ain’t about Love, then it ain’t about God.”
Amen to that one.
Any my personal all-time favorite, Mother Julian of Norwich, always gives me hope and sustains my cultivated naivete.
“All shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well.”
Amen to that one too.
Neither statement leaves one sliver of space for “Israel for Jews and nobody else.”