Editor’s Note: This column first appeared in Tableaux (Our Episcopate) and is used here with permission.
In Luke 19 Jesus, triumphantly “saddled” on coats atop a beast of burden, looks down from the Mount of Olives and across the valley to the temple mount and the old city of Jerusalem. And he weeps. These people, his people, do not know what would make for peace, and doom is imminent.
Jesus is simply reading the signs of the times, which are dominated by the people’s failure to recognize the time of their episcopate, τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς σου, of their ministerial superintendence over a land on loan from God and over people sustained by the breath of God.
Never were these words more poignant for me than when they were read aloud as I stood in that very place, overlooking that very city with its people ensnared in discord. Nearly 60 of us participated in a travel study course that Glen Stassen and I organized through the office of the Just Peacemaking Initiative at Fuller Seminary.
Our sojourn in the land revealed centuries of missing the point. Like the church sitting on the traditional site of Jesus’ burial, where the keys have long been entrusted to a reputable Muslim family because the Christian denominations competing for floor space inside could not share that responsibility peacefully. Or like the church sitting on the traditional site of Jesus’ birth, where the exterior doors have all been lowered to about four feet in height to fortify the church against combatants riding horseback (and, I suppose, princes of peace riding donkeys).
The latter part of our trip was spent in the Galilee region, which is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Standing on the banks of the sea, below the Mount of the Beatitudes, I read aloud its homiletical namesake. This moment serves in my memory as a counter-point to the story from the Mount of Olives.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus valorizes those who, even in their lowly state, recognize their episcopate, their ministerial superintendence that demands nothing less than enemy love, forgiveness, humility and personal repentance before calling others to the mat – that is to say, the practices that make for peace. The mere fact that Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount well before his “triumphal entry” may indicate something about how responsive his audience was to his season of public ministry. And by the time of his entry into Jerusalem, doom would assuredly follow on the heels of widespread failure to repent, to see the world rightly and respond faithfully.
Just Peacemaking, as a paradigm, and the Just Peacemaking Initiative (JPi), as an institute, have emerged as responses (1) to the practical and practicable teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere and (2) to the analysis of historical situations of conflict to determine what actually works to prevent violence. It should be no surprise that the practices that fill out these two lists display strong correspondence.
Knowing the practices that make for peace and helping followers of Jesus to see the world (more) rightly become crucial when dealing with conflict as large as the one between Israel and Palestine. A quick scan of newspaper headlines tells something of what we are up against.
The most popular images cast Israelis and Palestinians as mortal enemies. “The Israelis made a move on Gaza; their tanks killed Palestinian children living there.” “The Palestinians sent another poor young soul into Jerusalem with a bomb strapped to her chest; they took 70 Israeli lives.” After hearing enough talk like this, we might become convinced that the situation really is clear-cut. These people are just fighters; they just cannot get along.
Our trip was facilitated by the Middle East Justice and Development Initiative, which offers multi-narrative tours of conflict zones around the world. Their objective is to counterbalance the story cast by news headlines, which is often perpetuated by propaganda-driven Holy Land tours.
Throughout our travel study experience, we were in the care of a great variety of people, including professors from different universities—like McAfee’s David Gushee. But our tour guides were two young Israeli women, one Jewish and the other both Christian and Palestinian.
As if these conflictory identities were not enough to hold together in a conversation, these two guides introduced “each other.” They shared details about one another: family background, ethnic heritage, faith, citizenship and education. A sense of trepidation was tied to their shared desire to positively convey the complexity of one another’s humanity. Each felt heard and honored.
Being able to see others in a more complex way is behind each of our just peacemaking practices and is fundamental to what Stassen calls “affirming one another’s valid interests.” But the flipside is equally vital to the process—understanding “oneself ” in a more complex way. Like our guides, the lives we live are shaped by family background, ethnic heritage, faith, citizenship, education as well as other loyalties and commitments. We are social creatures involved in many communities at once, each representing a potential point of connection or departure with a neighbor/enemy.
For two of our 2011 travel study students, this orientation toward action means founding The Global Immersion Project, a nonprofit that leads laypeople into multi-narrative experiences focused on connecting with everyday peacemakers in the land. Theirs is a specific kind of activism that follows from a specific kind of calling, but to those who travel with them, a whole new world of personal relationships is opened. In this way, human texture is restored with all its complexity to a matter of “international politics.”
Doing nonviolent direct action and persevering even through periods of little-to-no success emerge through communal formation and individual effort. Developing the skills to do what makes for peace is a holy task. So I encourage you to share your stories, sermons and musings on the theme of peacemaking with us. As we work to raise the profile of the just peacemaking paradigm, we hope to share with churches and faith leaders a compelling vision of a Jerusalem over which Jesus will not weep.
Now, in the time of our episcopate, may we know-be-do the practices that make for peace.