A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on December 1, 2024 by Revd Dr Sam Wells
Advent Sunday
Of all the challenges of the last year, the one I’ve most frequently been approached to respond to is the horror of what’s taking place in Gaza. Since our Advent theme this year is Peace, I want tonight to try to understand what’s happening in Gaza and what it means for Christians.
When I sit with a person in distress and listen to their grief, I often start the conversation by saying ‘Where does the story begin?’ How you understand Gaza is significantly shaped by when you assume the story begins. Those who believe the destruction of Gaza is necessary and defensible, even appropriate and just, tell a story that begins on October 7, 2023, with the hideous slaughter of 1200 Israelis, and traces back to 1941, with the inception of the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered, and beyond that to centuries of persecution of the Jews, leading to the inception by the Hungarian Theodore Herzl of the First Zionist Congress in 1897, which began to organise for what in 1948 became the State of Israel.
By contrast, those who see the death of 45,000 Palestinians in the last 14 months as monstrous and indefensible tell a story that begins perhaps in 1995, with the assassination by a right-wing Israeli of Yitzhak Rabin, the signatory of the Oslo accords and the last man with the conviction and influence to deliver a secure Israel alongside a valid Palestinian state, and the subsequent extinction of all realistic hope for a future for Palestinians, resulting in increasingly extremist governments in the Occupied Territories. That story would trace back to 1967 with the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and subsequent annexation of the Golan Heights, to 1948 with the Nakba (or disaster) that followed the inception of the State of Israel, and to 1917 with the Balfour Declaration by which the British government decreed the creation of a Jewish homeland on Palestinian territory.
Why is this conflict so deeply problematic, compared say to the Syrian Civil War of 2012-17, where casualties were ten times higher, or the Second Congo War of 1998-2002, where deaths were a hundred times higher? Two secular reasons stand out. First, Jews are a race as well as a religion. As a racial group, their influence draws admiration but also sometimes fear and suspicion. The legacy of the Holocaust is of indefinite worldwide significance. The fate of modern Israel has been yoked to that of America almost since the state was founded. When Israel is in turmoil, America and to a large extent the West is in turmoil – to a degree perhaps beyond that in relation to any other non-European country. Second, the Palestinian cause is among the most widely recognised of longstanding international injustices, and its open wound is kept in vision by a host of movements globally, well beyond ethnic or regional alliances. While some of these organisations are deplorably anti-Semitic, the movement as a whole is rooted in a quest for liberation and dignity.
But for Christians the issues go beyond these two more general factors. For Christians, the story begins in Genesis and zeroes in on Romans 9-11. In Genesis 12, God pledges to bless all the families of the earth through Abraham’s descendants; and in Genesis 15, God says, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates.’ It’s not clear to what extent these promises are modified by the exile. Nonetheless in Romans, Paul insists that God’s faithfulness to Israel is irrevocable. We cannot trust a God who goes back on such a covenant. Furthermore, Jesus was a Jew. He lived in Palestine and died in Jerusalem. These are holy places, to Christians, Jews and Muslims. And the church has persecuted Jews for most of its history, creating the circumstances that made the creation of the State of Israel necessary. Meanwhile there’ve been Christians living in the Holy Land continuously since the first century. And those Christians, like everyone whose ancestors have lived in the Holy Land all that time, are Palestinians. Christians in the West who feel a sense of identity with and loyalty to the State of Israel on grounds of faith or guilt invariably forget that many Palestinians are Christians – indeed Anglicans. They’re as Anglican as St Martin-in-the-Fields. So Christians are hamstrung to criticise Israel, because the church’s history of antisemitism is inextricable from the rise of Zionism. But their solidarity in the communion of saints lies with their fellow members of the body of Christ in the Holy Land, including Gaza.
I imagine everyone here has occasionally, often or permanently averted their gaze from Gaza because it’s too distressing to behold the agony of bombardment, of hunger, cold and hostility without food, medicine shelter, let up or any end in sight. But it’s important to perceive that what’s happening is actually not just a military strategy or diplomatic policy but a theological shift. Israel positioned itself from 1948 as a David surrounded by the Goliath of the Arab world, punching beyond its weight and glad to narrate as miracle its triumphs in 1967 and 1973. It welcomed the world’s sympathy and admiration, as a plucky and nimble cat, leaping and dodging the assaults of the snarling dogs around it. But gradually, from the Camp David settlement with Egypt in 1978 to the easing of relations with the United Arab Emirates in 2020, Israel was losing enemies while the Palestinians were running out of friends. Israel morphed from being David to being Goliath, while the Palestinian leadership in Gaza became increasingly desperate. But at this point the theological stance changed. Due to electoral fragility, the Israeli cabinet became populated not just by committed Zionists who believed passionately in the validity of the State of Israel, but by supremacists who see Jews not as humbly called to be a blessing to all the families of the earth but instead as positively superior to other races and nations. This is something very different from a devotional conviction that God will preserve the Jews. It’s an insistence that Jews have an innate mastery of the earth and should anticipate their destiny as its leaders and guides. The Old Testament knows of no such conviction.
With this leadership, the State of Israel has set aside the world’s abiding guilt, genuine sympathy, and consequent acceptance of the right of Israel to defend itself in the face of the Goliath of surrounding enemies, and gone to a place where its actions become hard for even its friends to uphold. Just as in the book of Esther it seems the Jews resolve that, since God won’t help them, they must take matters into their own hands, so it appears the current Israeli cabinet has decided neither God nor the United States, still less the United Nations, will be its saviour, and it must consequently destroy everything that poses a threat. What began as a legitimate project of freeing the hostages and disentangling the hostile forces in Gaza from the general population seems to have turned into an unachievable quest to eradicate everything that might ever imperil Israel in the future. The result is that precious few of the 254 hostages have been freed, while antagonism has been seared into the Palestinian soul, guaranteeing hostility for generations to come. If this comes from theological conviction, it portrays a God it’s hard to respect, let alone worship; while if it comes from military strategy, it seems destined to perpetuate conflict for decades to come. Israel had the world’s sympathy on October 7, yet has jettisoned that goodwill – just as America did after 9/11. Of course, this direction of the Israeli government is not the position of all or even most Israelis; but in the horror at October 7, it can be hard to separate wisdom and faith from fury and fear.
What needs to happen now? This question has a specific and a general answer. The specific answer is that those bankrolling and arming the battle like America and Qatar need to bring about a cessation of hostilities, during which they can broker the return of the remaining hostages, a commitment from Hamas that it will not rearm with the intent of perpetrating another October 7-style attack, a withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, and the influx of humanitarian aid and reconstruction. Wars only continue when it’s in at least one party’s interests to pursue them; inducements need to be made to assert larger interests that only peace can advance.
The more general answer to the question ‘What needs to happen now?’ is a series of platitudes that should go without articulating but it seems still need to be said. Jews must be able to live without fear of massacre or subtler forms of oppression and threat. The world has to understand that October 7 embodied the worst fear of Jews everywhere – like a ritual enactment of a total nightmare – and recognise the trauma of that day has littered with landmines all reasoned paths to peace. Yet Palestinian aspirations to dignity, respect, humanity, and life itself are not diminished by the horrifying actions of extremists. It’s hard to imagine any peace emerging that does not involve Palestinians having an identity and security and economy that comes through an independent geographical state. Better ideas may exist; but they have yet to appear in 75 years of imagining. Unless progress is made on this agenda, there will be no soil in which moderate Palestinian leadership can grow, and Palestinian authorities will be at the mercy of foreign backers that may not have their best interests at heart. The international community must gather its energies around these objectives. The foregoing seven sentences may seem obvious; but they’ve all almost disappeared in the rage and dismay of the last 14 months, so I’ve taken the time to say them again.
And that brings us round to our Advent theme of peace. We all have a choice. We can invest in sustained practices of making relationships across difference, seeking understanding amid diversity, pursuing just processes with rigour, holding authorities to account, upholding equitable agreements, building durable institutions, ensuring suppressed voices are heard, and insisting no one is left behind. Or we can accept that there’ll be explosions of rage and violence, in which power and might crush the vulnerable and truth and justice are cast aside. The first approach doesn’t have a lot of doves, twigs, rainbows, or soft-focus reunions. But it’s the basis for all the other social goods we seek and enjoy – and that, right now in Gaza, are nowhere to be found. Ephesians says of Jesus, ‘He is our peace.’ He breaks down the wall of hostility. He does it by his presence among us. By his attention to us. By his entering our impenetrable mysteries and delighting in our diverse company. By his participation in our struggle and partnership in our endeavours. By his enjoyment of our whole being. This is his glory. His cross tells us peace is not the easy road. But his resurrection shows us peace is our ultimate destiny. Let us commit this Advent to study the paths that lead to peace. Because Gaza is showing us the unspeakable alternative. And if we don’t turn around the misery of Gaza, the horror of Gaza will become the reality of all of us.
