April 8, 2002
CAN THE MIDDLE EAST CURSE
BE MADE A BLESSING?

Four thousand years ago God called Abraham out of his homeland in Iraq. He spent decades as a nomad, living mostly around the modern border between Turkey and Syria. Then God directed him to migrate south, through Syria and Lebanon, across the Golan Heights into Palestine, a land where, according to God, his descendants would come to live. Moving through the West Bank region, Abraham traveled the length of Palestine, through the deserts of the Sinai Peninsula and on into Egypt. After spending some time there, he moved north again, through the Negev Desert to the area west of the Dead Sea. In this region he lived the rest of his days.

If many of these place names sound familiar, it's because we are reading about them in our daily newspapers and hearing them mentioned regularly in television newscasts. Just about all the roads where Abraham walked are now traveled by soldiers carrying automatic rifles and even by an occasional tank.

When God first called Abraham, back in Iraq, he promised him, "In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). Three of the earth's present-day "families" have been particularly blessed through Abraham: Jews, Christians, and Muslims. These three religious movements all consider Abraham their father, and all of them find their spiritual origin in Abraham's calling from Iraq 4000 years ago.

So it is striking and ironic that this past weekend's Middle East drama was dominated by pictures of Israeli (Jewish) troops firing on Palestinian (Muslim) resistance fighters who had taken cover in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Christianity was born. This time the Christians were (for now, at least) the non-combatants (though, of course, there are many Christian Palestinians). Often during the past two millennia Christians have been active participants in struggles against Jews or Muslims.

What's wrong with this picture? How can these three "families," all in some sense children of Abraham, be killing each other?

The answer may be found in a closer reading of Genesis 12:3. Some modern translations have attempted to capture a subtlety of Hebrew grammar by expressing God's promise this way: "In you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves." This reflects a Hebrew verb form that has no direct parallel in English.

Scholars interpret the significance of this choice of Hebrew words in various ways. The best explanation seems to be this: God's blessing through Abraham is not automatic; it depends on how a particular "family" responds to God's revelation through Abraham. Calling Abraham your father does not necessarily make it so, as both Jesus and Paul pointed out (John 5:39-40; Romans 4:13-14). God's blessing does come through his self-revelation to Abraham, but it only falls upon those who voluntarily accept it by faith, reaching out to the God who has reached out to them. In this way, the "families" of the earth (whether nations, or religions, or people groups) may choose to "bless themselves" in Abraham.

This is the heart of the problem. Most Jews, Christians and Muslims throughout history have proudly called themselves children of Abraham, but have rejected the heart of Abraham's faith: "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness" (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:1-5, Galatians 3:6-7). So in their battles against each other, they are totally out of touch with their religious roots. Jews are not acting as true Jews; Muslims are not acting as true Muslims; Christians are not acting as true Christians. Their heritage from Abraham is a curse instead of a blessing.

We see the awful picture on television of Israeli troops surrounding Palestinian militia in a Christian shrine. But this is not about religion at all. The struggle has its roots in world political tensions over economic domination in the twenty-first century, over control of oil supplies, over the growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots, over cultural tensions because age-old traditions are being challenged by novel and untried values.

Ironically, all this is focused in The Land, often called "The Promised Land." The Land promised by God to Abraham was promised in the late nineteenth century to both the Palestinians and the Israelis by short-sighted western powers. Two people-groups are trying to cash in on men's promises, without reference to God's promise.

If we could only all go back to our spiritual roots . . . . If we who call ourselves children of Abraham would "bless ourselves" through the faith of Abraham . . . . If this was the message of Colin Powell, and if all the combatants listened, the problems would be settled. But this is the way of repentance and faith, not the way of human governments.

–Pastor George Van Alstine