WLSU - The Silence

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I remember the first time I took communion in the Holy Land. There is a moment in the Eucharistic Prayer where the priest holds up the blessed bread that has become the Body of Christ and breaks it in two. In almost every church I had been in up to that point, they had used a large thin wafer that would make an audible snap as it broke. But in Jerusalem, the priest lifted a piece of flat bread aloft. It did not snap. They tore the bread in two from top to bottom. The rending of Christ’s body was silent.

That silence has, for the most part, been my response to what has been happening in Gaza and Israel these last weeks. I have been silent. Not the silence of apathy, or disinterest. Not the silence of wisdom either. The silence of overwhelm. The silence of agony, when you try to scream and nothing comes out. The silence of numbness when you can tell someone is speaking to you but you don’t have it in you to respond. The silence of futility because my words change nothing.

Do you remember the story of Job? For reasons that seem trivial and incomprehensible, God allows Job - righteous Job, blameless Job - to be plagued. In mere moments Job’s crops and livestock are burned to the ground, his oxen stolen, his employees slaughtered. While he’s still hearing this news, a house collapses killing every one of his children. In short order, his body becomes covered with painful sores – as if the unbearable pain within cannot be contained and must find boiling expression on his very skin. Job’s situation is unthinkable. His own wife cannot fathom it. She suggests he might be better off dead.

The story goes that in this moment of unimaginable horror, Job’s three dearest friends show up. They have heard of his woes, and they aim to comfort and console him. When they first see him, they don’t even recognize him. When they realize this terrible figure is their friend, they wail, but then they move in to be near him. The story says they sat with Job on the ground for seven days and seven nights and didn’t speak a word. They were silent. What could they say?

Well, it turns out there’s a lot they could say. Because in the pages that follow, each of Job’s friends go on at length with their theories about why all these awful things have happened to him. Chapter after chapter is filled with their arguments, all of which are basic variations of, “You must have done something to deserve this.” Job’s friends are full of opinions. When they open their mouths, it is clear that they are more interested in explaining Job’s predicament than they are in honoring his pain, or even entering into that pain with him and being transformed by it themselves.

I’m not better than them. Even in their silence they sat and witnessed his pain for 7 days up close. I have brought myself to watch almost none of the videos that are circulating of the cruelty being visited upon Israelis and Palestinians alike. And when I do watch, it’s on mute. Soundless. Perhaps my silence isn’t so pure. Maybe I’m just on mute, with the violence of my own opinions running silently under the surface.

This week the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital in Gaza was hit with a missile and over 400 people died. The hospital is a ministry of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem – with much of its funding coming directly from Episcopalians in America. The bishop who oversees this hospital is a dear friend, and a peaceful man. You have heard of this horrific missile strike. How did you feel when it was reported as an Israeli missile? How did you feel when you then heard reports that it was a Palestinian missile? Did one sound better to you than the other? Which culprit was preferable for the story you are telling about what is happening? I know what my preference was.

I wonder if the children who were killed care who was responsible.

Our need to have a clear cut take on what is happening unites us with Job’s friends. It somehow feels safer if we can unabashedly Stand with Israel or Free Palestine. We can choose our story and roll our eyes at the obviousness of it all. We can avoid our grief and focus on our outrage.

Maybe Job isn’t a good comparison. After all, we are directly told that he was innocent. Meanwhile, there is plenty of blame to go around in the Holy Land today. But what if Job’s innocence isn’t the centerpiece of the story? What if this is a story about our fundamental inability to comprehend horrible things? What if this is a story about the confusing reality of trying to keep your faith and maintain your hope in the midst of tragedy? And the way we seek so quickly to classify everything we see; that way we don’t have to endure the silence that grief and sorrow demand.

God shows up in the story of Job. God shows up and tell Job’s friends they are wrong. Other than that, God offers no explanation, no definitive answer. There is silence there. But God does offer clarity: There are some things you don’t get to fully understand. But you have the choice to love the ones who suffer. To love them with your whole heart.

Most of the people I have known that have visited Israel and Palestine had much stronger and clearer opinions before their visit than after. Something about being there makes the situation harder to understand. But it also makes the people there – Palestinian and Israeli, so much easier to love. To be near these people, to witness them as human makes you know less and love more.

It's very possible, by the way, that your opinion is right. That one side holds the lion’s share of the blame for the atrocity playing out before our eyes. Maybe you and I even agree on which side that is. Is us being right what our beloved Palestinians and Israelis need so deeply right now? Their bodies are being torn apart. Is it my opinion they need? Or my love?