Excerpted from the address by the Rt. Rev. Alan Gates, our Diocesan Bishop, to the Annual Convention of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 2023. You can find the full text and a video here.
Last Friday morning I passed by Emmanuel Church on Newbury Street, and was struck by two signs on the large old doorways of that church. One says, “Central Reform Temple of Boston, a Progressive Jewish Congregation, meets here. Welcome!” And right next to it hangs a parallel sign which says, “Emmanuel Episcopal Church, a progressive Christian congregation, meets here. Welcome!” My heart was filled with gratitude for that witness, in this moment of all moments.
A few hours later on that same day I was at our Cathedral [Church] of St. Paul, where for 23 years hospitality has been extended for Friday Jummah prayers, a gathering of typically two-to-three hundred Muslim men and women who work downtown and spend their lunch break at prayer. Last Friday they had called for Community Prayers for Peace, inviting both civic and religious leaders. The Mayor of Boston said a word. I was invited to offer greetings and a prayer. We are always mindful that Christians and Muslims are killing each other around the globe. And occasionally people have said to me: Why do you have that group meeting in your church? Don’t you know that Muslims are killing Christians around the globe? And, of course, the answer is, yes, we do know that. Muslims and Christians are killing one another all over the world, and it is precisely that knowledge which impels us to model a different way, a peaceful respect across difference. I am grateful at all times that our cathedral makes that witness, and never more than in such tense times as these.
Finally, on that same Friday in the afternoon, driving to an installation service, I had the car radio on and I heard an interview with Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, who was offering pastoral care on a hillside outside Jerusalem. The rabbi was holding a roll of stickers that he had grabbed off of his desk as he left New York. The stickers said, “Fragile. Please handle with care.” He had been handing them to grieving family members. After further discussing his pastoral role, the rabbi said this.
“I’m a peace activist and way on the left. I’ve been fighting for humanitarian solutions to this conflict throughout my life, and that will never change…”
The interviewer asked, “Do you feel like the peace activist part of you has to sort of stuff itself into a box in this moment?” Rabbi Lau-Lavie replied:
“I am trying very hard not to lose the both/and position that, yes, I stand with Israel at this moment of hurt and will do everything I can to ensure that we defend ourselves against terror. At the same time, I stand with my Palestinian friends who want freedom. I abhor and decry Hamas as a terrorist organization that has hijacked the Palestinians … It’s a both/and, and the both/and is tricky and very unpopular these days. And yet I think that is the only way to make any headway out of this mess, the humanitarian approach, … not revenge, not blaming.”
As I drove along thinking about Christians and Jews in a church on Newbury Street, and Muslims and Christians in a cathedral on Tremont Street; and as I listened to an anguished peace-activist rabbi ministering outside of Jerusalem, I could only weep quietly in the car. In the last two weeks I have, as you probably have too, heard from some friends that to condemn Hamas atrocities is to ignore the legacy of injustice and violence experienced by Palestinians and the plight of thousands now being killed in the death trap which is Gaza. I’ve heard from others that in this moment voicing any support for Palestinians, including though not limited to our Christian partners throughout the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, is failing to honor innocent Israeli victims.
In the Gospel passage we heard last Sunday, Jesus said, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” [Matt. 22:21] In citing that duality, Jesus simultaneously debunks it. It was a false and deceitful dichotomy, because of course everything is God’s. And in the Middle East, all the land is God’s, and all the children are God’s, and all the cruelty and suffering and so-called “collateral damage” is an abomination to God.
I do not know the solution to the intractable hostilities in the Middle East. I don’t think you do either. But I am certain that we must reject the easy dualities and reductionist platitudes of blame and blamelessness; of good and bad; of the primacy of ancient history versus recent history. Our task, I think, is to condemn indiscriminate violence and cruelty wherever we see it; to extend compassionate care wherever we can support it; to join calls for an immediate ceasefire; to demand humanitarian action on the part of our own government and others; and to pray fervently for people of all faiths who are acting as agents of justice and peace. That, I think, is our task.