Not in My Name

Advent 4 – Isaiah
Isaiah 7.10-16

Jerusalem is under grave threat. The Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III is planning to attack the smaller states in the region and those leaders are forming alliances to defend themselves. Because King Ahaz has refused to join them, two kings of these smaller states are planning a coup to install a ruler who will join them in their defense against Assyria. Ahaz and all the people of Judah are terrified, “and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.” (Is 7.2)

In this time of terror, God sends Isaiah to tell King Ahaz, “do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint.” (Is 7.4) Isaiah carries a reassurance from God—soon these two kings will be destroyed. Isaiah is sent to remind Ahaz that his job is to trust in God for safety—not rely on alliances with his neighbors.

Isaiah offers him a sign, but Ahaz refuses, pretending piety, saying he does not want to put God to the test. But the bottom line is that Ahaz does not want a sign from God. Ahaz would rather rely on allies with weapons and armies than depend on God and God’s puny little prophet promising salvation. Isaiah gives him a sign anyway—a pregnant woman announcing salvation with her pregnant belly, carrying “God with us” through Jerusalem’s streets.

Pregnancy and birth—the messiest and most dangerous time in the life for both mother and baby—and universally a source of joy and hope, even in the most dire circumstances. Babies are signs of a future we cannot imagine, a future beyond our lifetime. And Isaiah’s baby, in the womb of the young woman, bears God’s own presence, right there in Jerusalem, among the people whose hearts are quaking.

Things are much the same in Jerusalem today. Palestinians in East Jerusalem live with the daily terror that the police might show up at breakfast and drag them into the streets, evicting them from their homes to make way for Jewish families to move in. Jewish residents are fearful of suicide bombers, or that they will soon be in the minority, that the Palestinians will outnumber them. Other Jewish residents fear that Israel’s unjust treatment of the Palestinians is undermining the very fabric of their society; militarization of their country is teaching their children that Palestinians are less than human, that Palestinians’ well-being does not matter.

We might ask, Where is Isaiah today? Who is speaking out, offering God’s wisdom and reassuring the rulers and the people of God’s faithfulness? Who is calming the fears?

I met one such prophet at the weekly demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, next to the Old City.

Over the past few years, the Israeli government has been evicting Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah. The day I was there we met Nasser Ghawi, whose family had lived in their home in Sheikh Jarrah since the early 1950s, when they were given the home by the U.N. Nasser’s father was a refugee fleeing from the Israeli paramilitaries like the Hagannah, that were removing Palestinians from their homes in 1947-49 (for a complete history of the removals, read Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine). Nasser’s father gave up his refugee status, trading his refugee status for the home, but now an Israeli court has ruled against his petition to keep the home and his family was evicted. The new occupants have erected a giant orange menorah on the roof.

After we talked with Nasser Ghawi we went to the demonstration, a noisy sort of street fair—orange juice vendors, poster-waving protestors, children playing, fathers carrying toddlers in their arms, and an Arab family escorted by a band of drummers (see photo). Across the street were the Israeli soldiers and the police—some were standing at barricades blocking access to the Ghawi home; some were taking photos of the demonstrators.

I was surprised to realize that almost all the demonstrators were Jewish. I couldn’t read the Hebrew on the signs, so I asked one young woman what her sign said. She told me “Not in my name.” She said that she did not want her government to remove Palestinians from their homes for her sake. She was in no danger from these families and she did not want her government using her tax dollars to commit such an injustice. She wanted everyone to live in peace and security. She was speaking boldly to the ruling powers of Jerusalem; she was offering her face to the police cameras; she was risking arrest as she used her voice to calm the fears of her people. She told me her parents were divided on the issue; her father supported the government; her mother did not. But her family supported her in speaking her mind.

I don’t know the young woman’s name, or even whether she was religious. I do know that she spoke God’s truth, and that she was not the only Jewish prophet there that day, proclaiming good news to the rulers and to the people of Jerusalem, offering them a future and a hope. Please keep her and the other demonstrators who gather every Shabbat (Friday evening) in Sheikh Jarrah in your prayers.

God of the prophets, you sent your messengers to declare hope for the victims of injustice, to calm the fears of the terrified. Help us to recognize your messengers of hope in the confusion and terror we are feeling today. Help us to trust your promises and to boldly live into your promises through our actions. Amen.