NEW TESTAMENT READING—1 Corinthians 9: 16-23
On Friday January 16th, a story began to circulate live on the air—first through radio stations and then through international television stations such as the BBC. For some of us here in the United States, the story would come later through interviews with a recent graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. The recent graduate’s name is Amer Shurrab. Amer grew up on a farm located in the southern portion of the Gaza Strip. In 2001, he began attending United World College located along the Adriatic Sea in Italy. In 2004, he received a scholarship to attend Middlebury where he would study economics for four years. On the 16th of January, he was living in Washington D.C. when he received a call from an older brother who lives in Saudi Arabia. Their father was on TV making a plea for the life of one of their brothers, Ibrahim.
The ordeal experienced by Amer’s family had begun earlier that day. Ibrahim and his brother Kassab were home visiting their father. Ibrahim was an 18-year-old freshman in college studying commerce. Kassab was a 28-year-old architect who had finally graduated a few years earlier after the difficulties of often missing classes due to checkpoints and “troubles on the roads.” Both frequently came home to help their father on the farm, “to get some fresh air, and to enjoy nature.”
On the day of the ordeal, the father and the two sons left their farm so that the sons might return to where they normally lived. They left during the afternoon when the gunfire had ceased. As they turned to drive down a main road, Israeli troops opened fire on them from a house they had occupied. Palestinian hostages in the house who were being used as human shields later reported that the soldiers had told their commanding officer that they recognized the car and knew that it belonged to a civilian. Nevertheless, the commanding officer ordered them to shoot to kill. No warning was given to the car. No initial shots were fired at the engine or the tires. The soldiers shot straight at the driver and the passengers.
Kassab was hit with several bullets and jumped out of the car. After the car came to a stop, the soldiers cursed at Ibrahim and his father and ordered them to get out. As Ibrahim then stepped from the car, he was shot in the leg. A “hail of bullets” came. Eventually, Ibrahim and his father were able to get out of the car. The father had been shot in his arm. The soldiers let the father attempt to call for an ambulance but they threatened to shoot if Ibrahim did. The father called, but the emergency medical center replied that they could not send an ambulance without the coordination and approval of the army which refused to give permission. An uncle was then called and he found an ambulance that was willing to go independently, but Israeli tanks forced them to go back or else be shot. The Red Cross and a number of other human rights organizations were called, but none could help. Through various networks, leading Israeli politicians were contacted along with persons in the army. All of it was to no avail. Still bleeding, every five minutes Ibrahim would tell his father that he needed an ambulance. His father repeatedly tried to call for help. At sunset, Ibrahim began to shiver and tell his father he was cold.
Ibrahim and his father were prohibited from returning to the car or going toward Kassab who was lying dead on the other side. The soldiers threatened to shoot them if they moved. Eventually, the father saw wild cats circling around Kassab’s body. Unable to take it any more, he finally was able to maneuver around the car to turn over Kassab’s body and cover his face. After Ibrahim learned of his brother’s death, he said to his father, “Were you pleased with him, Daddy?” His father said, “Yes, I’m pleased with him.”
Not long after that the father decided that he had to move his son to the car for warmth. Against the threats of the soldiers, they moved. From the car, Ibrahim’s father continued to make and receive calls. The media were calling him, and his plea was being broadcast live on the air. After a plea given at midnight, Ibrahim died. In all, Ibrahim’s father spent twenty hours trapped on the road, while a hospital was only a little more than a half mile away. If Ibrahim and his father had been allowed to walk, they probably would have made it.
When a reporter asked Amer what he would like to express to the people of the United States and the new presidential administration, he replied, “I have lived in this country for over four years now. I know the people in this country are peace-loving and good-natured. And I know they’re not aware of these atrocities. I urge people, I urge the President…, and I urge the Congress to look at the facts, to look at what is going (on) and to make sure it stops, make sure no more innocent…lives are being killed anymore.” Amer further added, “[People here in the United States] can be friends of Israel, but a friend…a good friend will tell their friends when they make a mistake. They will never give them a carte blanche to do whatever they want, because, at the end of the day, what Israel is doing today is harming it[self] more than anyone else.” Despite all that has happened, Amer in these words offers a living, reconciling hope to accompany the story of Kassab and Ibrahim.
In the first century, in the land of Palestine, a similar story began to circulate. It was a story of a young man whose life had been brutally cut short by the military forces of an occupation. In years that followed, Paul served as a collaborator with those same forces but at some point he became irrevocably changed. Legend tells us it was a blinding encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, but if we look at Paul’s writings it is clear that what truly set him on fire was the gospel, the story of Jesus. So often in life it is neither neatly packaged principles of justice nor cogently argued statements of faith that stir our souls. So often it is not statistics or headlines about violence that awaken us. It is rather the flesh and blood stories of real life people that spur us to reflection and action.
As a Roman citizen, Paul could have given his allegiance to another story, a story that said that the execution of Jesus was necessary, that it was what the Roman Empire had to do to maintain peace and order in the face of treason. Nevertheless, Paul became won over by the story of Jesus. The story had struck him so profoundly that he felt compelled to make it his life’s mission to share the story with as many as possible. Such was the passion of Paul that he was glad to tell the story free of charge. He cared not weather he shared it with his fellow Jews or with Gentiles. In fact, he eagerly sought the broader audience. He reveled in being able to meet people where they were at in their own culture, abiding by their own laws, just so he could share the story with them, just so others could be transformed as he was transformed. Unlike Christian missionaries of later centuries, Paul was not trying to destroy other faith traditions and cultures. He was instead seeking to give people an encounter with a story that offered a broad welcome to all comers whether they were Jewish like him or not. Ultimately, Paul would even take this story into Rome, the heart of the very empire that killed Jesus. In Paul, we see that the story of Jesus came with an unconquerable hope for a reconciled world. We might ask ourselves now, “To what ministry of hope and reconciliation does the story of Jesus call us today?”
On the same day that the soldiers fired on Ibrahim, Kassab, and their father, on the same day that Amer received a phone call in Washington D.C. from his brother in Saudi Arabia, the foreign minister of Israel was holding a press conference in Washington D.C. At this conference, a news reporter stood up and noted that during the recent conflict thirteen Israelis had been killed while more than a thousand Palestinians had been killed, including 322 children. To these numbers, the foreign minister responded that Israeli soldiers were “trying to avoid any kind” of civilian casualties. In referring to the civilian deaths cited, the foreign minister explained that during war, “these things happen.”
On Friday, January 16th, two stories circulated around the world: one from the father of two dead sons and the other from the emissary of the government responsible for their deaths. Which one shall stir our soul? Which one shall remind us of the story of Jesus and its call upon our lives? Amen.