Today’s Scripture Reading (February 6, 2020): Micah 7
The old adage teaches
that land is a good investment because they aren’t making any more. And that is
very true. In fact, with the seas rising as a result of climate change, we are
losing some of the lands that we once possessed. I live in an era when the area
of the earth is settled. We have examined every inch of the planet that lives
above the oceans of the world. There are no unknown landmasses upon which we
have not yet stumbled. There is no hidden valley where prehistoric dinosaurs
still roam. And that is the problem.
I live in a
world of displaced people. Everywhere I look, displaced people look back at me.
The map in the last hundred years has changed in drastic ways, often as a
result of these displaced people who have no place to call home. And there is
no more land to put them without displacing someone else.
And that is the
real problem in the Middle East. Israel is a new nation and an old one. As a nation,
Israel did not exist from 70 C.E. until 1948 C.E. Other people inhabited their homeland,
and in the process, it became the homeland of these other nationalities. But
there was always within the soul of the Jewish person a desire to return home. Except
that home did not exist. Instead, they lived in the homes of other people, and sometimes
the Jews got expelled from these lands. It happened in Spain in 1492. While
Christopher Columbus was “sailing the ocean blue” in search of Asia, Spain was
exiling the Jews from Spanish land. At that time, many returned to Palestine to
try to make a new life. But the unfortunate reality of Jewish life, wherever
they lived, was that they existed as strangers in a foreign land. After World War
2 and Adolf Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jews, the cry for a homeland was
renewed. But to give Israel a home, even their traditional one, meant that
someone else had to be displaced. The result is the conflict that rages in the Middle
East today. And in many ways, it is a conflict that is without a solution.
In the closing
of his prophecy, Micah promises that there will be a time for Israel to build
and expand once more. His eyes are not likely focused on the long exile that
would result from Rome's destruction of Jerusalem, but a much shorter one that would
take place at the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians. But the principle and
the prophecy still holds. There were probably many Jews who read the prophecy before
1948 and longed for the day when the words of Micah would come true once again,
when Israel would be able to build walls and expand their territory. Physically,
the expansion came almost immediately in 1948 as Israel’s neighbors tried to
rid themselves of the troublesome people, but Israel not only stood her ground,
but she took back some of her traditional land from the countries who had
attacked her. And today, it is still some of these lands, like those of the “West
Bank,” that remains in question.
And while the
Jews may not like to admit it, through the Christian philosophical expansion in
the world, Israel has also expanded her influence, possibly beyond the point
that it ever had been previously. Now, we are all citizens of Jerusalem.
Christians all over the world look for the rebuilding of the Temple in
Jerusalem almost as much as the Jews do. Israel is important because it holds
the seeds of our faith as well as Jewish spirituality. Micah’s prophecy has
come true once again. And yet, the real solution to the Middle East still
evades us. Because while one body of the displaced has found a home, the
process has led to more displacement, and they are not making any more land.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah
8
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