Bruce Shipman's passion for the Mideast goes back to a childhood spent in Turkey and Egypt. Ordained priest in the Episcopal Church in 1968, he's served as a parish priest in Connecticut since 1973.He's led numerous parish pilgrimages to the Holy Land and is active in the Tree of Life Educational Fund's activities and advocacy. He was Chaplain of the Episcopal Church at Yale University in 2013-14 when a letter to the NYTimes linking the upsurge in anti-Semitic violence to Israel's war in Gaza caused
an intense backlash leading to resignation of the post.

SATURDAY IN THE FIRST WEEK OF LENT

Bosque Retreat Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico
February 20, 2016

“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

• My thanks to Linda Gaither and the gang of four for inviting me to preach this morning.
• Linda reminded me that it’s an Ember Day and also a day to remember Frederick Douglass, who died on February 20 in 1895.
• I’m honestly not sure what an Ember Day is anymore – once upon a time when I was in seminary I used to write a carefully scripted letter to the Bishop from my room in - and I seem to recall something about planting and sowing that fits nicely with the themes that come to mind today, the impossible dreams that keep hope alive and promise a future: loving our enemies, praying for our persecutors and slanderers, refusing to return evil for evil, refusing to demonize “the Other”; being fit for ministry and the calling which we share as followers of Jesus.
• And this impossible dream was lived by Frederick Douglass, whose extraordinary life is documented in his books, the first being Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written in 1845 just seven years after he escaped from bondage in Maryland to start a new life in Massachusetts.
  From the degradation of slavery when against all odds he taught himself to read and write, to a position of influence among the abolitionists of New England, his remarkable story inspires and should be read by every student of American history.
• And not only was he a great model for black Americans, he was a great Christian leader who found in Jesus’ words the ground for hope and suffering for a purpose.
• His inner strength was theologically grounded and unshakeable.
• A thing that I find most moving is his reconciliation after the Civil War with his former slave master, Thomas Auld, in Maryland.
• Auld’s daughter Amanda had been moved by a speech made by Douglass, and asked him to meet her dying father and if possible to forgive him.
• That Douglass made the trip to Maryland to be reconciled to Auld makes me think of the survivors of the recent Charleston massacre in the beloved community of Mother Emmanuel Church whose example of Christian love – forgiving an unforgiveable crime – moves me to the core.
• Douglass derided much of American Christianity as nationalistic and hypocritical, which remains true to this day.
  But Charleston gave us a glimpse of glory, of Christ-like love that opens up a future of new possibilities.
  And it is so with righteous Jews who dare to speak the truth of the Israel/Palestine situation.
• Mark Braverman truly lives up to his name.
  Robert Cohen, one of the many people I was in touch with during my own time of troubles at Yale writes a blog full of grace and truth.
• Some of you may have seen his recent response titled: “My Facebook “Friends” and Foes.
• It is something I can relate to, having received a fair amount of angry mail, a fair amount of supportive and congratulatory mail, and a small amount of hate mail.
• What did people write Robert?
• You should be ashamed! You are a disgrace! You are a fool!
• You are part of an extremist self loathing fringe….
• His reply, “I dragged values, ethics, human rights and obligations…into a place where they have no right to be! I thought this was what Being Jewish looked like. Big mistake.
• Because other ways of Being Jewish are available.
• Robert Cohen you are a fool of the worst kind.
• Yes, it’s true. I should have known better. Other ways of Being Jewish are available. All equally valid. In fact, on the whole, based on the Comments and Likes the other ways of Being Jewish are more valid than mine.
• Such is the (un)civil Jewish War.
• Mate, you need to take your head out of your tuchas!
• I hear the IDF is harvesting brains….unfortunately they could not find one inside Robert Cohen.
• If you only knew me, you wouldn’t say that.
• Robert, we both want the same thing.
• We do?
• Peace.
• But is that peace and justice or merely peace and quiet for you?
• Do you seriously think your pals are going to give a flying “F” that you’re not like the other Jews?
• It’s true. Other ways of Being Jewish are available.
• I wrote a letter to Anne Frank…I wasn’t expecting a reply…to ask what she thought of it all.
• It seems he has been brainwashed by the culture of the sickest people…
• I did get a reply,
• This letter is shameful,
• But none from Anne.
• It must be true: I have read the wrong books, met the wrong people, the “people who kill their own children rather than part with their hatred of the Jews”, but this response was better than some.
• The Holocaust deniers, the diary deniers, the Anne Frank deniers, Robert Cohen you are a disgrace to the Jewish people.
• I clearly have a talent for bringing out the very best in people!
• Values, ethics, human rights and obligations..
• I can’t understand the mental disorder kapos like you suffer..
• If you only knew me you wouldn’t say such things, and now I’ve hit the big time…I’ve arrived on the scene, the first bona fide call for my death.
• I hope you die at the hand of your beloved Muslims!
• It’s the Jewish uncivil War.
  With my values, ethics, human rights and obligations I have brought incitement, hatred, terror.
• It’s true, other ways of Being Jewish are available, but if you only knew me you wouldn’t say these things.
• Actually, maybe you would.
• I know that we can all relate to that – we know only too well that there are other ways of being Christian - and in Robert Cohen we have a kindred spirit who is fighting the good fight.
• If Frederick Douglass shows us how to be truer Christians, so does Robert Cohen who knows the law and the prophets and is willing to suffer a little for righteousness’ sake.
• And Ayman Odeh, the Palestinian Israeli leader who is serving in the Knesset and preaching the co-existence of Arab and Jew in the land of their forebears.
• That’s what we’re about, and what little trouble I experienced at Yale is nothing – less than nothing – compared to the conditions that we know to obtain in Bethlehem and Jenin and Ramallah and east Jerusalem where collective punishment and daily humiliations and degradations are communicated by an army and an occupying power whose message is “we’re in charge now. You’re not wanted. You have no future here. Better leave now and spare yourself a lot of trouble.”
• Gaza as we know is in a category apart, a festering third generation refugee camp of just under two million people, a situation in some ways comparable to the Warsaw Ghetto, but who dares say it?
• We must.
• Tom Friedman in his recent column in the NYTimes is no longer the upbeat reporter, and at last he admits what we have known for years.
• “The two state solution is dead,” he reports, “and a low grade civil war will be Israel’s future.”
• He foresees increasing isolation for Israel in the years to come, and increasing criticism on college campuses in this country, although as I have learned the campus today is a minefield where there are great pressures to control the discussion and keep it within acceptable limits.
• The issue for us to address is this reality, and the future for which we advocate must be universal suffrage: one adult, one vote. All people living in the Holy Land shall participate in their government and be safe to grow their vines and tend their sheep, to use the image of the “good life” promoted by the prophets.
• Separation by law, apartheid, is not an acceptable option.
• The Arabs of Israel proper are the forerunners of what shall be for the Arabs of the Occupied Territories: citizenship in a pluralistic state.
• Like South Africa, there will be principalities and powers to shake, but we know that the arc of history is on our side and that as followers of Jesus we will speak the truth with love, tell the stories of people we know, give voice to the many who count on us to do so, that in the fullness of time there might be peace with justice in a Holy Land where Jew, Christian and Moslem live together as equals under the law.
• It is always the few who change the world.
• Jesus reminds us that peacemakers are the salt of the earth, the light of the world.
• It is important for me personally to seek out like-minded Jews and work alongside them: Mark Braverman, Anna Balzer, Philip Weiss, Adam Horowitz, Jewish Voice for Peace to name just a few that I am in touch with.
• We must not be intimidated by the fear of name calling and labeling, and we must repeat again and again that we are against anti-Semitism as we are against Islamophobia, and we grieve that Israel’s actions are abetting anti-Jewish violence in the world in a way analogous to ISIL’s violence abetting anti-Islamic hatred.
• We are doing what we know we must do and God is with us!
• I think of W. H. Auden’s words:

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies,
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

THANKS BE TO GOD

Bruce M. Shipman+