EPF PIN member Harry Gunkel reflects.
A Voice for Justice

As it is for many people, "Casablanca" is one of my favorite movies. In the iconic last scene, the impossibly beautiful Ingrid Bergman is saying goodbye to gruff but good-hearted Humphrey Bogart. They are in love but must separate because they believe each has a nobler purpose to fulfill. Bogey says, "I'm no good at being noble but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

Bogey, I'm sorry, but you could not be more wrong. Released in the midst of World War II, this movie and that scene define as well as anything the rationale of the Greater Good. Three little people. Not worth a hill of beans.

The Greater Good tells us that ideologies and geopolitical ambitions ultimately hold sway over people. Because people are "little" and global causes are so much more important. But the Greater Good is a myth and a pernicious one at that. It is the narrative that fools us into thinking that endless, stupid wars are necessary and that "sacrificing" young lives and limbs is noble. The truth of the matter is that the lives and problems of people are what matter most. Caesar and his empire are false gods.

In a few weeks, I will travel to Palestine and Israel with a small group of dear friends. It is a place magnificent and tragic: a "holy land" and yet the epicenter of the myth of the Greater Good where for decades little people have been sacrificed so that a group scarred by history can feel safe, so that land and freedom belong only to one and not the other, and so that a regional foothold will shore up ideological and economic ambitions of nation states far away. Lives, homes, opportunity, and justice are given over for this.

My friends and I are going there to witness the injustices, step into the real events of today and not shy away under the guise of a pilgrimage, and to be with little people whose problems have been valued at less than a hill of beans. We will ask why so many people are being hurt so badly and whether any good at all is great enough for that.

We will visit Hebron in the West Bank where in late March a young Palestinian man was shot by Israeli soldiers. As he lay on the street wounded but still alive and moving, video documentation shows a nearby soldier shoot the young man in the head killing him. We are told later that the soldier was ordered to confirm the kill.

Confirm the kill. The kill. He was not a kill. Abdel - his name was Abdel- was a 21-year-old young adult. Abdel was a son, a brother, possibly an uncle, surely a cousin. He probably had a sense of humor, he might have enjoyed video games and music and had a favorite football team. He most likely looked forward to being married, raising a family and supporting them from his work - maybe owning a shop, or being a doctor, or driving a cab. He had dreams, all kinds of dreams. We know all these things about Abdel because he was human and was created in the likeness of God. Was Abdel also a criminal? Possibly. Certainly he was a criminal to the soldiers who were pursuing the greater good of their nation state and their ideology. When criminality is defined by the dominant majority by force and without regard to justice or ethics, then criminals will all look suspiciously similar and their acts of resistance will be called criminal.

What a brutal irony that Abdel died on a street in the holy land. Not far from where Abdel died, Jesus was born to displace any empire that wasn't God's. Jesus insisted - stubbornly insisted - on the sanctity and divine parentage of every human. Men, women, outcasts, the sick, prisoners, orphans, all of us. He demanded that we not forget each other or ignore each other. He showed us that even the leper, the blind beggar, the prostitute and the hemorrhaging woman deserve our full attention and care.

I sometimes like to imagine Jesus between the lines of the gospel, what he might have done and said at other times and places than we have in the texts. It helps me to imagine a fuller narrative of his life, which we are called to emulate after all. I wonder what Jesus would have said that day in Hebron. What would he have told Abdel's mother: I am sorry for your loss but the problems of a few little people don't amount to much in this crazy world? Would Jesus the Jew have applauded the Kill for ensuring the continuation of the Jewish state with security, soldiers, and checkpoints?

Or would he have been pastor and healer to Abdel's family and then spoken to the soldier and his comrades and commanders to ask what was in their hearts that gave permission to kill a man in the street in the service of a cause?

A walk into the holy land is full of choices. We can visit as many churches as there are hours in the day and quietly reflect about events of the past. There are lots and lots of places for that. Or we can walk in unafraid, look baldly at the suffering and injustice, put aside narratives of great good and little people, and listen for the voice that will lead us home.