Boundaries and Identity

One of the things you notice as you travel throughout Israel is the closeness of the borders.  On Tuesday, we travelled up into the Golan Heights to the Valley of Tears, where  a major battle in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 was fought.  Less than an hour's drive from the Sea of Galilee, you stand and look past three abandoned tanks into Syria.  Earlier in the day, we had looked north-west to Lebanon.  Today we traveled down the Jordan Valley.  To our left, sometimes within 30 feet, was a double fence, electrified, with land mines in between.  Along it runs a sandy track, which is checked several times each day for the footprints of border-crossers from Jordan.  

On our way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, we crossed the border - and the wall - into Palestinian territory.  Neither our guide nor our driver, who are Israeli, could enter; we had to pick up a new guide and driver for our time there. As we waited at the border to cross back into Israel, with machine gun toting soldiers passing through the bus, I was aware that for those residents of Bethlehem, who work in Jerusalem, just a couple of miles away, this is an everyday occurrence, and for Israeli Jew and Palestinian alike, it is a restriction and ofttimes indignity.

Whether you are Jewish, Palestinian, or non-religious living in Israel, you cannot avoid the understanding that you live among your traditional enemies.  And that has been the case for thousands of years.   Set at the crossroads between Europe, Asia and Africa, this land has often been fought over.  Abraham entered a land that had been long  settled by Canaanites; Moses led the people of God back to a promised land settled by Jebusites and Hittites and Hivites; David and Solomon had to defeat the Philistines; the prophets spoke to those who had experienced the land-hunger of the Babylonians and Persians and Assyrians.  And Jesus lived in a country occupied by the Romans.

Against all that opposition, identity has always been something for which it was necessary to fight. Clear boundaries have been necessary - of language, law, and culture.  As you travel this land you begin to understand why law and covenant were so important, setting a people apart for God.  Here, identity has always been inexorably entwined with religion.  And the faith that has grown in this soil is passionate and fiercely loyal to the God who calls it forth.

Which makes me wonder, what of our faith?  For most of us, it has not been born in the context of enmity.  Being Christian in America, we don't need such rigorous boundaries to maintain our faith.  Most of our neighbors really don't care who or what we believe in.  And the danger is that we too may cease to care.