{"id":3054,"date":"2023-10-09T07:37:06","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T11:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3054"},"modified":"2023-10-09T07:38:05","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T11:38:05","slug":"prayers-for-shalom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/09\/prayers-for-shalom\/","title":{"rendered":"Prayers for Shalom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>
 
For the past three days, the world\u2019s attention has once again zeroed in on one of humanity\u2019s most enduring wounds. 
 
Israelis and Palestinians are in open conflict. 
 
Early on Saturday, without warning, members of Hamas operating out of Gaza launched thousands of rockets into Israel.  Ground-based militants breached security checkpoints and poured across the border, slaughtering more than 250 civilians attending a music festival in the desert. 
 
The horror of the unprovoked attack was matched by the horror of Israel\u2019s response.  Israeli jets bombarded apartment buildings in Gaza, where two million people live in one of the most densely crowded territories on earth. 
 
\u201cThis is our 9\/11,\u201d declared an Israeli miliary leader.  Indeed, the weekend\u2019s events represent the closest thing to open warfare in the area in the past 50 years. 
 
The conflict is fueled by ancient grievances.  It\u2019s not an exaggeration to say that the pain goes all the way back to the book of Genesis.  Two sons of Abraham \u2013 Isaac, whose descendants would become the Jews, and Ishmael, whose descendants became the Arabs \u2013 have quarreled over the same patch of real estate for thousands of years. 
 
The violence intensified after 1948, when the United Nations opened the door for Jews migrating from around the world to re-establish the nation of Israel on Palestinian soil.  Since then, hatred has been matched by hatred, and acts of revenge by yet more vengeance. 
 
No religion or ideology can justify such ongoing conflict.   
 
Perhaps the darkest side of this recurring violence, however, is what it does to our hearts:  We ourselves are powerfully tempted to become violent.<\/em>
 
Americans are not immune.  A few years ago survey respondents were asked what they would do if they had a time machine.  Would they be willing to go back in time and kill the infant Adolph Hitler?  Forty-two percent said they would not hesitate to ensure that Hitler never left the nursery.   
 
Terror and violence leave people feeling angry and frustrated.  \u201cI\u2019m not saying we need to use nuclear arms,\u201d said one man who was interviewed shortly after the 9\/11 attacks, \u201cbut let\u2019s at least destroy a few countries.\u201d
 
Jesus was right.  Those who respond to violence by using violence will only perpetuate an ever-escalating cycle of violence and retaliation.
 
So what can we do? 
 
We must pray with all our hearts for the people of Israel and Gaza alike \u2013 especially the victims and their families.  We must help heal the wounded and weep with those who weep.  We must work with all our energy to bring about justice and to prevent further violence.
 
And then there\u2019s that other thing Jesus said.  The hard thing.
 
\u201cYou have heard that it was said, \u2018Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.\u2019  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.\u201d (Matthew 5:43-44)
 
Sigmund Freud believed this was primary evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was insane.  Only crazy people pray for their enemies, right?
 
Yet Jesus insisted on making this counter-intuitive proposal the centerpiece of his teaching about responding to evil. 
 
Honestly: How can we ever pray such a prayer?  Here are three helps: 
 
Be proactive.  <\/em>Don\u2019t wait for your feelings to come around.  Praying for enemies is a choice to do what Jesus says \u2013 precisely because he says it is an essential component of becoming \u201cthe children of your Father in heaven.\u201d
 
Be specific.  <\/em>Speak the names of those who have caused the hurt.  Not just \u201cthose people on the other side of the world who are doing such awful things,\u201d but also the very individuals who have hurt and humiliated you personally, or have generally made your life miserable. 
 
Be bold.  <\/em>St. Francis of Assisi prayed the same prayer for everyone he met:  \u201cMay God\u2019s peace be upon you.\u201d  Wait:  Does this mean we\u2019re supposed to pray that those who slaughter innocent people should feel good about things when they go to bed at night?
 
Not at all.  Francis\u2019 prayer, in fact, turns out to be one of the most subversive and effective ways to bless our enemies.   
 
Biblically, God\u2019s peace is shalom<\/em> \u2013 the deep peace that God has always intended for the world and everyone in it.  Shalom means that justice will be done, and all that is right will prevail. 
 
To pray that God\u2019s shalom might come upon another human being is to ask that they might catch God\u2019s own vision of a healed and restored planet, and to feel genuine sorrow and repentance for whatever sins or selfishness in their own lives have become obstacles to that vision.
 
May God\u2019s peace be upon you. <\/em>
 
That\u2019s a prayer we can pray concerning everyone we meet today, or happen to see in painful, fleeting video images. 
 
We can pray for both friends and strangers.  Allies and enemies.  
 
And we can even pray for ourselves as we seek to be<\/em> God\u2019s hope for this hurting world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here For the past three days, the world\u2019s attention has once again zeroed in on one of humanity\u2019s most enduring wounds.  Israelis and Palestinians are in open conflict.  Early on Saturday, without warning, members of Hamas operating out of Gaza launched thousands of rockets into Israel.  Ground-based militants breached security checkpoints and poured across the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[643,578,112],"class_list":["post-3054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-prayers-for-enemies","tag-shalom","tag-suffering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3054"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3057,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3054\/revisions\/3057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}