Dr. King And The Good Samaritan

Early one morning last week, we St. John's pilgrims visited a spot about halfway between Jerusalem and Jericho for a few moments of meditation. Invited to say a prayer by our guide and friend, Canon Iyad Qumri (shown below, pointing down to the old Jericho road), I mentioned that Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King had once visited the same place, or one nearby. He mentioned their pilgrim visit in his last speech, on April 3, 1968, the day before he was murdered in Memphis. He was trying to persuade the city's pastors to come out of their pulpits and offer direct support to striking sanitation workers:

I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible that these men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.

Get Her A Future

In March, Israel's prime minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, was embarrassed (and the Obama administration justifiably outraged) when Jerusalem's municipal government approved new homes for Israelis in Palestinian neighborhoods at the very time that Vice President Biden was visiting. This week, Netanyahu's foreign minister (a West Bank settler himself) enunciated his own policy on the peace talks, which the prime minister, thankfully, disavowed.

What exactly are we witnessing? Total governmental dysfunction? The system's capacity for giving the PM plausible deniability, undermining the peace process so he doesn't have to? Or just democracy, Israel style? I bet #3. The Jewish state's one-man, one-policy approach to politics helps us appreciate the lack of wiggle room Netanyahu has when it comes to the issue of West Bank settlements. But that doesn't mean they don't have to stop. It makes no logical or moral sense to build another unit of housing on land that's supposed to be a Palestinian state someday, and I think Netanyahu knows it. I prayed he'd have his Nixon in China moment last week, before the 10-month moratorium on new settlements expired. For her sake (a friend I made in Jericho in 2007, who must be nine or 10 by now), I hope it comes soon.