Matthew 5.43–44
Before I begin the sermon, a
brief word.
Today’s gospel reading “Love
your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”—comes to us in a time of
deep conflict and pain, especially in Palestine and Israel, and now also
involving Iran.
Our guest preacher, Elias D’eis
from Bethlehem, cannot be with us today because of the situation.
So I will be reflecting on the
passages he chose, and on the work of those—like Elias—who seek creative,
nonviolent paths to peace.
I know these themes stir strong
emotions and differing perspectives.
My intention here is not to offer a
political argument, but a gospel-shaped invitation: to see, as Jesus sees, the
humanity of all people, and to imagine a future beyond vengeance and violence.
Let me say clearly at the outset: I condemn without hesitation the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, and I join with many across the world in calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all remaining hostages.
I invite you to listen with
openness, prayerfulness, and compassion.
Blessèd are those who refuse
the lie that one life is worth more than any other,
for theirs is the future of humanity.
Blessèd are those who have
stared long into the abyss,
for theirs is honesty beyond grief.
Blessèd are those who resist
retaliation,
for the earth will never be won by force.
Blessèd are those who would
rather die for truth than live with compromise,
for the truth will outlive all lies.
Blessèd are those who
forgive the unforgivable,
for they have seen the darkness of their own souls.
Blessèd are those who know
themselves truly,
for they have seen themselves as God sees them.
Blessèd are those who are
provocatively nonviolent,
for they are following the path of the son of God.
Blessèd are those who choose
to receive violence but not to give it,
for the future is born out of such choices.
Blessèd are you when you
stand up for truth
and hell itself decides to try and destroy you.
You're not the first and you won't be the last.
I'm telling you now, nothing
makes any sense unless you learn see it differently,
and then choose to live that alternative into being.
There is a terrible irony in
today’s service.
Elias D’eis, a Palestinian
Christian living in Bethlehem, and the Executive Director of Holy Land Trust, was due to stand in this
pulpit today, to speak to us of peace—peace grounded in justice, rooted in
faith, and lived out in nonviolent resistance.
Holy Land Trust describe
themselves as, ‘a non-profit Palestinian organization committed to fostering
peace, justice and understanding in Palestine.’
They say, ‘We are deeply
committed to exploring the root causes of violence and seeking to develop
solutions to address them. We believe that true peace and justice is achieved
through nonviolent activism, personal and spiritual transformation and
empowering the resilience of the local communities.’
Elias’ presence was to have
been a sign of hope and a provocation to courage.
And yet, as so often in his
life, war has intervened.
Not this time the war between
Israel and Gaza, though that continues.
But war with Iran. Another
regional escalation, another set of borders closed, another voice of peace
silenced.
And so today, we speak for
him, even as we speak with him.
We listen for his voice among
the prophets and among the peacemakers.
We take his absence not as a
silence but as a summons—to the work of creative, nonviolent resistance in the
face of violence and empire.
Leviticus and the Call to
Holiness
Our first reading, from
Leviticus, began with an invitation: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your
God am holy.”
And it continued with a long
list of what that holiness looks like.
It looks like refusing to hoard
the abundance of your land.
It looks like honest dealings and fair wages.
It looks like justice in the courts, and care for your neighbour.
It looks like refusing to hate, refusing to take revenge, refusing to bear
grudges.
It looks like love—radical, real, inconvenient love: “You shall love your
neighbour as yourself.”
This is not a sentimental
holiness. It is not the piety of the pure.
It is the fierce holiness of
justice, of integrity, of loving the unlovable, of giving up what we think is
ours so others may live.
This is the holiness to which
the God of the Hebrew Scriptures calls the people of Israel—and calls us still.
Jesus, Enemy-Love, and the
Radicalisation of Leviticus
Jesus knew his Torah.
He knew that the call to love
one’s neighbour lay at the heart of the law.
But he also knew how quickly
that love could be narrowed.
In the hands of frightened
people, “love your neighbour” easily becomes “love your tribe”—and
hate your enemy.
But Jesus does not let us off
the hook.
“You have heard it said,
‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you.”
This is not naivety. It is the
most courageous, the most costly, the most subversive teaching in all the
gospel.
It is not passivity. It is a
choice—a moral, spiritual, and political act: to refuse to return hatred for
hatred, to refuse the logic of vengeance and retribution, to stand firm in love
when the world calls for blood.
This is the path Elias walks.
And this is the path we are called to walk too.
Enemy-Love in the Landscape
of Occupation
But what does it really mean to
love an enemy when the enemy controls your land, your movement, your economy,
and your sky?
It is easy—too easy—for those
of us who live in relative security to quote Jesus and call for love.
But in the occupied West Bank,
where Elias lives, this is not abstract theology. It is lived discipleship
under duress.
Imagine hearing Jesus’ words
not in Bloomsbury, but in Bethlehem.
Not from the pulpit of a free church, but from behind a military checkpoint.
Loving one’s enemy in such a
context is not about feelings, but about refusing to mirror oppression.
It’s about resisting the
colonisation of the heart. It means refusing to let one’s soul become as walled
off as one’s city.
Holy Land Trust has worked to
empower Palestinians to face their trauma—not by numbing it or escaping it, but
by choosing a different response.
By training in trauma
resilience and nonviolent communication, by learning to see the image of God in
their adversary, they pursue transformation without hatred.
This is a hard calling. It
doesn’t ask Palestinians to accept injustice. It invites them to struggle for
justice without losing their humanity in the process.
And it invites us, as
Christians in the UK, to ask difficult questions about what solidarity really
means—especially when the state of Israel continues to be funded and armed by
Western nations, including our own.
To love our enemies, in this
case, may well mean challenging the policies of our friends.
The Witness of Elias D’eis
and Holy Land Trust
Elias and the work of Holy Land
Trust embody what Jesus teaches.
In the shadow of separation
walls, military incursions, and intergenerational trauma, they choose to see
the humanity of the other.
They choose to create spaces
where enemy images can be dismantled.
They engage both Palestinians
and Israelis in the hard, holy work of hearing one another’s stories.
They practise what we might
call “moral imagination”—the capacity to imagine a future not yet born, and to
begin living into it.
They teach nonviolence not as
passivity, but as active, courageous resistance—the kind that seeks
transformation rather than victory.
The Amos Trust, who were due to be bringing
Elias to the UK this week, has supported this work, amplifying it here in the
UK and building bridges between peacemakers across the world.
And we at Bloomsbury have not
stood by. Our church has long been a place where such voices are welcomed, such
visions are shared.
Church as Accompanier:
Stories from the Borderlands
Our church has seen people from
our congregation and wider community visit Palestine and Israel, with some
participating in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme—ordinary
disciples bearing extraordinary witness.
They have walked children to
school past armed checkpoints. They have listened to olive farmers watching
their groves be confiscated. They have stood in courts as false evidence was presented,
and in silence as homes were demolished.
Their presence may not have
stopped the bulldozers.
But it said to the people: you
are not forgotten.
And to the powerful: someone is watching.
This is more than activism. It
is theological accompaniment.
To accompany is to do what
Jesus did on the road to Emmaus: to walk alongside the confused, the hurting,
the angry, and the lost, and to help them find the story of resurrection even
in the rubble.
The EAPPI volunteers come home
changed.
And if we listen, their stories can change us too.
They invite us to see the
Gospel in unexpected places—in refugee camps and checkpoints, in children’s
laughter despite it all, and in tears shed not from weakness, but from knowing
what costly love requires.
In a world that teaches us to
pick a side, accompaniment reminds us that to stand with the vulnerable
is not to be “against” anyone, but to be for the God who sees the
oppressed and calls them beloved.
Beatitudes, Not Platitudes
Some years ago, I wrote a
paraphrase of the Beatitudes. Not a softening, but a sharpening. Not
platitudes, but calls to action. I read it at the beginning of the sermon. Let’s
hear a few words of it again:
Blessèd are those who resist
retaliation,
for the earth will never be won by force.
Blessèd are those who are
provocatively nonviolent,
for they are following the path of the son of God.
Blessèd are those who choose
to receive violence but not to give it,
for the future is born out of such choices.
These are not words for the
faint of heart. But they are the words Elias lives by.
They are the words of Jesus.
They are the call of God to us today.
Peacemaking Beyond the
Headlines
It is so easy to become numb.
We scroll headlines about Gaza,
the West Bank, Jerusalem—death tolls rising, ceasefires collapsing, blame being
cast like stones.
We form our opinions. We argue.
We retreat into fatigue.
And slowly, the humanity drains
out of the story.
But Jesus doesn’t call us to
keep score. He calls us to make peace.
And the making of peace is a
deeply human task. It cannot be done from a distance. It is not a policy paper
or a hashtag.
It is the long, slow, painful
work of building trust where there is fear, truth where there is propaganda,
and love where there has been hatred.
Organisations like the Amos
Trust help us do this.
They bring together
peacebuilders like Elias and offer platforms for voices usually drowned out.
They connect communities here
in the UK with partners in Palestine and Israel, so that the work of justice is
not outsourced but shared.
When we support that work—not
just financially, but relationally, spiritually, practically—we begin to live
the beatitude that says:
Blessèd are those who choose
to receive violence but not to give it,
for the future is born out of such choices.
That future is not inevitable.
It must be imagined. It must be risked. It must be made.
That is the call before us.
Nonviolence as Prophetic
Imagination”
Creative nonviolence is not
merely a strategy.
It is a vision—a prophetic act
of imagination in a world addicted to retaliation.
It’s what the Hebrew prophets
embodied when they spoke truth to kings.
It’s what Jesus enacted when he
turned the other cheek—not as submission, but as confrontation.
It’s what Gandhi and Martin
Luther King and Oscar Romero
and Elias and the EAPPI volunteers
have all embodied in their refusal to let violence define the story.
Walter Brueggemann calls this “the
prophetic imagination”—the ability to dream of a future that contradicts
the present, and then to live as though that future were already coming true.
When an unarmed Palestinian
youth chooses to plant olive trees in a bulldozed field, that is prophetic
imagination.
When a church community here in
London chooses to listen, to pray, to act for peace and justice in the Holy
Land, that is prophetic imagination.
When we dare to believe that
another world is possible, and then shape our lives accordingly, that is
prophetic imagination.
And here’s the mystery at the
heart of it all: when we choose to live that way, the Spirit breathes through
our defiance.
We become, as Jesus said, “children
of God.” Not in sentiment, but in substance.
The Cross and the Creative
Path
Because at the heart of our
faith stands a cross.
Not a sword. Not a flag. Not
even a dove
But a cross—instrument of
imperial execution, turned by God into the sign of salvation.
We must not sentimentalise it.
The cross is where violence did its worst—and failed.
Jesus met domination not with
retaliation, but with costly, creative love.
It’s tempting to think of
nonviolence as weakness, but the cross says otherwise.
It is the power of God made
perfect not in conquest but in vulnerability.
It is resistance that refuses
to become what it hates.
It is the refusal to let
Caesar, or any modern empire, define what is possible.
Elias knows this. That is why
he walks the way of peace not as a political preference but as a theological
necessity.
And we who claim to follow the
crucified Christ cannot do otherwise.
The resurrection does not come
in spite of the cross, but through it.
So we too must walk that
path—not to glorify suffering, but to break its power.
This is what it means to live
the alternative into being.
Conclusion
So, Elias D’eis could not be
with us today. But his absence bears witness to the very forces his life
resists.
Let us honour him not only with
our prayers, but with our actions.
Let us honour his peacemaking
by being peacemakers ourselves.
Let us choose the holiness of
Leviticus, the enemy-love of Jesus, and the radical beatitudes that call us to
live the alternative into being.
For only such choices will
birth a future worth living for.
Amen.
<Silence>
Call to Action
The question, after a sermon
like this—or indeed, after any sermon—is always:
What now?
What do I do next?
We’ve heard words that
challenge and disturb, words that invite us into the costly work of peacemaking
and enemy-love. But how do we turn reflection into faithful action?
As a church with a
long-standing partnership with Christian Aid, I want to briefly highlight two
simple but meaningful ways they are helping people like us engage with the
realities facing Palestine and Israel.
You’ll find more details in
Libby’s email next week, but let me offer you a preview.
The first is Christian Aid’s
monthly online “Prayers for the Middle East”, held on the 24th of each
month from 7 to 8pm. These are spaces for listening—to voices from the region,
from Christian Aid’s partners and friends—and for praying together for a just
peace in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.
https://www.christianaid.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/prayers-for-peace
The second is a weekly act of
embodied solidarity: the Fast for Gaza, where participants are invited
to go without food for a day, or for part of a day, standing with the thousands
of innocent civilians in Gaza who face the horror of starvation.
https://www.christianaid.org.uk/appeals/emergencies/dec-middle-east-humanitarian-appeal/fastforgaza
These may or may not be
practices for you. But they raise the deeper question for all of us:
How do we respond—not just to a sermon, but to the woundedness of the world?
May we be people who not only
hear the words of Jesus, but seek to live them.
And may our prayers, our fasting, our listening, and our action—however
small—be signs of the alternative we long to see.
Amen.
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