What If? Imagine a Strange…but not Impossible Dream – Greg Albrecht

What if relentless efforts to destroy enemies and vengeful efforts in taking an eye for an eye, came to a grinding halt? What if the spiritual and emotional eyesight of every human being, clouded by hatred, grievances and recrimination as it is, were to be miraculously healed in favor of reconciliation and forgiveness?

What if we moved on from the bitter memories of the Holocaust and the never-ending pogroms before and after? Oh yes, they happened, and if the reality of this world is all we have to live for and count on, we must remember. Never again!

But what if everyone knew it was impossible for anything like the Holocaust to ever happen again? What if it was truly impossible for the Hamas Massacre of October 7 to ever happen again?

What if we all lived in a new world, say like the new heavens and the new earth (Revelation 21) where everyone knew nothing like 9-11, Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or Stalin, Lenin or Hitler would ever happen again?

What if a cleansed and transformed cosmos – let’s just call it new heavens and new earth – never observed anniversaries of horrific military massacres because militaries were dinosaur-like relics of a brutal and bloodthirsty past?

What if armies and soldiers no longer existed …. all implements of warfare and violence, like swords and spears, tanks and jets, drones and bombs, now served productive agricultural purposes, as dreamed by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 2:4?

What if the atrocities caused by Lenin and Stalin and Hitler were a nightmare that would never, ever, ever happen again?

What if the entire world revered the love of Jesus, who loves, cares for, bandages and heals white, brown, yellow and black indiscriminately?

What if all mankind, young and old, Muslim, Jew and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu, socialist and capitalist, Republican and Democrat, followed Jesus because he is the only One who can end bloodshed, the only One who proclaims love for everyone.

What if everyone left their holy huddles, the circles of self-interest where religious, military and nationalistic wagons are circled, and loved EVERYONE?

More Than a Religious Cliché – REALLY – What Would Jesus Do?

How would the most famous Jew of all, Jesus of Nazareth, respond to the Palestinians? How would he answer the bumper sticker rallying cry, “What Would Jesus Do?”

How did Jesus respond to the Samaritans, the most prominent religious minority living in the “Holy Land” during his earthly ministry on earth?

The Samaritans of Jesus’ day were settled in the northern part of the land of Israel by King Sargon of Assyria (2 Kings 17:22-41) some seven centuries before Jesus. 2 Kings 17:24 identifies the national origins of the Samaritans who became replacements for the northern tribes who were taken captive.

The Samaritans intermingled and intermarried with the Hebrews still left after the Assyrian context – today many would describe their actions then as cultural appropriation. As we know, when someone’s culture and religion and faith and values are assumed, when their identity is taken/stolen, by another individual or collectively by a national or racial entity, rage and recrimination usually occur. When the Samarians started to claim they also worshiped the God of Israel, the Jews were not amused.

About 140 years after the Samaritans were resettled in the northern part of the land taken over by the nation of Israel after their slavery in Egypt, the Jews in the southern kingdom were taken captive. The Samarians took advantage of the Jewish captivity and moved into the former kingdom of Judah. When the Jews started to return from their Babylonian captivity to rebuild the temple and the city of Jerusalem, Samaritan communities resisted them politically and religiously – see the fourth chapter of both Ezra and Nehemiah.

By the time of Jesus the Samaritans had lived in the land for 700 years. They had developed their own historical narrative, including the claim that Ephraim and Manasseh, sons of Joseph, one of the siblings of Judah, were their historical fathers. They thus believed they were the brothers of the Jews.

Speaking of Joseph, we recall of course the sibling rivalry that existed within the historic family of Jacob as being so intense that Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers (Genesis 37).

By the time of Jesus the Samaritans had built their own temple on Mt. Gerizim as an alternative to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. The animosity between Samaritans and Jews had a long, acrimonious history.

Luke records the disciples of Jesus were treated rudely by the Samaritans. The disciples wanted to retaliate and “call down fire from heaven and destroy them” (Luke 9:51-55), But the Prince of peace “rebuked” them. Some twenty years after the ministry of love, mercy, grace and peace of Jesus was responded to with hatred and violence, eventuating in his crucifixion, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote that the Samaritans massacred Jewish pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem

Are You Kidding Me, The “Good” Samaritan?

While Luke does not necessarily represent his gospel as an accurate chronology, he does juxtapose the inhospitable treatment of Jesus’s disciples in his ninth chapter with the Parable of the Good Samaritan in the next chapter (Luke 10:25-37). Coincidence? I don’t think so!

After Jesus reiterated his two great commandments, loving God and loving one’s neighbor, a young Jewish lawyer asked him for a precise definition of “neighbor.” Jesus responded with a parable, and he gave the role of the heroic first responder to a Samaritan who ministered to the needs of a Jewish man who was beaten and left for dead.

It was “just” a parable. It wasn’t a news report. Jesus was not claiming that such a thing had ever, or even recently, happened. So why choose a Samaritan to be the hero of the moral of the tale? Why did Jesus deliberately push religious hot buttons? Seems to me that religious hot buttons needed to be pushed then… still do now!

When Jesus healed ten lepers, and only one came back to thank him … Luke 17:18 identifies the grateful healed leper as a Samaritan. When Jesus stopped at a well in Samaria, he talked to a woman. That was scandalous enough… but this person he asked for a drink of water was an oft-married woman who was now living with a man without benefit of marriage, a woman who was … wait for it … a Samaritan!

The “woman at the well” was no parable. The story was reported by John as a factual event (John 4). When she talked about her “church” (holy place) Jesus did not insist his “church” (holy place) was better but said that a time was coming when brick and mortar churches would be irrelevant to worship of God. It’s a remarkable conversation!

Samaritans and Jews … Palestinians and Jews

Fast forward approximately twenty centuries. In the late 1800s Jews started to return to the historic land of Israel/Palestine, and they lived side by side with Arabs whose families had lived there for many generations. History tells us during this time many Arabs also immigrated to the land the Jews were developing and rebuilding, finding employment. Both Jews and Palestinians coexisted, but not peacefully, enduring constant conflict, which has escalated over the past century.

The Arabs who became known as Palestinians were Muslims. Back to the story of the Samaritans and the Jews of Jesus’ day. The Samaritans claimed to be brothers of the Jews. The Islamic faith shared Abraham with the Jews, and both claim physical descent … the Jews from Issac and the Muslims from Ishmael.

The “feud” has existed for many centuries, in the same geographical setting. From as far back as Issac and Ishmael, to Joseph and his brothers, from Ezra and Nehemiah, to the time of Jesus, and now, with the Palestinians and the Jews.

Can Samaritans and Jews be good neighbors? Jesus thought so. Can Jews and Palestinians be good neighbors? Yes. Are they? Not so much. Can Jews, Arabs and Palestinians – can Jews and Moslems realize and admit that their destinies in this world are inexorably tied together?

Martin Luther King Jr. famously had a dream … in I Have a Dream he quoted one of the great Messianic dreams of Isaiah…

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked placed will be made straight…”

Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream has been a favorite “dream “ of mine for well over 40 years. It was written by Ed McCurdy in 1950, and covered by many artists over the decades… my favorite versions are by Johnny Cash and Simon and Garfunkel. Its lyrics beautifully portray the hope and dreams of all who yearn for peace – an end to warfare.

Last night I had the strangest dream I ever dreamed before

I dreamed the world had all agreed

To put an end to war

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I dreamed I saw a mighty room

The room was filled with men

And the paper they were signing said

They’d never fight again

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And when the papers all were signed

And a million copies made

They all joined hands and bowed their heads

And grateful prayers were prayed

And the people in the streets below

Were dancing round and round

And guns and swords and uniforms

Were scattered on the ground…

[Repeat first stanza]

With apologies to John Lennon and Yoke Ono….

Imagine there’s no more Hamas Massacres

It’s easy if you try…

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You may say I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will live as one.

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