Israeli Irony

Here are two of my favorite excerpts from "Paint Lebanon Red":

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. ~ Mohandas Gandhi

And,

"In my alternative universe, where Israel paints Lebanon red, the action would have captured the attention of the world and it would have shone a spotlight on the naked aggression of Hezbollah . . . Martin Luther King’s nonviolence required publicity to be effective. He and his followers were happy when violent men couldn’t bear to act reasonable even when the cameras were rolling . . . I think that Hezbollah would have responded to the painting of Lebanon with continued rocket launches."

You'll have to read this article. It reminds me of a true story I heard just yesterday. Several Jewish men in some law firm or corporation (I can't remember) came to a professional conflict resolution guy, Randy Lowry. Randy recommended that if one of them had an issue with someone else in their network or knew that someone else had a problem with one of them. The person should try to make things right with that person before expressing dislike or waiting for dislike to spread behind the person's back. Finally, if the offending or offended person cannot be reconciled, the responsible person will take one person with him/her to attempt reconciliation. If that doesn't work, he/she should get the whole rest of the group to try and reconcile the offending or offended person. If that doesn't work, you should still treat the person with utmost kindness.

Well, after these highly intelligent and professional men heard these ways of conflict resolution, they said, "Wow! This is unbelievably amazing! Where does this come from?"

Randy said, "Actually, Jesus said it."

The Jews said to one another, "Let's do this the Jesus way!"

Imagine if the people with the power to drop bombs decided to start doing things the Jesus way.

Randy also pointed out that Jesus' way indicated that after we went through the attempt-to-reconcile stages and the person still won't reconcile, "treat them like a non-Jew and a tax collector (Matthew 18)." (We might say, "treat them like a foreigner and a lawyer," in our day and time.) The funny thing, as Randy pointed out, is to consider how Jesus himself treated non-Jews and tax collectors! Immediately I recall the Syrophoenician woman whom Jesus helped, though he did, in a way, refer to her as a dog. (Still, the fact that he was in her neighborhood demonstrates an act of peace many of us wouldn't even consider today. For example, if you are a white middle-class male, would you go hang out in a ghetto where *you* are the minority?) I also recall the impromptu sermon Jesus gave in the synagogue (Luke 4). He refers to God sending prophets to bless and be blessed by *foreigners* . . . Naaman was from Syria. I believe Jesus, in that sermon and in other actions and lessons, is laying the precedent for his own people to accept Gentiles into his way. It seems to me that when we read the book of Acts from chapters 8 through the end, we see how the early church accepted the Gentiles, albeit slowly and conditionally (Acts 15). Jesus, the Jew, successfully converted the spiritual nation of Israel to his way, the way of peace, and to reconciliation extended to non-Jews. (Although it wasn't exactly easy, as seen in Acts 15 and in the food wars evident in Romans between Jew and non-Jew meal customs.)

The next time I'm tempted to retaliate, I will be as creative and imaginative as I can to do what Jesus would do. It is a more successful way of converting enemies than any method involving use of bombs.