The Suffering Servant of Second Isaiah
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“He sketched a portrait of one he called “the servant of the Lord” who was, I suspect, simply a symbol of the Jewish nation facing its future realistically. The servant was to live out the vocation that this unknown prophet was driven to see as the only possible vocation for those he thought of as God’s chosen people.
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Israel’s role was to no longer seek power, but to accept powerlessness as a way of life. The “servant was to go beyond Jewish boundaries to bring justice to the Gentiles, light and salvation to the world (49:6). The “servant” was to live out the tenderness of God for all people (55:5), to guide the thirsty to water (55:1), to set life free (42:7), to make people whole (42:7). He would not resist hostility or pull back from maltreatment (50:5-6). His face would be set like a flint toward his purpose (50:7). Though afflicted, the “servant” would live in the expectation of a final vindication that would probably come not in history, but beyond history. This figure would finally be overwhelmed, meet a shameful death, even be slain as a criminal. That was all part of accepting the vocation of powerlessness.” (Jesus for the Non-Religious – John Shelby Spong)

Janine Hartley’s following article resonates with this great Jewish prophet’s insight.

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Where Freedom Begins – Janine Hartley

‘Take me with you,’ she said. ‘I’ll try harder, I promise.’
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Hassan found it very difficult to resist Farida’s pleas, but he knew well the consequences if their parents found out, if they were captured by soldiers, or worse. ‘Farida it is dangerous, you know that.’ Hassan tried to be strong, but he had always found it difficult to resist his younger sister when she looked at him that way. Those beautiful big brown eyes so much like their mothers that could speak of gentleness one minute and darkest storm clouds the next.
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‘You know the soldiers are always prepared on Fridays for the Ni’lin protest’, she fired. ‘Maybe you and your friends should not be so stupid and surprise the Occupiers occasionally’, she said. Her body was tense, and she knew that convincing her brother to let her go with him was not going to be easy. Hassan replied gently, ‘What if mother and father return and find you are not here?’ Hassan shrugged, ‘what then, eh?’
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‘They will think I am at school, that’s what I do on Friday’s remember?’ Farida rolled her eyes and gave her brother a pitying look. Hassan chose to ignore the taunt and she continued. ‘Besides, they will be held up at the checkpoint for hours. Mother will miss her appointment at the hospital again. They will still need to go there to make another appointment again. They will not be home before dark.’
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Farida was right, the soldiers were expecting the weekly protest, but the foreign activists and media always knew when and where the protests were. Without that support the world would not know what their people suffered under Israeli Occupation or the impact The Separation Wall has on their village. Yes, she was right, that was another reason not to allow her to accompany him. Farida carried fire within her, fire that could get them all killed. He knew there was no point in demanding she stay behind, he had to find a way to convince her with reason, she had never been one to conform to rules, not those of their culture or their father.
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‘Farida listen to me.’ Hassan stood to look out of the kitchen window toward the eight-metre-high wall that surrounded their town and cast a shadow over his heart. He knew he had to tread very carefully, not even hint at the fact of her gender forbidding her taking part. She was as sharp as a tack and she wasn’t going to let this be easy for him. He turned to look at her and decided to take a different path that he hoped led to somewhere other than her anger. ‘Farida, our brother was killed just for throwing a stone at an Israeli tank, cousin Olan is just twelve years old and sits in gaol, no-one knows why and for how long. What if the bullet hits you this time, and how could I protect you when I don’t know where you are until I hear you yelling at the soldiers?’
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‘Hassan my legs will move faster than my mouth this time, I promise. Besides, didn’t our brother die fighting for our freedom, if even you deny me freedom to protest the Occupation then he has died in vain’.

“Swing Voter”
Is the commonly denigrated “swing voter” simply a self centred chaser after MORE, as implied, or could it be that the “swing voter” is in fact a “performance voter”, casting a vote based on the lack of delivery of promised policies and outcomes, elucidated during the theatre of election promises the previous time around?
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Conversely, is a party stalwart voter, an evaluate r of trajectories of past successes and failures, or more like a slot machine handle pulling automaton?
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Is it similar to the difference between what some sociologists call communal Wayfarers and practising Wayfarers: The difference between those who practice citizenship seriously and diligently, and those who take it for granted?
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At this time, perhaps the civility or crudity which contending political aspirants use when performing for and addressing citizens, might give pause for some thought. Is the cultural atmosphere being simply reflected in those offering themselves for public service, OR, is it being led by their example?
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How much are they “bought” by the rewards of the job, OR, how much by the results for the commonweal that may be possible to generate?
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Do we even know enough about the aspirant; who are they, what is their background, what values and virtues will they be bringing to the table etc.?
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Will they truly represent the policies and outcomes that you have voted for, or are you being treated as a means to an end and if so, who’s end?
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Citizenship requires us to VOTE WISELY!
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The linked video demonstrates the possible outcomes of the neglect of taking citizenship seriously.

Heroic Greta Thunberg
One of the most obvious things that hits one when attending Church services is the predominance of the older age group making up the congregations.
Some of the Pentecostal Churches do have a greater number of young people attending and while they are growing in size, word of mouth indications are that there is also a relatively, not insignificant, turnover of young followers. Additionally, while this growth is good news, they make up a fairly small percentage of the whole Church going population.
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With the Baby Boomer generation that currently seem to make up the bulk of congregations, there is but about 15 years left before the thinning out becomes terminal.
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Now the only glaring conclusion I can come to, is the passing on of the Christian message to younger generations has seemed to have sadly failed.
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I feared failure when I was working for a living, but since retirement I have come to fear it more. And this sense of failure is not about the demise of the organisational Church, but the failure to let young people know that “Whether or not we survive is irrelevant. How we each live is an imperative”. For in the living is the measure of who you are and that goes with you into the Cosmic Mind/Memory of God in eternity.
I find this personally a devastating thought. How one can work out this failure when one becomes disembodied, the mystics tell us is very difficult.
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In the business world there seems to be an axiom that says, there’s no standing still. You’re either moving forward or you’re moving backward.
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If one is in the “business” of passing on the Way, you look for the potential young leaders of tomorrow and then do everything you can to support them. From sociology comes an idea that somewhere between 5%-10% of society lead change; about the same percentages will not change at all, and the remaining 80% will tend to follow where the leaders go.
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For us older ones, the need to not let fear and the pursuit of comfort – emotional and psychological comfort – get in the way of letting the younger budding leaders start to experiment.
Christianity is currently going through the 5th/6th great change in its history, and its name that describes it is Liberation.
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It is the young people who now know that we “olders” have let them down. The threat Extinction is its name. And wilful ignorance will not change that.
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Identify the potential young leaders in your communities; get out of their way by accepting change in the way that the Way gets promulgated; and give them total focused support in the best way that you can.
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A beatific eternal life may depend on it!

The 3 day war within us; is it Easter or with us every day?
Janine Hartley’s following piece is a parable like story illuminating the difference between living by the law of the land and living by the law of life and which for this reader also has echoes of Paul’s letters to the communities in Rome, Galatia and Corinth.
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Reclaiming the Heart – Janine Hartley

+++This was the third day of protests and the editor for Israel News Today had invited, no ordered, me to cover it. For three days Palestinian families had been sitting on the road blocking bulldozers from entering and demolishing the village that had been their home for centuries.

+++A non-violent protest, what is there to report from a non-violent protest I asked? “Tomorrow’s headlines…” I said rather dramatically to the editor, raising my arm to highlight unseen headlines in the air, “Palestinians Quietly Sit on Road”. It was going to be a long day. When I arrived the soldiers looked bored, no stones being thrown, no one to shoot, no tear gas required. I could see my friend Joseph, a soldier doing the last month of his three-year national service for the Israeli Army. Joseph’s sister, a nurse, was killed last year when a suicide bomber chose the bus she was traveling on to detonate his protest of the occupation of Palestine. Hamas had claimed responsibility. I was the first reporter to reach the scene, and Joseph in the first vehicle of Army personnel. I covered the funeral too. Since her death Joseph had demonstrated that he had a promising career in the Army should he choose to continue in service and accept promotion.

+++Anger and contempt were palpable as he glared pure hatred at the protesters, no-one doubted he would use his gun given just the slightest reason to do so. He intimidated people, that too was evident. Suddenly a woman’s screams shattered the silence, the soldiers lifted their guns in response to an unknown danger, she screamed a boy’s name “Abbas! Abbas NO!”. I jumped up and looked in the direction of the frantic sounds. A small boy no more than five or six years old ran toward the armed soldiers. I could almost read Joseph’s thoughts as he saw an opportunity to take an eye for an eye, why not there is no accountability for soldiers in this war. The child stopped in front of Joseph and took something out of his pocket as the soldier placed his finger over the trigger. There was silence as the crowd waited to see what would happen. The woman who had called to the child stood frozen in anguish, one hand over her heart and the other grasping the arm of the man standing next to her. The child’s hand, so small in comparison to the big strong hand poised ready to shoot. Abbas didn’t seem afraid as his innocent eyes looked into the eyes of hate, and he silently offered Joseph a small token, a handful of dried figs collected from his family’s orchard.

+++It felt like an eternity had passed before Joseph lowered his gun. He stared at the gift as if he had never seen figs before. Later he would tell me that in those few figs he saw his childhood before anger, hate and fear began to destroy the happiness within him. He recounted how he would climb olive and fig trees with Palestinian children in large orchards, filling their stomachs and baskets to capacity on the fruit of ancient trees. And in the innocence of childhood, seeing no difference between Palestinian and Israeli. Joseph’s father would sit in the shade with the children’s fathers and grandfathers sipping spiced tea discussing the events in their country until a sadness came over them and they would change the subject. With sorrow, he told me that one harvest season he went to play but the children and the trees were gone. New buildings with high fences replaced them, and the Jewish children were too afraid to play outside the fences.

+++Joseph lowered his gun and looked into the eyes of a child who, like him at that age, saw no difference between them, but would also learn to hate. Joseph knew this moment would change his future. He was tired, didn’t want to be fighting anymore, shooting protesters trying to keep their homes and land, locking them up in gaol because his people were afraid of the child’s people. For too long he had been part of tearing families apart by invading their homes in the dead of night and taking children for throwing a stone at a tank the day before, or some other perceived threat. Joseph began to understand that the fathers and grandfathers in the orchard just a few years ago must have known what was to come for the next generations.

+++So I was wrong, there was a story to tell that day. But it didn’t make headlines, in fact, it didn’t make the news at all. Headlines last a day, even less sometimes, but the story of Abbas and Joseph continues to be told in every meeting place in the Occupied Territory as one of hope, but in Israel as one of how a soldier betrayed his role and people. Joseph left the Army and found courage, without a gun, in a much harder cause, that of advocating for a peaceful solution to the conflict.