Your Log Before Their Speck
The violence of Israel-Hamas and the violence of ourselves
Hi everyone,
When ISIS beheaded Egyptian Christians back in 2015, I asked my friend, a Christian who was laboring extensively for peace with Muslims in the Middle East, for his response to the situation. He responded that ISIS’ external violence reminded him of the violence in his own heart.
That response stunned me. His academic and organizational work was consumed with conflict resolution work. Why would his answer center on his own inner violence and not on theirs?
Then it hit me.
3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. -Matthew 7:3-5
Jesus, a Palestinian Jew, was calling his followers to see their judgments of others as a map of their own work that they first needed to do. It was not that they were to sit idly and ignore evil others perpetrated; rather, they were to condemn it only after contending with their own. Doing so would protect against self-righteousness, one of Jesus’ main criticisms of the religiously powerful.
I find this call to hold introspection together with prophetic critique especially challenging given Jesus lived within the Pax Romana, a time of deep violence perpetrated by the Roman Empire against all they occupied. (Crucifixion, the vehicle for Jesus’ death, was one of the chief ways they kept this peace.) Yet here he is calling for his fellow colonized people to search themselves first, even when it would be easy - and arguably justified - to commission unreflective criticism of others.
This past week I have been grieving the staggering death toll of the Israel-Hamas war. There is death of bodies, death of land, death of homes, death of relationship, death of trust, death of information.
Of course I want a ceasefire, and I pray that you do too. The violence in the region is staggering, and Palestine is vulnerable to evermore death given Israel’s Western alliances. However, I am also clear that any call to a ceasefire must be paired with introspection about who I am lest I become self-righteous. I pray that the unfolding slaughter narrated on the news causes us to consider the myriad ways we are unduly violent towards ourselves and others. Only with ourselves properly in view can we call for ceasefire and reparations in a way that seeks wholeness both here and abroad.
What violence lives within you? What violence do you benefit from? What violence local to you needs redressing while you call for peace in the Middle East?
International news can be so difficult to process because atrocities on the other side of the world can seem too far away to address. But grief and introspection is the beginning of a healthy response, and I don’t want to discount that. (This Substack has an excellent list of other ways to help Palestinians on the ground.)
As you know, through Notes of Rest I advocate for tranquility in you and for those in your care. God’s gift of rest always expand outwards, and that is vitally important in wartime too. Let us therefore commit to interrogating our own participations in violence as we address the violence ravaging the Middle East. If we don’t repeatedly do this introspective work alongside the reparative work, we can labor towards winning short-term victories while missing the picture of the greater war that Jesus implores us to remember.
abundantly,
Julian
What’s Next:
Oct 23 Notes of Rest Virtual Class at Candler School of Theology Starts (3 weeks left)
Nov 1 The JuJu Exchange at City Winery Chicago
Nov 4 Julian Davis Reid’s Circle of Trust at Merit School of Music (Chicago)
Nov 8 Notes of Rest at Garrett School of Theology (Chicago)
Nov 9 Notes of Rest at Duke University Chapel
Nov 10-12 Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few at the Jazz Showcase (Chicago)
Nov 16 Julian Davis Reid’s Circle of Trust at The Jazz Showcase (Chicago)
New Music: