HAFRADA AND JIHAD

Shane Raynor of The Wesley Blog has an interesting article about the stance that the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) has taken concerning Israel's security wall separating itself from Palestinian controlled territories.

While I was reading this, I was reminded on a book I read by John Ortberg. Ortberg pointed out that two common themes occur in the Middle East, both in a physical and a spiritual sense -- namely, hafrada and jihad. Hafrada is separation, fencing yourself off from others to prevent being hurt from others. This is exactly what Israel is doing with the construction and maintenance of the wall/fence barrier in their land. Jihad, on the other hand, is an attack against your neighbor based on your perceived righteous stance.

These two themes -- hafrada and jihad -- play out before our eyes every single day in the Middle East and in our land. Israel constructs a fence to keep terrorists out. The terrorists declare a jihad against Israel and do everything in their power to hurt them. Israel retaliates, and the situation goes on and on, back and forth, hafrada and jihad over and over again.

I see the same thing in our churches and in our individual Christian lives. We come to church and immediately enter hafrada. We put up a wall -- a mask -- to hide who we really are from our neighbors so they won't condemn us or judge us or get too close to us. When asked how we are doing, we smile and nod and say, "Great! How are you doing?" while never pausing to listen to their answer. We go through our life with artificial walls separating the real us from those around us and separating ourself from God and His healing presence at the same time.

On the other hand, we are quick to yell "Jihad" in the church as well. Rather than simply disagreeing and seeing unity, we fight to the death in meetings to hold our position firm. "I don't like that color carpet (JIHAD!) -- I don't think we need a kid's program (JIHAD!) -- Our music is fine just as it is -- If you try to change it, we're leaving (JIHAD!)" Let someone give in to temptation and sin and fall in their Christian walk. We are quick to attack them and judge them and hold them down. As the old saying goes, the church is the only place that shoots its wounded.

Jesus came to bring the opposite of Hafrada and Jihad. He came to bring the separated peoples together, to dissolve the distinction between Gentile and Jew, free and slave, male and female. He came to tear down the veil in the temple that separated us from God. He came to join us together as one body under His headship. And He came to bring peace and love to all, to reconcile us to one another and to God through His body and His blood. Today, may the peace and unity of Christ dwell in our hearts and remove any vestiges of Hafrada or Jihad that may be left.