The Rainbow: Sign of the Covenant

Lent 1, Sunday, March 1, 2009
Genesis 9.8-17

The covenant—at once a sign of promise and hope and a sign of grief, loss and despair. For the people living in the land of the biblical stories today, the covenant God made with Noah is not a simple matter.

On the way to Efrat, an Israeli settlement just south of Bethlehem, our bus took the “Israeli road.” Once it leaves the city limits of Jerusalem, the highway is built on Palestinian West Bank land because there are many Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Beautiful landscaped gardens welcome us to the settlement of Efrat. Olive trees and palm trees greeted us; waterfalls welcomed us from the dry dusty roads.

We sat in the synagogue listening to Ardie Geldman, who has lived in Efrat since 1985. He has raised his six children here. Efrat is a modern middle class town. Most of the residents are orthodox Jews and most commute to Jerusalem for work.

Ardie immigrated to Israel from the United States in 1982. Judaism had become the focus of his life and he and his wife came because of their “belief in the Torah, ” because of “the special relationship between Jews and Israeli land.” He told us that living here is a fulfillment of his obligation as a Jew to live on this land. His understanding comes from the covenantal relationship of the people of Israel with their God, a covenant we first hear about in the Bible in the story of Noah we read this week.

Ardie told us that, although the Palestinian community calls the West Bank “occupied territory,” he calls it “an area of disputed territory.” The Palestinian community refers to Efrat as a “settlement,” but he calls it a “solid, stable community,” and he tells us, “It ain’t goin’ nowhere.” The town has been here 25 years, “and with God’s help we will be here 25 more years.”

He told us it is different here from the U.S. Integration is valued in North America, but not here. Israelis must work on more basic issues before they can live together with the Palestinians. There are no Palestinians in Efrat, just like there are no Jewish families in Bethlehem, he tells us. He does not mention that it is not the Palestinians but the Israeli government that forbids Jews to live in Bethlehem, or even to visit.

He told us that the Palestinians “forfeited” their right to the land given them in 1948 because they rejected the partition of the land. Because the Arabs wanted all or nothing, they ended up with nothing. He also told us that the Jews are a people, not a religion; the land is part of their identity. He tells us, “We don’t have to demand. God and the Bible proclaim it our right. The land is our home. The Bible is the source of our origins. We are not into conquering other people’s territory.”

Ardie talked to us for about an hour. It is clear that he feels no responsibility for the suffering of the Palestinians. The Palestinians could have lived better lives if they had accepted the State of Israel. Their suffering is the fault of “their own failed leadership; Israel is not doing this to them.”

God’s covenant with Noah is a beautiful story. We love rainbows because they are a sign of a hopeful future, God’s faithfulness to us. But we must also remember that God’s covenant turns everything upside down, forms a people from nothing. Our rainbow hope is that with God we, like Noah, can do the impossible—create a people, Israeli and Palestinian, from a foolish band of dreamers who trust God’s promises.

O God of foolish hope; you call new life out of the debris left by catastrophic flood. Like your rainbow, make us signs of your promise. Use us to create new life out of the ruins of war in the land where you walked and taught. Amen.