A Homily for the Compline for Palestine at the 81st General Convention of The Episcopal Church

 Jeremiah 31:15-17
Matthew 2:13-18

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

“A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children… because they are no more.”

A voice is heard in Ramah.

It is hard not to hear “Rafah” where the scriptures say Ramah, isn’t it? Ramah and Rafah are two different cities. But all of us know that they’re not really so different. Part of the region of what, today, is called Palestine and Israel, all these towns and places and villages have been caught up in cycles of violence and vengeance and fear. And tonight, we come together to mourn, with Rachel, the latest victims in this region.

No, in the end, there’s not much of a difference between Ramah and Rafah in the way that their innocents are slaughtered. But we mustn’t let their clear similarities lead us to think that the current conflict is millennia-long. The powers that terrorize and murder in Rafah and Gaza City and even Ramallah and Bethlehem and Jericho today are not the ancient Israel of our scriptures.  Rather, the children of Palestine of all faiths being murdered right now are the true descendants of Rachel, both in their victimization and in their DNA. And we cry out along with our foremother, with all the mothers whose children have been slaughtered by the brutality of their powerful oppressors, unable to be comforted in our grave loss.

Only Rachel’s voice was heard. During the slaughter of her innocents, both times it happens, the scriptures are clear: that voice in Ramah “is heard.” The lamentation and the weeping and the mourning, the cries of sorrow and pain are heard and acknowledged and cared for by the living Lord and the whole of creation.

But now, today? As Rachel’s innocents cry out – whether in Ramah or Rafah, in Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and even here, in the so-called Christian West, and even here, in our own Episcopal Church, when our siblings cry out their pain to us, have we heard?

As a Palestinian Episcopal priest, I can tell you that we have not. The cries of Palestinian innocents, the cries of modern-day Israel’s victims, our cries, my cries have been ignored and swept away. And so we will lift our voices even louder in our lamentations.

Oh my friends, Oh my siblings, listen! Hear our cries! Please, for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, listen to us! Listen to Palestinian Christians. Amen.