Amen?

“Almighty God, with your mighty right arm, strike down all who stand against the people of Israel.  God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, drive from this your land every man, woman and child who is not numbered among your people.  Drive them into the sea, O Lord.  Do it today.  Do it now.  We stand by your people, the children of Israel, and pray for your righteous retribution to fall upon the ungodly – fall with fire, O Lord, with fire!  Amen!”

“Amen, brother.”

“Yes, Lord, yes.”

"So be it, sweet Jesus, so be it."

“Amen.  Amen.  Amen.”

The man praying this prayer is standing near the Western Wall in Jerusalem.  His arms are raised to heaven, his passion-filled voice loud and clear so that his gathered flock, along with any standing nearby, can hear his heartfelt petition to God.  He is around forty, I would guess, clean-shaven and wearing a crisply starched white shirt, accented by a maroon and white striped power tie.  He doesn’t look crazy.  He looks normal.  And yet …

Is his prayer the prayer of a man in touch with God?  “…. strike down all who stand against the people of Israel.”    What does “strike down” mean?  And who is included in “all who stand against the people of Israel?”  And who is numbered among the people of God?  If God were to answer this man’s fervent prayer, and I mean right then and there as the man requested, with whose bodies would the earth be littered?  Would I be left standing?  Would you?  Would he?

I assume that he thinks he would be just fine.  I assume that, if he knew me, he’d expect that I wouldn’t be just fine.  I assume he thinks his prayer to be as righteous as the God to whom he lifts it.  I assume otherwise, of course, and only God knows which assumptions are right and which are presumptuous at best.

He is a Christian Zionist here for Succoth, the Jewish Festival of Booths.  He is among several thousand Christian Zionists who participated Tuesday in a march around the Old City of Jerusalem.  I stood and watched this annual event, several thousand Christians, some of them armed and looking rather dangerous, (don’t ask me where they got the guns because I don’t know), tramping around the old walls, glaring at the Palestinians who stopped with me to watch – many of them silently thanking Allah that they are Muslim and not Christian.  The Christian throng sang songs and prayed prayers, and mostly looked up to heaven, because, of course, the God they came to honor is more heavenly than earthly. 

I remembered him from then, and am trying to forget him now.  I’m hoping that writing about him will help me move past what I saw in him – the piety, the passion, the prejudice, the ego, the desire to be right and on the right side, the assumption or perhaps presumption, that his side is right because God is on his side.  If he were to look on me, he would see the same in me, and that is why I’m trying to move by him, I suspect.

Most Christian Zionists are not like this man, or at least that is what I want to hope and pray.  Most Christian Zionists are motivated by a desire to support the Jewish people, and give to them an opportunity to be safe and secure in a land with which they have a biblical and historical connection.  I can understand that.  I can support that too, and I do support that.  But asking God “to strike down every man, woman and child – CHILD! – not Jewish, or not right-thinking Christian?  Strike down, kill, drive out, render as orphan and refugee every man, woman and child – CHILD! – who, along with their Jewish cousins, dare lay claim to this land?  What is that?

Sally reached out and put her right hand on my right bicep.  She squeezed gently and said, “Shhhhhh.”  I looked at her, blinked once, then a second time.  She said it again, “Shhhhhhh.”  She didn’t have to shush me.  I wasn’t going to say anything to this man.  I’m not stupid.  Well, okay, but I’m not THAT stupid.  He can pray whatever he feels led to pray, and he can pray wherever he feels led to pray his led-prayer, even here at the Western Wall, this Jewish Holy place, and even during this Jewish Festival set to remind the Jewish people of their slave-days, and even among this large gathering of Jewish folks, most of whom would find his prayer odious at best.  He can go ahead and pray …

But he’ll get no "Amen" from me.